Jakarta or Singapore?
Two destinations compared on nine measures of openly sourced data. Weight what matters to you and the verdict follows.
Your match
Wins on value for money and nature & day trips with your weighting.
Wins on beaches & swimming and good for families with your weighting.
What matters to you?
Pick a travel style or drag the sliders. The match scores above update as you do.
The verdict
Choose Jakarta if the trip points outward, with day trips and time beyond the city mattering more than what sits near your hotel, and if you want a genuinely dry stretch in August at 39mm.
Choose Singapore if you want the coast close, at 2km from the centre, a much wider range of places to eat, and more to occupy children.
Scoreboard
Each measure scored 0 to 100. Open a row for the figures behind the score.
Beaches & swimming. Singapore leads by 39 points.39
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 100 |
| Swim season months | 12 | 12 |
| Beaches 10 km | 5 | 42 |
| Coast distance | 8 km | 2 km |
| Water distance | 8 km | 2 km |
Places to eat. Singapore leads by 31 points.31
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 56 | 87 |
| Restaurants within 2 km of centre | 908 | 4,115 |
| Effective number of cuisines within 2 km | 16 | 31 |
Museums & heritage. Singapore leads by 22 points.22
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 28 | 50 |
| Museums within 10 km | 26 | 57 |
| Museums within 2 km of centre | 10 | 26 |
| Share of museums within 2 km % | 38 | 46 |
| Unesco sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
Nightlife. Singapore leads by 17 points.17
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 57 | 74 |
| Drinking venues within 4 km | 1,046 | 1,973 |
| Drinking venues within 2 km of centre | 372 | 1,393 |
| Share of drinking venues within 2 km % | 36 | 71 |
| Nightclubs within 4 km | 10 | 77 |
Nature & day trips. Jakarta leads by 20 points.20
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 54 | 34 |
| Protected land share 50 km % | — | 1 |
| Landscape blanket share 50 km % | 0 | 0 |
| Land share of disc % | 72 | 53 |
| Park area within 2 km | 56 hectares | 156 hectares |
Good for families. Singapore leads by 35 points.35
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 33 | 68 |
| Tourist attractions within 2 km | 2 | 28 |
| Park area within 2 km | 56 hectares | 156 hectares |
| Theme parks within 30 km | 5 | 5 |
Sights concentration. Singapore leads by 19 points.19
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 47 | 66 |
| Notable places within 2 km | 58 | 172 |
| Min wikipedia languages | 5 | 5 |
Value for money. Jakarta leads by 23 points.23
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 93 | 70 |
| Price level global | 29.9 | 62 |
| Daily budget | — | — |
Year-round weather. Singapore leads by 1 points.1
| Jakarta | Singapore | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 61 | 62 |
| Monthly daytime high | 30.5 °C to 33.3 °C | 30.6 °C to 32.4 °C |
| Monthly rainfall | 39 mm to 360 mm | 109 mm to 329 mm |
| Dry months | 1 | 0 |
Where they differ
Jakarta is the better base for nature and day trips out of the city, and its year includes one dry month at 39mm of rain, which Singapore never gets.
Singapore leads elsewhere. The sea is 2km from its centre against Jakarta's 8km, with 42 beaches nearby to Jakarta's 5; there are many times more restaurants near the centre and a much wider range of kitchens; and for families, far more attractions and about three times the park space near the centre, though both have 5 theme parks.
Where they are alike
Weather is where they are nearest. Both hold daytime highs of about 31-33°C right through the year, and the sea stays at 21°C or more in all 12 months, so swimming is never off the table.
Nightlife and the layout of the sights are the next closest. Each has a real spread of bars and clubs, and in both a good part of the drinking is within walking distance of the centre, though Singapore's is the more tightly packed.
Which traveller are you?
Anyone who plans a trip around eating and a night out should take Singapore: many times more restaurants near the centre, a much wider range of kitchens, more bars and far more clubs, most of them within walking reach.
Families are also better served in Singapore, with far more attractions and about three times the park space near the centre, and the sea only 2km away across 42 beaches. Both have 5 theme parks.
