7 Reasons to Migrate from DigitalOcean to AWS

Here are a few key differences between the two services. Let’s take a closer look at why it’s the best time to move from DigitalOcean to AWS. Here are a few reasons:

Reason #1: Cost Management

Normally, DigitalOcean has fixed costs for its offered solutions. The costs for optimized droplets start from $40 and the provider goes all the way up to thousands of dollars based on the size of its application, and companies that host these applications are often unable to utilize the full resources paid for. Hence, it becomes difficult to manage all costs while considering the current scale of your application.

AWS is free of this complication, and the platform lets you only pay for the resources that your application used during a certain period. Hence, you are in control of all cloud costs. If you want to calculate your estimated cloud costs with AWS, use this Amazon Services Cost Calculator for a rough estimate. For more on cost management with AWS, check out our article; Optimizing AWS Architecture for Cost Management.

Reason #2: Scalability

AWS utilizes AutoScaling to steadily keep up with the required resources for your application. It allows you to minimize costs while minimizing or maximizing the service capacity. Also, large applications can scale without any barriers or limits. Hence, customers enjoy a completely scalable model that is not entirely available in DigitalOcean. However, DigitalOcean customers are still allowed to create tailored droplets based on its customer needs but its resources are fixed.

All your resources are regularly monitored to readily cover any resource gaps whenever application workload increases. AWS offers a range of tools for scaling, such as AWS Management Console, Command Line Interface (CLI), or SDK. Also, the AWS Auto Scaling tool is available for free. 

Reason #3: Global Networking Capacity

AWS continues to expand globally with the largest global infrastructure in the world. The platform is continually expanding its cloud services to almost every region to expand its footprint even further. This large infrastructure helps AWS to deliver its services all across the globe without any downtime. 

In comparison, DigitalOcean is limited to its 13 Data Centers. Therefore, DigitalOcean’s infrastructure is not as strong as AWS. Availability Zones (AZs) are available globally to operate. Currently, its network has a total of 77 AZs that are continuously expanding at a fast pace. 

AZs are extremely useful when it comes to application partitioning. In this way, companies never face any cloud downtime caused by lightning strikes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. However, with limited data center locations, DigitalOcean’s partitioning is not as effective as AWS. 

Reason #4: Security

AWS has an entire infrastructure setup dedicated to cloud security, and Security is also a top Pillar in Amazon’s Well-Architected Framework. Customers have complete control of its data along with its resources and access privileges. Also, AWS offers various integrated services that companies use to automate its security operations. 

For more on AWS’ Well-Architected Framework, check out our article here.

DigitalOcean collaborates with third-parties to protect data centers by maintaining access control, including video surveillance, access lists, security, and exit procedures. Also, AWS partnered with various security solution providers to create a secure ecosystem where companies can integrate various tools for threat detection and elimination before any malicious act.

All data moving out of the AWS data centers is first encrypted at the physical layer to ensure the protection and data privacy of the companies. However, DigitalOcean shares responsibilities with its customers to ensure the complete protection of services. 

Reason #5: Reliability and Resources

AWS ensures the management of resources using managed AWS services such as Amazon S3 and Auto Scaling. Also, customers are allowed to use any third-party tools they want. Moreover, the third Reliability Pillar makes the resource management pretty reliable with regular backups and fault isolation to protect workload.

DigitalOcean uses Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) to ensure the reliability of its droplet servers. These virtual machines run on performance-oriented virtualized hardware with standalone servers.

Above all, detailed analysis is performed in AWS to investigate failures. Scaling and performance requirements are also assessed using various tests and tools.

Reason #6: System Performance

Unlike DigitalOcean or other cloud providers, AWS keeps a balance between computer resources while maximizing efficiency. Its Performance Efficiency Pillar in the Well-Architected framework is based on a few design principles such as the democratization of advanced technologies, global deployment of workload in various regions and serverless architectures, etc. 

AWS ensures the use of best practices to increase system performance. There are many integrated services and solutions available inside this ecosystem that optimize the overall performance of the infrastructure.

Reason #7: Future Business Development Capabilities

Amazon Web Services are expanding at a fast pace. The platform keeps introducing new productions and solutions, including compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, management tools, IoT, security, and enterprise applications.

As for DigitalOcean, it started with only two datacenters back in 2012. Now the provider has expanded to over 13 data centers worldwide. This growth is certainly a lot slower than AWS but still, the platform is also expanding its services globally to facilitate businesses.

All AWS products and solutions offer a complete business development environment where businesses can stick to one service provider for all its cloud operations. Also, the costs are comparatively low compared to other providers, and performance is fast with scalability features.

AWS is growing fast, and more businesses are moving to the cloud after the pandemic to continue its business operations. Also, AWS equally facilitates small to large-scale businesses with tailored solutions at the lowest costs. 

Bottom Line

DigitalOcean’s cloud services may seem cheaper due to its fixed prices on customized solutions. However, for customers with an eye on the future, the growth opportunities on DigitalOcean are limited in comparison to AWS. So, while DigitalOcean is comparatively cheaper and has a more accessible initial learning curve, AWS is more recommended for scalable applications and exponential growth.

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