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DigitalOcean vs Google Firebase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.1
Users generally found DigitalOcean cost-effective, noticing initial savings, though some lacked details to quantify exact financial impact.
Sentiment score
6.7
Google Firebase is cost-effective for large apps, with valuable features and manageable for small teams, despite some expenses.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
DigitalOcean's customer service is responsive yet inconsistent, needing improved technical support and quicker resolutions compared to AWS.
Sentiment score
7.1
Users rarely need support due to excellent documentation and community resources, but views on direct support vary.
DigitalOcean support is rated lower than AWS's because we encounter issues more frequently.
Lead Developer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
I do not currently find any other competitors that match its offering.
DIV head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
If the community doesn't have the answers, then I contact the Google Firebase team directly.
IT specialist at CUADRO OCHO INC
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
DigitalOcean is highly rated for scalability, offering tools to manage increased loads and easily add resources like RAM or CPUs.
Sentiment score
6.8
Firebase is scalable and flexible, though some users face challenges with pricing and configuration as usage increases.
I have not tried vertical scaling yet, but from the documentation, it seems very easy to scale the system.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
It can handle all tiers of the market effectively.
DIV head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Google also has some other cloud services, but when we compare Google Firebase, it is not as scalable.
Chief Technical Advisor at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
I would rate the scalability of Google Firebase as eight because I miss some features from MS SQL, particularly the SQL functions.
IT specialist at CUADRO OCHO INC
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
DigitalOcean offers reliable stability, though some users note occasional downtimes and performance fluctuations based on extended use.
Sentiment score
8.0
Google Firebase is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor concerns about downtime and performance by some users.
DigitalOcean is quite stable, and I would rate its stability at nine out of ten.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
It is approximately 50 to 60% stable, reaching 60 to 70% depending on usage levels.
Lead Developer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
In our company, we have prototypes on Google Firebase and productions on AWS Cloud.
Chief Technical Advisor at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Room For Improvement

DigitalOcean struggles with performance, customer dissatisfaction, and service issues, prompting calls for improved features and better support.
Users want improved control, logging, queries, pricing, support, interface, documentation, and integration for better Cloud Function performance.
DigitalOcean could offer a pay-as-you-go model similar to AWS, where I would pay for what I use rather than having fixed payments.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
The lack of a proper service provider model ultimately led us to cease operations with DigitalOcean.
Commercial Manager at Uranium For IT Solutions
There are issues where even with 8 GB RAM, the performance doesn't meet expectations.
Lead Developer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Automation testing with mobile devices could be improved, especially in regression testing to ensure that new feature launches do not affect other features.
DIV head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Since Google Firebase is a NoSQL platform, areas for improvement include enhancing query functionalities to be more equivalent to SQL, like MS SQL.
IT specialist at CUADRO OCHO INC
 

Setup Cost

DigitalOcean's pricing ranges from $5 to $50 monthly, with costs depending on configuration and perceived as competitive by some.
Google Firebase offers a free tier and scalable pricing, but users should carefully manage costs due to potential fluctuations.
DigitalOcean offers affordable pricing, especially for startups.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
They could have implemented credits based on usage so that users would be able to easily calculate the pricing and provide it to customers.
Chief Technical Advisor at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Google Firebase offers a reasonable pricing structure.
DIV head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Valuable Features

DigitalOcean provides reliable, cost-effective servers with an intuitive interface, database management, flexible hosting, and easy installation.
Firebase excels with real-time database, authentication, cloud functions, push notifications, and scalability, ideal for rapid app development.
The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well.
Senior Software Engineer at Checkit
The most significant aspect is that we can connect directly to the system from anywhere.
Lead Developer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The team was particularly satisfied with the flexibility of the service and the rules for managing virtual machines on DigitalOcean.
Commercial Manager at Uranium For IT Solutions
It allows for pre-launch testing without publishing it on Google Play right away.
DIV head at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
What I appreciate most about Google Firebase is the speed, accuracy, and security it offers.
IT specialist at CUADRO OCHO INC
Serverless cloud functions.
Chief Technical Advisor at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

DigitalOcean
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Google Firebase
Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of DigitalOcean is 2.0%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Firebase is 2.6%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google Firebase2.6%
DigitalOcean2.0%
Other95.4%
Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

VinodKumar9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Developer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Private cloud deployment offers cost-effective solutions but needs improved connectivity and issues mitigation
There are disadvantages, such as machines getting stuck or disconnected, requiring restarts. Sometimes we lose connection and need to check with the IT service provider from the DigitalOcean service team to reboot. There are issues where even with 8 GB RAM, the performance doesn't meet expectations. The lower cost comes with more issues and disadvantages.
SK
Chief Technical Advisor at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Leverage rapid prototype development for application building
The pricing structure needs improvement since it uses cloud billing. We do not know how the pricing is calculated as it is all on the cloud. The concept that the more you use, the more you have to pay could have been much better. They could have implemented credits based on usage so that users would be able to easily calculate the pricing and provide it to customers. I am the co-founder and CTO of the company called Aiwox (A I W O O X). We have numerous projects for mobile application development, and we have shifted from Google Firebase to Supabase because there is a fixed price for Supabase. Supabase is built on top of AWS, and it provides a very good pricing model. Some of the credits are free, and once you reach a certain limit, you know the charges. The second improvement area is related to SQL. They provide the real-time database, which is very good, and they have gradually started including PostgreSQL, which is a relational database, but it is not production-ready yet. I may be incorrect; perhaps they have released something new, but PostgreSQL database real-time database remains a challenge with Google Firebase.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Educational Organization
7%
University
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with DigitalOcean?
There are disadvantages, such as machines getting stuck or disconnected, requiring restarts. Sometimes we lose connection and need to check with the IT service provider from the DigitalOcean servic...
What is your primary use case for DigitalOcean?
We use DigitalOcean mostly for RDS services and cloud-related systems where we want to deploy codes and run them using nginx or other services where it is cheaper to use, and we use it to extract d...
What advice do you have for others considering DigitalOcean?
I am a lead developer, currently working in that role. We are a customer of DigitalOcean. They can reach me via email to confirm anything regarding my review. I am willing to be a reference for Dig...
How does Microsoft Azure compare to Google Firebase?
I would recommend Google Firebase instead of Microsoft Azure, simply for the array of features that it has to offer. In particular, the Firebase library grants you access to a shared data structure...
Looking to compare Google Firebase, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure
We like Google Firebase hosting and authentication and also the excellent cloud functionality. Our team found the flexibility of handling and dealing with the database through EDL to be very useful...
What do you like most about Google Firebase?
Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution.
 

Also Known As

Digital Ocean
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

jQuery Foundation, Pertino, TaskRabbit, Compose, InfluxDB, The Able Few
Fabulous, Pic Collage, Shazam, SkyScanner
Find out what your peers are saying about DigitalOcean vs. Google Firebase and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.