Travellers who want to be out of the city, on day trips rather than in the streets, do better from Jakarta, ideally in August when rainfall drops to 39mm.
What the numbers don't tell you
No daily budget figure exists for either city here, so this comparison cannot tell you which is the cheaper trip, or what a day on the ground costs. The value ratings are built from a different measure entirely. Price it yourself before booking.
The two look almost level on year-round weather, and that hides how differently the rain arrives. Jakarta swings from 39mm in its driest month to over 350mm at the turn of the year, while Singapore spreads its rain across all 12 months and never gets properly dry. A beach count says nothing about how busy the sand is when the weather is best.
When should you go?
The figures behind each month. Each row is shaded against that destination's own year, so the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest. Shades are not comparable between the two rows.
Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Jakarta: 1991-2020 normals, Jakarta / Observatory (1.1 km from centre). Singapore: 1991-2020 normals, Singapore / Changi Airport (17 km from centre).
Jakarta is at its best from June to September, when the rain pulls back sharply: August is the driest point of its year at 39mm, with highs of 32-33°C. January and February are the months to avoid, with rainfall above 350mm.
Singapore has no dry season, only wetter and less wet. February is its clearest month at 109mm, and July and August also hold up. December is the one to plan around at 329mm, with highs barely moving all year.
Getting there
| Flying from | Jakarta | Singapore |
|---|---|---|
| Kuala LumpurKUL, SZB | 2 h 0 m €120-134 CGK · 20 km | 1 h 0 m €85-88 SIN · 17 km |
| Denpasar (Bali)DPS | 1 h 50 m €129-136 CGK · 20 km | 2 h 40 m €188-241 SIN · 17 km |
| TokyoHND, NRT | 7 h 30 m no fares CGK · 20 km | 6 h 55 m €310-338 SIN · 17 km |
| SeoulICN, GMP | 6 h 50 m €227-241 CGK · 20 km | 6 h 5 m €240-286 1 stop SIN · 17 km |
| MedanKNO | 2 h 20 m no fares CGK · 20 km | 1 h 25 m no fares SIN · 17 km |
| BangkokBKK, DMK | 3 h 20 m €217-232 1 stop CGK · 20 km | 2 h 20 m €157-169 SIN · 17 km |
| YogyakartaYIA, JOG | 1 h 10 m no fares CGK · 20 km | 2 h 5 m no fares SIN · 17 km |
| GuangzhouCAN | 4 h 35 m €208-270 1 stop CGK · 20 km | 3 h 45 m €226-254 1 stop SIN · 17 km |
| JeddahJED | 10 h 5 m €493-631 CGK · 20 km | 9 h 20 m no fares SIN · 17 km |
| AmsterdamAMS | 14 h 0 m €508-593 1 stop CGK · 20 km | 13 h 0 m no fares SIN · 17 km |
The busiest departure cities for these two, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop to both. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Where both columns name the same airport it is one flight, and the difference between the two is the distance printed beside it. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.
Before you go
| Measure | Jakarta | Singapore |
|---|---|---|
| Official language | Indonesian | English, Tamil, Malay, Standard Chinese |
| Currency | Rupiah (IDR) | Singapore Dollar (SGD) |
| Sockets | CF50 Hz | G230 V, 50 Hz |
| Driving side | Left | Left |
| Time zone | UTC+7 | UTC+8 |
| Emergency number | 112 | Police 999, ambulance 995, fire 995 |
| Elevation | 91 m | 21 m |
| Main airport | Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK)20 km from centre90 non-stop destinations | Singapore Changi Airport (SIN)17 km from centre165 non-stop destinations |
| Public holidays this year | 8 days | 11 days |
By the numbers
| Measure | Jakarta | Singapore |
|---|---|---|
| City population | 11,135,191 | 5,866,139 |
| People per km² | 16,821 | 8,158 |
| Museums within 10 km | 44 | 40 |
| UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km | 0 | 1 |
| Distinct cuisines in the centre | 35 | 107 |
| Swim season, months above 21 °C | 12 months | 12 months |
Where else could you go?
Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Jakarta or Singapore somewhere new.