# DigitalOcean Spaces vs Tigris

> DigitalOcean Spaces scores 63.2 (B) to Tigris's 44.4 (E) for object storage. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-tigris
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-tigris.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-tigris.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-tigris.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

DigitalOcean Spaces scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Tigris's 44.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Tigris leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do object storage.

- DigitalOcean Spaces: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #402 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/digitalocean-spaces.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/digitalocean-spaces.json
- Tigris: grade E, 44.4/100, rank #876 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tigris.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tigris.json
- Best file storage and sharing APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/file-storage/index.md
- All 75 storage comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/file-storage/index.md

## Which one, for what

### DigitalOcean Spaces (B)

Good for: Teams already on DigitalOcean that want object storage with a CDN and a flat $5 entry price for up to 250 GiB, with free transfer to Droplets in the same region.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 77 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 63 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 53
- Security & auth, 77 against 51
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 48

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Tigris loses 3 points for them

Watch for: The Spaces MCP server has ten tools for access keys and CDN endpoints. None reads, writes, lists or shares an object

### Tigris (E)

Good for: Agent workloads that want per-agent forks of a dataset, global reads without egress fees, and an OAuth MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 37

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: 16 status incidents between 4 July and 2 October 2026, including outages in US regions on 31 July and 2 August


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | DigitalOcean Spaces | Tigris | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 35 | DigitalOcean Spaces +42 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 50 | DigitalOcean Spaces +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 53 | DigitalOcean Spaces +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 51 | DigitalOcean Spaces +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 30 | Tigris +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 37 | 77 | Tigris +40 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 48 | DigitalOcean Spaces +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **44.4 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | DigitalOcean Spaces | Tigris |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | DigitalOcean, LLC | Tigris Data |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com` | `https://t3.storage.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the DigitalOcean Terms of Service Agreement. The MCP server is MIT | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-04-08 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-22 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-01-01 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 4 stars, 20 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**DigitalOcean Spaces.** Per-bucket access keys with read or read-write-delete grants, an 800 operations a second limit per bucket and a 99.9 per cent SLA are all published. The MCP server manages keys and CDN endpoints only, not objects, and the S3 reference documents no error codes. A payment method is required before any bucket is created.

**Tigris.** No egress fees, and one endpoint (t3.storage.dev) with region auto for every location. 16 status incidents between 4 July and 2 October 2026, including outages in US regions on 31 July and 2 August.

## Before you call either

### DigitalOcean Spaces

1. Set the endpoint to `https://<region>.digitaloceanspaces.com` and, in AWS SDKs other than Python's, set `region` to `us-east-1` when creating a bucket
2. Ask for a limited access key with a Read or Read/Write/Delete grant on one bucket. A full access key can create, configure and delete every bucket
3. Do the object work through the S3 API. The MCP server and `doctl` cannot upload, list, move or delete files
4. Retry with exponential backoff on `503 Slow Down`, and keep below 800 operations a second per bucket
5. Fetch presigned links from the origin host, not the CDN. The docs say presigned requests through the CDN are not cached and can double the bandwidth charge
6. Avoid many tiny objects. Each bills as at least 4 KiB on Standard and 128 KiB on Cold Storage, which also has a 30-day minimum

### Tigris

1. Point the AWS SDK at https://t3.storage.dev with region `auto`; the stdio MCP README still shows the older fly.storage.tigris.dev endpoint
2. Ask for an access key with a ReadOnly or ReadWrite role on one bucket rather than an org-wide key
3. Keep presigned URLs short; Tigris accepts up to 90 days
4. Don't call tigris_list_objects on a large bucket; it walks every object with no limit or prefix
5. Use @tigrisdata/iam 2.6.0 or later before writing policies with conditions

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, DigitalOcean Spaces or Tigris?

DigitalOcean Spaces scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Tigris's 44.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Tigris leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do DigitalOcean Spaces and Tigris need an API key?

DigitalOcean Spaces needs an API key. Tigris takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call DigitalOcean Spaces and Tigris without installing anything?

Yes. DigitalOcean Spaces has a hosted endpoint at https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com and Tigris at https://t3.storage.dev.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-tigris.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-tigris.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "digitalocean-spaces", "b": "tigris"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare digitalocean-spaces tigris`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/digitalocean-spaces.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tigris.json

## Other comparisons with DigitalOcean Spaces or Tigris

- [Box API + MCP vs DigitalOcean Spaces](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/box-api-vs-digitalocean-spaces.md)
- [Box API + MCP vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/box-api-vs-tigris.md)
- [DigitalOcean Spaces vs Dropbox API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-dropbox-api.md)
- [DigitalOcean Spaces vs Fastio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-fast-io.md)
- [DigitalOcean Spaces vs Google Drive API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-google-drive-api.md)
- [DigitalOcean Spaces vs OneDrive and SharePoint files (Microsoft Graph)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-onedrive-sharepoint.md)
- [Dropbox API + MCP vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/dropbox-api-vs-tigris.md)
- [Fastio vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fast-io-vs-tigris.md)
- [Google Drive API + MCP vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-drive-api-vs-tigris.md)
- [OneDrive and SharePoint files (Microsoft Graph) vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/onedrive-sharepoint-vs-tigris.md)
- [Amazon S3 vs DigitalOcean Spaces](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-s3-vs-digitalocean-spaces.md)
- [Amazon S3 vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-s3-vs-tigris.md)
- [Azure Blob Storage vs DigitalOcean Spaces](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-blob-storage-vs-digitalocean-spaces.md)
- [Azure Blob Storage vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-blob-storage-vs-tigris.md)
- [Backblaze B2 vs DigitalOcean Spaces](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/backblaze-b2-vs-digitalocean-spaces.md)
- [Backblaze B2 vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/backblaze-b2-vs-tigris.md)
- [Bunny Storage vs DigitalOcean Spaces](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bunny-storage-vs-digitalocean-spaces.md)
- [Bunny Storage vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bunny-storage-vs-tigris.md)
- [Cloudflare R2 vs DigitalOcean Spaces](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-digitalocean-spaces.md)
- [Cloudflare R2 vs Tigris](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-r2-vs-tigris.md)
- [DigitalOcean Spaces vs Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/digitalocean-spaces-vs-wasabi-hot-cloud-storage.md)
- [Tigris vs Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tigris-vs-wasabi-hot-cloud-storage.md)