Nodion vs DigitalOcean App Platform
DigitalOcean is a well-established cloud infrastructure provider that offers App Platform as its PaaS product alongside Droplets, managed databases, Spaces object storage and more. Nodion is a European PaaS that integrates applications, databases, object storage, CDN, transactional emails and DNS into a single unified platform with per-second billing.
| Feature | Nodion | DigitalOcean App Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Stuttgart, Germany (EU) | New York, USA |
| Data Residency | EU, US and APAC regions | US, EU, APAC regions |
| GDPR by Default | Yes | DPA available |
| Managed Applications | Yes | Yes |
| Managed PostgreSQL | Yes | Yes |
| Managed MySQL | Yes | Yes (separate service) |
| Managed Valkey / Redis | Yes | Yes (separate service) |
| Object Storage | Yes (S3-compatible) | Yes (Spaces, S3-compatible) |
| Global CDN | Yes (25 locations) | Yes (via Cloudflare) |
| Transactional Emails | Yes (SMTP) | No |
| Managed DNS | Yes (free, GeoDNS) | Yes (free) |
| Billing Model | Per-second | Per-second (apps), per-hour (DBs) |
| Free Tier | First 5 EUR/month free | Free static sites only |
| Docker + Buildpacks | Yes | Yes |
| 1-Click Deploy Marketplace | 25+ apps | Yes (1-Click Apps) |
EU Hosting and Data Sovereignty
DigitalOcean is a US company headquartered in New York. While it operates EU data centers in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, the company is subject to US jurisdiction. Nodion is a German company headquartered in Stuttgart, operating under EU law. For European businesses where the legal entity behind the infrastructure matters, and not just the data center location, Nodion provides EU sovereignty by default.
PaaS Focus vs Cloud Infrastructure
DigitalOcean is primarily a cloud infrastructure provider. App Platform is one product among many, alongside Droplets, Kubernetes, managed databases, Spaces and more. This means powerful flexibility but also more complexity. Databases, storage and DNS are separate products with separate interfaces. Nodion is built exclusively as a PaaS where everything is integrated: applications, databases, object storage, CDN, email and DNS all live on one platform with one dashboard and one bill.
Pricing and Billing
On DigitalOcean, a minimal App Platform instance starts at $5 per month, managed PostgreSQL starts at $15 per month and Spaces object storage starts at $5 per month. A basic full-stack setup costs at least $25 per month across three separate services with three different billing models (per-second, per-hour and flat monthly). On Nodion, the smallest application instance costs approximately 1 EUR per month, a database starts at 1.50 EUR per month and object storage costs 0.05 EUR per GB per month. Everything is billed per second on a single invoice. The first 5 EUR of monthly usage is free for every user with no payment method required. A setup that costs $25+ per month on DigitalOcean can run for free or just a few euros on Nodion.
Integrated Platform vs Assembly Required
With DigitalOcean, building a full application stack means combining App Platform for your application, Managed Databases for PostgreSQL or MySQL, Spaces for object storage, a separate CDN configuration and an external service for transactional emails. Each component has its own pricing, configuration and management interface. Nodion provides all of this in one place. You create an application, add a database, enable email and configure DNS. Everything lives in the same dashboard with the same account and the same support channel.
When DigitalOcean Might Be the Better Choice
DigitalOcean may appeal to teams that already use their infrastructure products like Droplets or Kubernetes and want to add App Platform on top. However, App Platform itself is just one piece of a larger cloud offering, which means you end up assembling separate services for databases, storage, DNS and monitoring rather than getting a single integrated platform. There is also no transactional email, no GeoDNS, and DigitalOcean is a US company without GDPR by default. For most teams building web applications, Nodion provides a more complete and simpler experience with EU hosting and everything in one place.
Start for free! The first 5 EUR of monthly usage is free for everyone.