DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs Google Kubernetes Engine: A Comparison

Pricing and product information are correct as of September 12, 2024, and subject to change.

DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) offer robust, managed Kubernetes services catering to various business needs. DOKS excels in simplicity and cost-effectiveness, making it an ideal choice for startups and small to medium-sized businesses seeking straightforward deployment and management of containerized applications. It provides essential features with a user-friendly interface and integrates with DigitalOcean’s broader ecosystem of cloud products.

While GKE presents a more complex setup and higher cost, it offers a comprehensive platform suitable for enterprises requiring advanced scalability, extensive customization, and deep integration with Google Cloud services. When choosing between DOKS and GKE, organizations should consider factors such as budget, required features, scalability needs, and existing cloud infrastructure to select the service that best aligns with their operational goals and technical requirements. This article compares DigitalOcean Kubernetes and Google Kubernetes Engine in detail to assist you in selecting the best option for deploying and managing containerized applications at scale.

Choosing a managed Kubernetes provider

If your team has decided to implement a Managed Kubernetes offering, factors including the strength of the internal developer platform and ease of deploying cloud-native apps play a critical role in Kubernetes adoption. Here are factors to consider when choosing a managed Kubernetes provider:

1. Onboarding experience

Managed services offered by a cloud provider should provide teams with a straightforward platform and accurate, up-to-date documentation. A simple platform allows teams to move faster and lessens the time to market.

2. Uptime Service Level Agreements (SLA)

Cloud providers and multiple services share a Service Level Agreement or a contract with their customers stating their targeted uptime for a service. If you’re planning to run in production, checking if an SLA exists for your service to cover you from outages is essential.

3. Upstream Kubernetes components

Check if your managed Kubernetes provider is certified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). CNCF certification helps ensure that the provider’s implementation meets established standards and is compatible with other Kubernetes environments. This compatibility allows you to run Kubernetes clusters across multiple platforms, including cloud providers, on-premises, Internet of Things (IoT), and edge environments. CNCF-certified providers offer timely updates, helping to ensure your clusters stay current and interoperable with other Kubernetes installations and making implementing hybrid cloud strategies easier.

4. Upgrades and patches

Does your cloud provider allow you to control when you receive updates to new Kubernetes versions? For instance, DigitalOcean allows developers to choose between automatic and manual updates, providing flexibility in managing Kubernetes upgrades. This control is essential because it enables teams to plan updates during maintenance windows, minimizing disruption to critical services. It also allows businesses to test new versions in a staging environment before rolling them out to production, reducing the risk of compatibility issues or downtime.

5. Control plane and High Availability (HA)

The control plane orchestrates the Kubernetes cluster., managing the worker nodes and pods in a cluster. In small setups, only one control plane might be installed on one of the nodes, often referred to as a primary node and the single point of failure. If your primary node crashes or is lost, you are left with worker nodes that may still run for a bit but no longer have a Kubernetes cluster. Having a Highly Available (HA) control plane means having multiple primary nodes to ensure your cluster is always running. For production, a Highly Available control plane is crucial and recommended even for on-prem infrastructure.

6. Pricing

Find out if providers include the control plane within initial pricing for a managed Kubernetes instance. DigitalOcean, for example, doesn’t charge for Kubernetes but only for the underlying resources used, and the cost for HA is minimal. Estimating your bandwidth costs can be challenging because they fluctuate with your users. Choose a cloud provider with transparent, consistent pricing targeting startups.

Overview of DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs. Google Kubernetes Engine

Here’s an overview of DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs. Google Kubernetes Engine:

DigitalOcean Kubernetes

DigitalOcean Kubernetes offers a streamlined approach to deploying and managing containerized applications tailored to cloud-centric businesses. DOKS stands out with its simplicity, enabling developers to create and scale Kubernetes clusters through a user-friendly control panel and Command-Line Interface (CLI). This ease of use allows for quick setup and deployment. It is an attractive option for startups deploying cloud-native applications on a reliable, cost-effective, managed Kubernetes platform.

DOKS integrates with existing toolchains and GitHub workflows, supporting smooth, continuous delivery pipelines across multi-cloud environments. This integration enhances developer productivity by speeding up iteration cycles and improving infrastructure visibility, aiding observability and troubleshooting. For businesses that require scalability and high availability, DOKS offers transparent billing and the flexibility to use preemptible Droplet instances—DigitalOcean’s virtual machines—allowing businesses to optimize costs according to their specific needs.

