Encore vs
DigitalOcean App Platform builds and runs your services as containers on its own platform. Encore lets you build your own backend, with infrastructure provisioned automatically in your AWS or GCP account. Keep the simple deploys, with infrastructure you own as you grow.
“What used to take days or weeks of back-and-forth between developers and infra teams is now automated and completed in minutes.”
Josef Sima, Engineering Director at Groupon
Feature Comparison
See how Encore and DigitalOcean App Platform differ across key capabilities.
 |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Your AWS or GCP account | DigitalOcean platform |
| Deployment | Push code, infra auto-provisioned | Git push or container image |
| Databases | RDS / Cloud SQL (in your account) | Dev or Managed Databases (on DigitalOcean) |
| Pub/Sub & Queues | SNS/SQS or GCP Pub/Sub | Workers, bring your own queue |
| Cron Jobs | Built-in, declarative | Scheduled jobs, 15 minute minimum |
| Local Development | Automatic (DBs, queues included) | No built-in solution |
| Observability | Built-in tracing & metrics | App metrics, logs, log forwarding |
| Pricing Model | Pay cloud providers directly | Per container |
You don't need to become an infrastructure expert to run on AWS or GCP
Encore sets all of this up from your application code. It's real infrastructure in your own cloud account, so you can always open the console and look. You just never have to build it by hand.
- Terraform modules
- IAM policies
- VPC and subnets
- Security groups
- Kubernetes
- Helm charts
- CI/CD pipelines
- Load balancers
- Secrets per environment
- Staging environments
- Tracing setup
- Database networking
How They Work
DigitalOcean App Platform
App Platform deploys from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, public Git repositories, or container images. An app is made of components such as web services, workers, jobs, static sites, and functions, each running in containers sized by plan, with databases from DigitalOcean.
This is useful when you want managed deploys without running servers. App Platform handles hosting, but everything runs on DigitalOcean.
Encore
Encore provisions infrastructure in your cloud account based on your application code. You define databases, Pub/Sub, and other resources in your application code. When you deploy, Encore creates the corresponding AWS or GCP resources using sensible defaults for each provider, which you can configure when you need more control.
This is useful when you want infrastructure ownership, need native cloud services (RDS, SQS, S3), or want built-in observability. Resources run in your own AWS or GCP account.
Infrastructure Ownership
The main difference is where your infrastructure lives. App Platform runs your containers and databases on DigitalOcean. Encore provisions resources in an AWS or GCP account you control.
With Encore, you can see your databases in the AWS Console, set up VPC peering, configure IAM policies, and use any AWS/GCP service alongside your Encore resources. Your data stays in accounts you own.
With App Platform, infrastructure is abstracted away. This is simpler if you do not need direct cloud access, but limits options if you need specific AWS/GCP features or compliance controls.
Learn more about infrastructure ownership →Local Development
App Platform has no built-in local development environment. You typically run containers and databases yourself, or connect to remote databases during development, which can slow down your workflow.
Encore runs encore run and automatically provisions local PostgreSQL, Pub/Sub emulation, and cron scheduling. A local dashboard shows distributed tracing and architecture diagrams.
Integrated local development means faster iteration cycles and the same environment locally as in production.
Learn more about local development →Automatic Infrastructure
App Platform lets you attach dev databases and DigitalOcean Managed Databases, but there is no Pub/Sub topic model, and scheduled jobs run at most every 15 minutes. Queues mean running and connecting another service yourself.
Encore provisions infrastructure from your code. Declare a database in your application code, and Encore creates RDS or Cloud SQL when you deploy. Same for Pub/Sub, cron jobs, and object storage.
import { SQLDatabase } from "encore.dev/storage/sqldb";
const db = new SQLDatabase("users", {
migrations: "./migrations",
});
// Encore provisions RDS/Cloud SQL automaticallyDatabases, Pub/Sub, Cron Jobs, Object Storage, and more. See all primitives →
Built-in Observability
App Platform provides app metrics, runtime logs, and log forwarding to tools like Datadog and Papertrail. For distributed tracing across services, you need to integrate external tools yourself.
Encore includes distributed tracing, metrics, and structured logging out of the box. Every request is traced across services automatically. No instrumentation code needed.
This works locally too. Run your app and get full tracing in the local development dashboard.
See observability docs →AI-Assisted Development
With App Platform, infrastructure configuration happens in the app spec or the control panel, separate from your application code. AI agents like Cursor and Claude Code lack context about how these relate to your application code, leading to drift, hallucinations, and configs that are hard to review.
Encore defines infrastructure in your application code. AI agents see everything in one context: your APIs, databases, queues, and how they connect. This makes AI-generated code accurate and easy to review before you deploy it.
Because the infrastructure comes from the Encore defaults rather than hand-written config, you can let an AI agent build features and trust the result is provisioned correctly. Built-in guardrails, auto-generated docs, and observability keep what it produces maintainable as your system grows.
Learn about AI-assisted development →Migrating from DigitalOcean App Platform
You can move one App Platform component at a time. App Platform and Encore can sit behind the same frontend or gateway while traffic shifts over.
The PaaS migration guide covers how hosting and managed services map to Encore, moving data and platform services, and planning the migration. For a wider look at your options, read DigitalOcean App Platform alternatives.
Read the PaaS migration guideLoved by teams
who refuse to slow down
"Encore is our foundation for all new development. Since adopting it, we've seen a 3x increase in development speed and 90% shorter project lead times."
Josef Sima · Engineering Director"Encore lets us go from idea to shipped product at least 3x faster and saves us hours of devops work every week."
Will · Co-founder"We've reduced time spent on DevOps by 95%, and we're now on track to save $60K annually in cloud costs."
Mason Stewart · CTO"Encore is an unfair advantage. At Pave we've moved 2x faster than we did at Monzo."
Simon Vans-Colina · CTO"We're saving $200k+ annually compared to additional hiring. The ROI is outstanding, easily 10x."
Daniel Stocks · CTO"You define infrastructure in your code and it's automatically spun up for you. You can go from zero to a deployed service on GCP in an hour. I don't know how else to do it."
Nilkanth Patel · CTO"Encore's inferred infrastructure has allowed us to move at unprecedented speed. Combined with database branching in Neon, we're able to spin ephemeral environments up and down with incredible ease. Stakeholders love preview app URLs."
Justin Foley · VP of Engineering
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about Encore vs DigitalOcean App Platform.
DigitalOcean App Platform is a managed PaaS that builds and runs your services, workers, and jobs as containers on DigitalOcean. Encore is an open source infrastructure SDK that provisions databases, Pub/Sub, cron jobs, and object storage in your own AWS or GCP account from your application code.
No, App Platform runs your containers on DigitalOcean. Encore deploys to your own AWS or GCP account, so you can use native cloud services like RDS, SQS, and S3.
App Platform supports scheduled jobs with a minimum interval of 15 minutes, and workers for background processing. Queues are up to you, for example with a managed Kafka or Valkey database. Encore gives you Pub/Sub topics and cron jobs declared in code.
App Platform does not include a local environment, so you typically run containers and databases yourself. Encore runs your whole backend with a single command, including local Postgres databases, Pub/Sub emulation, cron jobs, and tracing.
You can move one component at a time. Services become Encore services, workers become Pub/Sub subscribers, and scheduled jobs become cron jobs, while traffic shifts over behind the same frontend or gateway.
Start building with Encore
Deploy to your own AWS or GCP account, with infrastructure provisioned automatically.