Validated on 19 May 2025 • Last edited on 19 May 2025
DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.
The Droplet plan you choose determines the amount of resources (like CPU, RAM, disk storage, and network bandwidth) allocated to your Droplet. You can choose shared or dedicated CPUs.
We offer the following CPU Droplet plan types:
| Droplet Plan | CPU | vCPUs | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Shared | 1 - 8 | 1 - 32 GB RAM |
| General Purpose | Dedicated | 2 - 48 | 8 - 240 GB RAM 4 GB RAM / vCPU |
| CPU-Optimized | Dedicated | 2 - 48 | 4 - 120 GB 2 GB RAM / vCPU |
| Memory-Optimized | Dedicated | 2 - 32 | 16 - 384 GB RAM 8 GB RAM / vCPU |
| Storage-Optimized | Dedicated | 2 - 32 | 16 - 384 GB RAM 8 GB RAM / vCPU 146 - 225 GB SSD / vCPU |
CPU Droplets can have Regular CPUs or Premium CPUs. You can choose between Intel and AMD for Premium CPUs. Droplets with Premium CPUs are guaranteed to use one of the latest two generations of CPUs we have. They also use NVMe SSDs and have higher network throughput speed.
In-depth comparisons of available CPU Droplet plans, including hardware and software, an explanation of shared CPU and dedicated CPU plans, and how to make a data-driven decision on which plan is best for your use case.
We offer GPU Droplets with the following hardware configurations:
| NVIDIA GPU | H100 | H100x8 | L40s | RTX 4000 | RTX 6000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Size Slug | gpu-h100x1-80gb |
gpu-h100x8-640gb |
gpu-l40sx1-48gb |
gpu-4000adax1-20gb |
gpu-6000adax1-48gb |
| GPUs per Droplet | 1 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| GPU Memory | 80 GB | 640 GB | 48 GB | 20 GB | 48 GB |
| Droplet Memory | 240 GiB | 1,920 GiB | 64 GiB | 32 GiB | 64 GiB |
| Droplet vCPUs | 20 | 160 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Boot Disk | 720 GiB NVMe | 2 TiB NVMe | 500 GiB NVMe | 500 GiB NVMe | 500 GiB NVMe |
| Scratch Disk | 5 TiB NVMe | 40 TiB NVMe | None | None | None |
| Transfer Allowance | 15 TB | 60 TB | 10 TB | 10 TB | 10 TB |
All GPU Droplets have a maximum bandwidth of 10 Gbps public and 25 Gbps private.
Like CPU Droplets, all GPU Droplets have a boot disk, which is a local, persistent disk on the Droplet to store data for software like the operating system and ML frameworks. Additionally, some GPU Droplets have a scratch disk, a local, non-persistent disk to store data for staging purposes, like inference and training. Non-GPU Droplets do not have a scratch disk.
We support the following Linux distributions:
| Ubuntu | Debian | CentOS | AlmaLinux | Rocky Linux | Fedora |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24.10 x64 24.04 (LTS) x64 22.04 (LTS) x64 20.04 (LTS) x64 |
12.0 x64 11.0 x64 |
9 Stream x64 8 Stream x64 |
8.6 9 |
8 x64 9 x64 |
40 x64 41 x64 |
See the full list of distributions and Marketplace images:
Reference tables for available Linux images for Droplets, including the image IDs and API/CLI slugs.
We also provide an AI/ML-ready image for GPU Droplets that has NVIDIA drivers and software preinstalled, or you can use existing Droplet images and manually install the drivers and software necessary to use the GPU.
Droplet autoscale pools enable automatic horizontal scaling for a pool of Droplets based on resource utilization or a fixed size.
Droplets integrate natively with other DigitalOcean products and features:
Tags are custom labels you apply to Droplets and other resources that have multiple uses: filtering, automatic inclusion in firewall rules and load balancer backend pools, and API call execution on multiple resources at once.
DigitalOcean Reserved IPs are additional static IPv4 and IPv6 addresses you can use to access a Droplet without replacing or changing the Droplet’s original public IP addresses.
DigitalOcean Volumes Block Storage are additional storage (in units called volumes) for your Droplets. You can move volumes between Droplets in the same region and increase the size of a volume without powering down the Droplet it’s attached to.
Volumes are most useful when you need more storage space but don’t need the additional processing power or memory that a larger Droplet would provide.
DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls are a free, network-based, stateful firewall service for DigitalOcean Droplets. They block all traffic that isn’t expressly permitted by a rule.
DigitalOcean Load Balancers are a fully-managed, highly available load balancing service that distribute traffic to groups of Droplets.
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