Google Kubernetes Engine

Google Kubernetes Engine is a managed Kubernetes service from Google Cloud designed for creating and managing production-grade Kubernetes clusters. It simplifies cluster lifecycle management by offering features like automatic updates and upgrades. Additionally, GKE provides advanced networking capabilities, such as multi-cluster ingress, which facilitates load balancing across multiple Kubernetes clusters and regions. However, the extensive configuration options in GKE can introduce complexity, potentially requiring a steeper learning curve than other managed Kubernetes services.

Organizations must use more expensive regional clusters to achieve GKE’s top-tier 99.95% uptime SLA, as zonal clusters offer lower availability guarantees. Regional clusters add a cost of $0.10 per hour per cluster, which can increase expenses significantly for organizations needing multiple production-grade clusters. Consequently, startups and businesses with limited budgets should carefully assess their needs against the potential costs associated with GKE’s advanced features and SLAs. While GKE provides a feature-rich Kubernetes solution, its pricing model may not be the most economical choice for smaller-scale deployments or organizations with strict financial constraints.

Comparing DigitalOcean Kubernetes vs. Google Kubernetes Engine

While DOKS and GKE offer Managed Kubernetes services, they cater to different needs and budgets. DOKS prioritizes simplicity and cost-effectiveness, making it ideal for developers, startups, and small businesses. At the same time, GKE offers advanced features that may be better suited for larger organizations with more complex requirements. Here is a thorough comparison of both services to facilitate a better understanding of the respective products.

1. Plans and pricing

DigitalOcean Kubernetes offers a straightforward pricing model. The control plane is free, and users only pay for the underlying compute resources, such as Droplets, Load Balancers, and Block Storage. This model enables transparency, making it easier for businesses to predict costs. DOKS provides a robust Kubernetes solution with a high-availability control plane priced competitively at $40 per month and a 99.95% uptime SLA. DOKS also supports cost-saving measures like preemptible Droplets, allowing startups and small businesses to manage expenses effectively based on usage patterns.

Google Kubernetes Engine’s pricing is more complex and comes in standard and autopilot modes, with charges for the control plane and worker nodes. In standard mode, users can configure clusters, but the responsibility of cluster management lies with the user, while the autopilot mode enables complete cluster management. Concerning pricing, Standard mode operates on a pay-per-node basis, and Autopilot runs on a pay-per-pod basis. Users are billed based on the pods’ CPU, memory, and ephemeral storage requests. The control plane costs $0.10 per hour for zonal clusters and GKE charges for Load Balancers, backups, and network egress. While GKE offers robust features, the costs can quickly increase, especially for businesses requiring high availability or operating multiple clusters. You will be charged an additional GKE extended period cluster management fee after the cluster has reached the end of standard support. As a result, GKE might be more suited for larger enterprises with flexible budgets.

2. Support

DigitalOcean Kubernetes provides free ticket-based support to all customers. Paid support plans that grant access to additional resources and faster response times are also available, starting at a flat fee of just $24/month. In addition to the ticketed customer support offerings, DigitalOcean has an active and engaged community conducive to knowledge sharing and problem-solving. Users can seek advice from other community members and experts, providing additional support. DigitalOcean offers comprehensive Kubernetes support documentation and tutorials, empowering users with step-by-step guides, code samples, and troubleshooting tips for seamless navigation and successful utilization of its cloud services.

Google Kubernetes Engine has several support tiers—Basic, Standard, Enhanced, and Premium each with varying response times, availability, and access to different support channels. However, unlike DigitalOcean’s free Starter support plan, Google Cloud Platform’s free Basic support tier only offers documentation and support for billing-related issues. Google Cloud’s paid support plans also have higher costs than DigitalOcean’s paid options, as pricing starts at $29/month plus a fee of 3% of total cloud spend per month. As AWS Support compares to DigitalOcean, customers with a large monthly cloud spend pay more for support access.

3. Performance

DigitalOcean Kubernetes is designed for simplicity and efficiency, making it ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that require reliable performance without extensive customization. The platform supports auto-scaling and high availability, with a 99.95% uptime SLA for the control plane. The DigitalOcean Kubernetes control plane is built with Cluster API for better operability and reliability. DigitalOcean contributes to Open Source Software (OSS) projects like the Cluster API provider DigitalOcean, which you can use to provision DigitalOcean Kubernetes clusters. Additionally, DOKS integrates with Cilium Hubble, offering advanced network observability and troubleshooting at no additional cost, which helps ensure consistent performance for containerized applications. Cilium Hubble also enhances security analysis and threat detection, aiding startups in identifying potential risks and developing a scalable architecture that supports large-scale production environments.

