DigitalOcean vs Google Firebase comparison

DigitalOcean and Google are both solutions in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category. DigitalOcean is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.8, while Google is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4. DigitalOcean holds a 2.3% mindshare in ISI, compared to Google’s 6.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of DigitalOcean users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Google users who would recommend it.

DigitalOcean

Read 12 DigitalOcean reviews

1,512 Views
1,465 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Firebase

Read 47 Google Firebase reviews

6,101 Views
4,102 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

DigitalOcean

Google Firebase

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 16, 2024

DigitalOcean and Google Firebase are competing products in the cloud computing space. Google Firebase appears to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, while DigitalOcean is favored for its straightforward pricing model.

Features: DigitalOcean offers virtual servers, scalable cloud computing options, and straightforward deployment capabilities. Google Firebase provides integrated services like database management, analytics, and machine learning, which make it well-suited for application development. Firebase's feature set gives it an advantage for developers seeking all-in-one solutions.

Room for Improvement: DigitalOcean could enhance its feature set to better compete with integrated services platforms. Additionally, improved scalability options and expanded service offerings could attract more users. Google Firebase could streamline its pricing structure for greater simplicity. Enhance user interface flexibility and improve offline capabilities for a more adaptable platform.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DigitalOcean is known for simplicity and ease of use with extensive documentation and strong support. Firebase, while complex due to its feature depth, offers substantial resources and support for engaging its ecosystem. DigitalOcean appeals to those seeking simplicity, and Firebase, to those looking for flexibility and integrated services.

Pricing and ROI: DigitalOcean's transparent and competitive pricing model offers predictable costs suitable for smaller projects. Firebase's potentially complex pricing due to integrated services provides value for scalable solutions. The choice often depends on budget and project scale, with DigitalOcean being ideal for cost-conscious projects and Firebase providing better ROI for growth-focused projects.

To learn more, read our detailed DigitalOcean vs. Google Firebase Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DigitalOcean vs. Google Firebase

April 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

DigitalOcean

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

14th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Google Firebase

Ranking in Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

4th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS) category, the mindshare of DigitalOcean is 2.3%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Firebase is 6.0%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Infrastructure as a Service Clouds (IaaS)

Featured Reviews

Michael Olayemi

Senior Software Engineer at Checkit

Enjoy cost-effective hosting with flexible deployment and room for payment model improvement

I use only one feature, which is the droplet, and it has been satisfactory. The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well. I also have total freedom over what I use, and I have a better user interface and documentation compared to Oracle.

Read full review

Shravan Revanna

Vice President at E-Cell Ramaiah

Simple to get started with and offers integration features in multiple programming languages

The product provides integration features in multiple languages, such as Python, JavaScript, Golang, and all other languages. Google Firebase has documentation, which might seem a bit confusing, but one with decent knowledge can easily explore and get started with Firebase quickly. Before jumping into any cloud infrastructure, the tool should analyze how much it would cost to run the database. Google Firebase provides a certain number of reads and writes per day, which is approximately 40,000 reads and writes. If there are more than 200 to 300 active users per day, there will be plenty of reads and writes to the database. In such a case, one can't use Google Firebase and has to upgrade to Spark, which is where it is based on usage. The tool is fairly simple to get started with. Utilize all the features can get very complicated. One must be a pretty good developer who has a lot of experience to be able to utilize the best features. It gets really complicated over time. The basic functionality and basic usage are easy to use and easy to get started. There are plenty of deprecated versions, and frequently upgrading them causes inconvenience. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The droplet feature is valuable for hosting my applications as it is particularly cost-effective and serves my needs well."

"DigitalOcean is much cheaper compared to Oracle, Amazon, and Google, making it a better option for a startup."

"The solution is easy to set up."

"The technical support services are good."

"The most valuable feature is the ease with which you can create a phishing server and use it."

"It's been a good choice for us for some services. We generally have several deployments. For instance, for some static Angular applications, it was a clear choice to run them on Cloudflare, which performs very well in this context. All the assets go on DigitalOcean."

"I like Kubernetes integration."

"The customer support team are very responsive."

More DigitalOcean pros

"The access to Firestore is very easy."

"It's stable."

"Google Firebase supports all types of authentication."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution."

"I love Firebase's notifications, crash analytics, and bug tracking. It gives you detailed reporting about app usage and users."

"This solution supports our real time database. We also use it for AB testing and for its Google Cloud functions. We make use of Crashlytics and reporting on details."

"I found the flexibility of handling and dealing with database through EDL to be very useful."

More Google Firebase pros

Cons

"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."

"The deployment time can be improved in DigitalOcean. While deployment is automated, the process can take a minute and a half to five minutes, and for more complex applications, this time increases even further. This is not optimal for applications that receive frequent updates."

"The platform could enhance its features, particularly for ETL processes. Additionally, more integration features would be highly beneficial."

"I would like to see an automation feature added to send emails out using the open-source solution."

"Other solutions are proving the monitoring feature, like AWS having GuardDuty and SAP having services for logs and monitoring. DigitalOcean doesn’t have any other benefits."

"I would like to see improvements to the logging and user interface. The verification process could be more streamlined."

"We found the solution to be a bit expensive."

"The technical support for this solution could be improved."

More DigitalOcean cons

"What I hate most about Google Firebase is that it has many different versions and releases new ones frequently."

"There was no way of knowing how the rise in traffic would impact the price."

"Firebase's real-time information isn't technically real-time. It takes a while to upload user activity into the app. It's not as fast as Datadog, the other solution we use."

"Automation testing with mobile devices could be improved, especially in regression testing to ensure that new feature launches do not affect other features."

"We had some compatibility issues with Elixir."

"The solution's notification system could be much better."

