Yes, DigitalOcean App Platform has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. The free plan includes 3 apps with static sites included at no cost and 1 GiB outbound data transfer allowance per static-site app. FreeTier.co estimates the free tier at about $3.00/mo.
About
DigitalOcean App Platform is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service for building, deploying, and scaling web applications, APIs, worker services, and static sites. It streamlines delivery by connecting directly to source repositories or container registries, while DigitalOcean manages the underlying infrastructure, runtimes, and operational overhead.
The platform is designed for teams that want a simpler path from code to production without sacrificing flexibility. It supports modern application architectures, including multi-component apps, microservices, background jobs, and integrations with DigitalOcean’s broader cloud ecosystem.
- Deploy from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Docker Hub, GitHub Container Registry, or DigitalOcean Container Registry
- Support for web services, static sites, workers, and jobs within a single app
- Built-in CI/CD workflows, staging, production, and preview environments
- Automatic HTTPS, DDoS mitigation, and managed OS patching
- Autoscaling, rollback support, metrics, log forwarding, and high availability on paid plans
- Integration with managed databases, VPC networking, dedicated egress IPs, and other DigitalOcean services
Free Tier Value
This free tier is capped but genuinely usable for small static sites: it includes up to 3 apps, HTTPS, custom domains, CDN, DDoS mitigation, and GitHub/GitLab deploys. The closest paid entry point starts at $5/month, but the free offering is narrower and limited by app count and outbound transfer, so a value of about $3/month is a reasonable buyer-facing estimate. A credit card is required to create the account, which adds a bit of friction.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- 3 apps with static sites included at no cost.
- 1 GiB outbound data transfer allowance per static-site app.
- Deployment from GitHub and GitLab repositories.
- Automatic HTTPS for free-tier apps.
- Custom domain support for free-tier apps.
- Global CDN included for free-tier apps.
- DDoS mitigation included for free-tier apps.
- Unlimited team members on the free tier.
See DigitalOcean App Platform pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Paid Tier
- Deployment from Container Registries
- Shared and Dedicated CPU
- Horizontal and Vertical Scaling
- CPU-based Autoscaling
- Automatic OS patching
- Hourly application metrics
- Log forwarding
- High Availability
Shared (Fixed)
- vCPU
- 1
- memory
- 512 MiB
- transfer
- 50 GiB
- 1 vCPU
- 512 MiB memory
- 50 GiB transfer
- No autoscaling
- Selecting a fixed CPU limits you to one container instance
Shared (Fixed)
- vCPU
- 1
- memory
- 1 GiB
- transfer
- 100 GiB
- 1 vCPU
- 1 GiB memory
- 100 GiB transfer
- No autoscaling
- Selecting a fixed CPU limits you to one container instance
Shared
- vCPU
- 1
- memory
- 1 GiB
- transfer
- 150 GiB
- 1 vCPU
- 1 GiB memory
- 150 GiB transfer
- No autoscaling
Shared
- vCPU
- 1
- memory
- 2 GiB
- transfer
- 200 GiB
- 1 vCPU
- 2 GiB memory
- 200 GiB transfer
- No autoscaling
Shared
- vCPU
- 2
- memory
- 4 GiB
- transfer
- 250 GiB
- 2 vCPUs
- 4 GiB memory
- 250 GiB transfer
- No autoscaling
Pricing extracted from DigitalOcean App Platform's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is DigitalOcean App Platform free forever?
Yes. DigitalOcean App Platform has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
What happens when you exceed DigitalOcean App Platform's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. DigitalOcean App Platform's cheapest paid plan is Paid Tier at $5 / month.
What is DigitalOcean App Platform's free tier worth?
DigitalOcean App Platform's free tier is worth about $3.00 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 41/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