Google Kubernetes Engine is built for high performance and scalability, catering to enterprises with demanding workloads. It supports a wide range of features, including horizontal and vertical pod autoscaling, multi-cluster ingress, and regional clusters, which provide enhanced availability and resilience. GKE also benefits from Google’s global infrastructure, which provides low-latency access to resources and robust performance across various regions. However, this level of performance comes with added complexity and cost, making GKE a better fit for larger organizations with the resources to manage its extensive capabilities.

4. Security

DigitalOcean Kubernetes emphasizes straightforward, built-in security features that are easy to manage. It includes Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to manage user permissions, helping to ensure only authorized personnel can access or modify resources. Additionally, DOKS integrates with DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls, providing a layer of network security to control traffic to and from Kubernetes clusters. Automatic SSL certificate management simplifies securing communications between services. DOKS also supports private clusters, which restrict access to the control plane to only internal IP addresses, 24/7 monitoring, and automated backups, further enhancing security.

Google Kubernetes Engine offers comprehensive security tools with Google Cloud’s Identity and Access Management (IAM), allowing for granular control over permissions and roles. GKE also offers Binary Authorization, which enforces security policies on container images before deployment, helping to ensure that only trusted code is executed. Shielded GKE Nodes provide additional protection against rootkit and boot-level attacks. Furthermore, GKE offers cloud audit logs, network policies, and VPC-native networking, offering enhanced security configurations ideal for enterprises with stringent security requirements. However, the complexity of these features may require more management overhead compared to DOKS. For instance, it is primarily your responsibility to implement SSL and other website-related security tools when building a website on GCP – this is not straightforward or automatic.

5. Integration capabilities

DigitalOcean Kubernetes integrates with various DigitalOcean services, including Droplets, Load Balancers, and Managed Databases. DOKS also supports integration with third-party tools and platforms, such as GitHub Actions, enabling automated CI/CD pipelines for continuous deployment. The one-click Marketplace applications on DigitalOcean further simplify integrating popular tools like monitoring solutions (Prometheus, Grafana) and CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitLab).

Google Kubernetes Engine integrates with Google Cloud’s extensive ecosystem, including services like BigQuery, Cloud Storage, and Cloud SQL, which helps organizations build sophisticated and scalable applications. It also supports Anthos for managing multi-cloud and hybrid environments, integrates with Google’s CI/CD tools like Cloud Build, and supports Istio, a service mesh for advanced traffic management, security, and observability. However, GKE’s strong emphasis on its ecosystem may limit the ease of integration with non-Google tools and platforms, introducing the risk of increased management costs and vendor lock-in.

Scale your cloud operations with DigitalOcean’s Managed Kubernetes service

DigitalOcean Kubernetes lets you deploy Kubernetes clusters without the complexities of handling the control plane and containerized infrastructure. Clusters are compatible with standard Kubernetes toolchains and integrate natively with DigitalOcean Load Balancers and Block Storage volumes.

Here’s what Playflow Cloud, a game development platform, had to say about using DigitalOcean Kubernetes:

“My first foray into Kubernetes was on DigitalOcean. The simplicity of setting up Kubernetes clusters empowered me to automate and scale our game servers effortlessly.” - Haseeb, PlayFlow Cloud’s Founder and CEO

One of the key advantages of DOKS is its effortless integration with other DigitalOcean products, fostering a cohesive and integrated experience for users. Features such as automatic Kubernetes version updates, cluster autoscaling capabilities, and robust API support help to improve functionality and ease of use, enabling teams to focus on their core development efforts rather than managing the underlying cluster infrastructure.

DOKS is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certification, comprehensive documentation, and a vibrant community, helping to ensure adherence to industry standards and best practices. This support ecosystem empowers users to efficiently manage their Kubernetes clusters while receiving proactive and responsive customer support from DigitalOcean.

DigitalOcean Kubernetes is designed for you and your business. Start small at just $10 monthly, and scale up and save with our free control plane and inexpensive bandwidth.

Sign up for DigitalOcean Kubernetes today.