"The cold start-up of the cloud function needs to speed up. For me personally, I'm not experienced in anything there, however, I've just read online it's a problem."

"One of the challenges I was facing when I was using it was the library called Google Dialogflow which allows you to connect your chatbot with an intent. So there is so much adding when you are trying to connect it with your service because you have to do a lot of repetition writing a new intent, putting it step by set so it is good to escape. I believe it should be flexible and dedicate the intents based on the relating and to write a lesser code when doing that."

More Google Firebase cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is moderate and reasonable for a mid-tier cloud platform."

"I am using the cheapest option available, which costs $50 per month."

"The price of DigitalOcean could be lower. It is expensive. it's higher than other solutions available in the market. We pay approximately $20 to $25 a month to use the solution. The price we pay is for the shared CPU option."

"There is no licensing fee but there is a subscription cost based on how much RAM and storage you require."

"The tool's pricing is cheap."

"The pricing is cheap."

"The solution provides the cheapest cloud in comparison to the other cloud solutions."

"I would rate DigitalOcean's pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive."

More DigitalOcean pricing and cost advice

"My company makes monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no additional costs apart from the licensing costs attached to the solution."

"The more the number of reads and writes, the more one gets charged."

"The price is perfect and very clearly defined. The price during the trial setup is free and then you move to a paid service."

"Google Firebase’s pricing needs improvement."

"They have a free tier that will cover most projects. For more intensive use, you pay as you use it, but the price is very cheap."

"The solution's price is based on the number of consumers."

"The monthly cost is based on writing data and queries to the database."

"Google Firebase is an expensive solution."

More Google Firebase pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

11%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about DigitalOcean?

It's been a good choice for us for some services. We generally have several deployments. For instance, for some static Angular applications, it was a clear choice to run them on Cloudflare, which p...

See all answers

What needs improvement with DigitalOcean?

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. It would be beneficial to have more flexibility without fixed paym...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for DigitalOcean?

I primarily use DigitalOcean to deploy applications. I rent the system from them, where I deploy my web servers and application servers. I use it to host my applications since moving from Oracle. I...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Google Firebase?

Google Analytics for Firebase is the best feature of the solution.

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs DigitalOcean

Compared 17% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs DigitalOcean

Compared 13% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs DigitalOcean

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs DigitalOcean

Compared 6% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs DigitalOcean

Compared 6% of the time

More DigitalOcean Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Google Firebase

Compared 53% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Google Firebase

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) vs Google Firebase

Compared 8% of the time

Alibaba Cloud vs Google Firebase

Compared 7% of the time

Scaleway vs Google Firebase

Compared 2% of the time

More Google Firebase Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

DigitalOcean

May 2025

Download DigitalOcean product report

Buyer's Guide

Google Firebase

April 2025

Download Google Firebase product report

Also Known As

Digital Ocean

No data available

Overview

DigitalOcean has the fastest and most convenient cloud technology to help you easily and more efficiently manage your infrastructure so you can get back to coding. We provide all of our users with high-performance SSD Hard Drives, a flexible API, and the ability to select the nearest data center location.

DigitalOcean

Google Firebase is a stable, reliable, and scalable mobile platform that enables you to quickly develop apps, accelerate them, and monitor their performance.

With Google Firebase You Can

Build and run successful apps
Scale globally
Monitor app quality and performance with little effort
Boost user engagement

Google Firebase Features:

Crashlytic
Automatic updates
Fast and easy deployment
Access to Cloud Firestore
Multi-platform sign-in authentication
Flexible drop-in UI
Real-time database
Remote configuration
Firebase machine learning
Cloud messaging
Advanced message targeting
Push messages
Error monitoring

SDKs supported by Google Firebase:

Web SDK
iOS SDK
Android SDK
Admin SDK

Benefits of Google Firebase:

Fast implementation: Google Firebase makes it possible for you to set up your authentication system quickly, using minimal code.
Comprehensive security: With Google Firebase, your systems remain secured; It is backed by Google Sign-in, Chrome Password Manager, and also Smart Lock.
Machine learning capabilities: Firebase offers machine learning capabilities that help you deploy and train custom models.
Eliminate the need to manage servers: Because Google Firebase offers cloud functions, it enables you to run your mobile backend code without having to also manage your servers.
Authentication for any platform: Google’s Firebase authentication makes the sign-in process easier by providing an end-to-end identity solution that works with any platform.
Customized notifications: With cloud messaging, you can customize alerts, defining how and when they are sent, what sounds they should make, and can also select the expiration date for each message. In addition, it gives you the ability to track custom conversion events.
Fast and secure web hosting: Firebase makes it possible for you to have easy and secure web hosting with fast content delivery. Firebase hosting also provides free SSL certificates.
Cloud storage: With Google Firebase you have access to cloud storage that supports robust uploads and downloads, can handle user-generated content, and provides simple and intuitive access control.
Developer-friendly: Developers prefer to use Firebase because it lets them focus on creating frontend code for mobile applications rather than having to concentrate on backend code.

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot user Nilakshi S., technical team lead at AuthentiCode says, “The solution is very stable and very reliable. There aren't any bugs or glitches.”

"What I like most about Google Firebase is that it's one of the easier options to host a website or app quickly," says Craig F., application development manager at a financial services firm.

A senior developer at a consultancy says, “The documentation for Google Firebase is great. Also, what I like about it is the integration to Android, which is the reason I went with Firebase.”

Google

Sample Customers

jQuery Foundation, Pertino, TaskRabbit, Compose, InfluxDB, The Able Few

Fabulous, Pic Collage, Shazam, SkyScanner

Buyer's Guide

DigitalOcean vs. Google Firebase

April 2025

Free Report: DigitalOcean vs. Google Firebase

Find out what your peers are saying about DigitalOcean vs. Google Firebase and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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