DOCN vs NET Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
DigitalOcean and Cloudflare both serve the developer/cloud ecosystem but at very different scales and with fundamentally different market positions. DigitalOcean is a niche SMB/developer cloud provider with modest growth; Cloudflare is a global network infrastructure company growing rapidly across security, performance, and AI workloads with a much larger addressable market.
DOCN vs NET is a choice between an undervalued SMB cloud play facing growth headwinds and a premium-valued global network platform growing aggressively across security, edge, and AI — very different risk-return profiles.
DOCN holds the edge across 4 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. DOCN leads on both 1-year return (+249.74%) and forward P/E quality (56.20x vs 179.44x for NET), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. On fundamentals, NET is growing revenue faster (35.90%), while DOCN maintains the higher operating margin (10.44%) — a classic growth-versus-profitability split. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for DOCN (+69.28%) than for NET (+11.24%).
Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.
- want value exposure to the developer/SMB cloud market at a more modest valuation
- believe DigitalOcean's simplicity positioning is durable against large cloud provider competition
- value GPU cloud and managed hosting as new revenue vectors from Paperspace and Cloudways
- are comfortable with slower growth in exchange for an improving profitability profile
- want a global network infrastructure company with a dominant security and performance platform
- believe zero trust security replacement of legacy network security is a multi-year tailwind
- value Workers AI as an emerging high-margin AI inference revenue stream on existing infrastructure
- are comfortable paying a premium valuation for best-in-class revenue growth and NRR
| Metric | DOCN | NET |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 55.0 | 64.9 |
| AI ranki | #277 | #83 |
| Latest closei | $130.14 | $323.60 |
| 1M returni | +11.55% | +10.87% |
| 6M returni | +57.46% | +46.19% |
| 1Y returni | +249.74% | +44.74% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | DOCN | NET |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $34.97K (+249.7%) started 2025-09-18 | $14.47K (+44.7%) started 2025-09-18 |
| 5Y ago | $16.35K (+63.5%) started 2021-09-20 | $25.44K (+154.4%) started 2021-09-20 |
| 10Y ago | $30.62K (+206.2%) started 2021-03-24 | $179.78K (+1697.8%) started 2019-09-13 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | DOCN | NET |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $12.17B | $106.77B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 47.05 | N/A |
| Forward P/Ei | 56.20 | 179.44 |
| Price/Salesi | N/A | 42.56 |
| EV/Revenuei | 13.86 | 42.24 |
| Analyst targeti | $175.20 | $333.55 |
| Target upsidei | +69.28% | +11.24% |
| Metric | DOCN | NET |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 28.60% | 35.90% |
| Earnings growthi | -24.50% | N/A |
| EPS growthi | -24.50% | N/A |
| FCF margini | -2.36% | +27.54% |
| Operating margini | 10.44% | -7.60% |
| Profit margini | 23.27% | -8.21% |
| ROIC proxyi | 62.27% | -14.43% |
| Return on equityi | 62.27% | -14.43% |
| Dividend yieldi | N/A | N/A |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | N/A |
| Betai | 1.59 | 1.66 |
| Debt/equityi | 212.51 | 217.86 |
| Current ratioi | 1.31 | 1.82 |
| Quick ratioi | 1.14 | 1.75 |
Over the past year, DOCN and NET have moved moderately in the same direction (correlation of 0.44), based on daily returns.
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | DOCN | NET |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | +249.74% | +44.74% |
| CAGRi | +250.04% | +44.78% | |
| Volatilityi | 85.22% | 63.95% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 1.83 | 0.84 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 3.38 | 1.20 | |
| Max drawdowni | 42.15% | 36.76% | |
| Current drawdowni | 28.21% | 3.10% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 11.59% | 14.72% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 16.82% | 17.65% | |
| Max daily dropi | 13.28% | 23.62% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 25.18% | 23.58% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | +63.45% | +154.42% |
| CAGRi | +10.34% | +20.56% | |
| Volatilityi | 72.26% | 69.34% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.43 | 0.55 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.66 | 0.81 | |
| Max drawdowni | 84.78% | 82.58% | |
| Current drawdowni | 28.21% | 3.10% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 62.47% | 47.26% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 65.72% | 53.91% | |
| Max daily dropi | 24.79% | 23.62% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 29.16% | 39.37% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | +206.21% | +1697.78% |
| CAGRi | +22.63% | +50.97% | |
| Volatilityi | 71.46% | 67.37% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.58 | 0.88 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.88 | 1.33 | |
| Max drawdowni | 84.78% | 82.58% | |
| Current drawdowni | 28.21% | 3.10% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 57.40% | 36.37% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 62.74% | 45.98% | |
| Max daily dropi | 24.79% | 23.62% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 29.16% | 39.37% |
| Category | DOCN | NET |
|---|---|---|
| Company | DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. | Cloudflare, Inc. |
| Sector | Technology | Technology |
| Industry | Software - Infrastructure | Software - Infrastructure |
| Core business | DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider targeting developers, startups, and small-to-medium businesses with simplified, affordable compute, storage, and networking products. Unlike AWS or Azure, DigitalOcean's value proposition is radical simplicity — developers can deploy a virtual machine in seconds without navigating complex enterprise cloud pricing. Its annual customer revenue (ACR) model and net revenue retention track how well it monetizes its developer customer base as it grows. | Cloudflare operates a global network infrastructure platform providing security, performance, and reliability services to businesses of all sizes. Its products span DDoS protection, CDN, zero trust security (SASE), AI inference (Workers AI), and serverless compute (Workers). Cloudflare's network reaches 95% of the world's internet-connected population within 50 milliseconds, giving it a structural performance advantage. Revenue is growing 25%+ driven by large enterprise customer expansion. |
| Investor focus | Investors track average revenue per user (ARPU) growth, net revenue retention (NRR — whether existing customers spend more over time), total customer count, and operating margin improvement as the business scales toward profitability. | Investors track large customer (>$100K ARR) additions and their contribution to revenue, net revenue retention (above 115%), the pace of zero trust/SASE platform adoption, and AI inference revenue from Workers AI. |
- Unique positioning in the underserved SMB and developer cloud market between hobbyist tiers and enterprise clouds
- Simple, transparent pricing that developers prefer over AWS/Azure complexity
- Cloudways and Paperspace acquisitions added managed hosting and GPU cloud capabilities
- One of the world's largest global networks with 300+ data center locations providing infrastructure moat
- Zero trust and SASE security platform growing rapidly as enterprises modernize network security
- AI inference on the edge (Workers AI) is a new high-growth revenue layer on existing infrastructure
- Compressed growth rates as the SMB cloud market faces competition from AWS and Azure moving downstream
- NRR has been declining, suggesting customers are spending flat or less — a concerning trend
- Limited enterprise exposure means DigitalOcean is exposed to startup funding cycles
- Premium valuation (100x+ revenue) requires sustained 25%+ growth to justify
- Enterprise security market is competitive — CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, and Zscaler are major rivals
- Free tier drives brand but some large free customers delay monetization
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