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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    DigitalOcean

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ADigitalOcean is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform from the company of the same name headquartered in New York. It is known for its support of managed Kubernetes clusters and “droplets” feature.

    $5

    Starting Price Per Month

    Ubuntu

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AUbuntu Linux is a Linux-based operating system for personal computers, tablets and smartphones. There is also a Server version which is used on physical or virtual servers in the data center.N/A
    Pricing
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Editions & Modules
    1GB-16GB
    $5.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    8GB-160GB
    $60.00
    Starting Price Per Month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Considered Both Products
    DigitalOcean
    Chose DigitalOcean
    Vultr is a new player in the game. They don't advertise their hardware model and for that reason, people may not trust them. I have run few benchmarks on Vultr, they performed slightly better than DigitalOcean but they aren't trustworthy. Their transparency index is very low …
    Incentivized
    Chose DigitalOcean
    As I said earlier, for the kinds of things I do I find a $20/mo DigitalOcean droplet to be much more cost-effective than a similar AWS platform. However, for enterprise-level work with things like CDNs and load balancing, I'd be more inclined to evaluate and use AWS.
    Incentivized
    Canonical Ltd
    Chose Ubuntu
    Historically Ubuntu has been one step forward from Red Hat and CentOS distributions about software versions and tools usability. In the last years they've caught up and it's very comparable, but at this point, my decision was already made and I will continue choosing Ubuntu, …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    24 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    24 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    11 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    24 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    17 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    22 Answers
    Features
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of DigitalOcean and Ubuntu
    Feature
    DigitalOcean
    9.2
    36 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Ubuntu
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.931 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling9.932 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing9.723 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates10.029 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools9.035 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images9.733 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support9.033 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls8.632 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation6.55 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (36 ratings)
    7.7
    (47 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.9
    (10 ratings)
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (9 ratings)
    8.6
    (6 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DigitalOceanUbuntu
    Likelihood to Recommend
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is perfect for hosting client websites, running marketing tools, and managing media storage with Spaces and CDN. The use of Droplets to quickly launch landing pages or WordPress sites for campaigns is a Godsend. It’s great for fast, cheap, and scalable solutions. But for complex microservices or projects needing strict compliance (like HIPAA), DigitalOcean may not always be the best fit, but that depends heavily on your project.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    If somebody whishes to be an IT professional, learning the basics of Linux is amust. Ubuntu [Linux] is one of the most beginner-friendly, widely supported, easy-to-use-relative-to-the-fact-that-its-still-linux OS on the market. As somebody who learned the basics of UNIX/LINUX on Ubuntu, it was a very good experience. It is customizable, has a lot of improvements over the years, and live up to be a viable alternative to any modern OS in 2021 as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    DigitalOcean
    • DigitalOcean provides some of the best cost-to-value services available
    • The DigitalOcean cloud console is very intuitive and easy to navigate
    • DigitalOcean has great support for Docker and other dev ops tools like Terraform.
    • DigitalOcean iterates quickly and provides cutting edge features for organizations that want to keep up with the latest and greatest dev ops tooling
    • DigitalOcean has a great developer community and numerous support docs/tutorials
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    • PACKAGE MANAGEMENT. You can update everything - OS installed software, you name it with either a few clicks in a GUI or a single command.
    • No bloatware.
    • No need for antivirus software.
    • Certainly the price is right.
    • My 83 year old grandmother has been using it - and because of this I rarely need to provide tech support. But I still visit my grandmother.
    • You can choose from a variety of user interfaces or rock it in the terminal.
    • Generally speaking, Ubuntu is as polished an OS as any you might pay for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    DigitalOcean
    • Some products/services available on other Cloud providers aren't available, but they seem to be catching up as they add new products like Managed SQL DBs.
    • While they have FreeBSD droplets (VMs), support for *BSD OSs is limited. I.e. the new monitoring agent only works on Linux.
    • There are no regions available on South America.
    • They don't seem to offer enterprise-level products, even basic ones as Windows Server, MS SQL Server, Oracle products, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    • The repository system could be a little better, as some of the software needed is not easily available there.
    • Ubuntu sometimes does not play nicely or easily with some modern firmwares.
    • Some people report slow responses with newer versions of Ubuntu, although we have not experienced any.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    DigitalOcean
    I've been very happy with it for my purposes and I plan to continue to use DigitalOcean for the foreseeable future!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    While it works, we're finding that SNAP is getting more and more annoying, so we're probably going to migrate to Debian.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    DigitalOcean
    I honestly can't think of an easier way to set up and maintain your own server. Being able to set up a server in minutes and have fully control is awesome. The UX is incredibly intuitive for first-time users as well so there's no reason to be intimidated when it comes to giving DigitalOcean a shot.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    I gave it 10 out of 10 because it allows me to do the work I need on a server, such as running a website and database, and making developments. In addition, thanks to its easy and useful interface during installation, it can be easily installed. In addition, thanks to its easily accessible documents, when a problem occurs, it can be solved easily and quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    DigitalOcean
    Have not found a single second of down time myself. Superior availability.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    DigitalOcean
    Very quick response and high performance, you have to fine tune configurations on your machines though.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    DigitalOcean
    They have always been fast, and the process has been straight-forward. I haven't had to use it enough to be frustrated with it, to be honest, and when I have an issue they fix it. As with all support, I wish it felt more human, but they are doing aces.
    Incentivized
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    Canonical Ltd
    We did not use the managed commercial support, but instead relied on community forums and official documentation. Ubuntu is very well documented across both instructional documentation from the developers themselves as well as informal support forums [ServerFault, YCombinator, Reddit]. It's easy enough to find an answer to any question you may have
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    DigitalOcean
    No answers on this topic
    Canonical Ltd
    It was all pretty much automatic for our use cases. It integrates nicely with Laravel Forge, which is our primary use case.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    DigitalOcean
    DigitalOcean is an inexpensive product as compared to other products available in the market. The UI is easy and the beginner can also understand the UI with the step by step guide. It provides a lot of custom features and the user needs to pay only for what they are using. Amazon has a complex UI and is on the expensive side. DigitalOcean is simple to use and is easily manageable and the servers can easily be set up without additional cost and such.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    Windows 10: Expensive, with more security problems, more difficult to keep updated and less variety of free / open source applications. Its use encourages bad information security practices. OpenSuse Linux: A different distribution at source (Suse Linux), use of rpm packages (with fewer repositories and incompatible with Ubuntu Linux dpkg packages), and whose main objective is to be a "testing ground" for its paid version / professional, SUSE enterprise Linux.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    DigitalOcean
    Great scalability, you can start with small plans and move up to premium features at a very good price.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    DigitalOcean
    • Positive - Elastic computer instances make it possible to pay for only for what you need.
    • Positive - Competitive pricing - some of the products that DigitalOcean offers are much cheaper than those offered by competitors.
    • Negative - Having to go to other cloud computing platforms for more specific, advanced services like Computer Vision optimized services, GPU cloud compute instances, etc...
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canonical Ltd
    • Systems administration with Ubuntu is easy with little deep knowledge about it. Docs and community publications are great resources for any task you need to perform on any Ubuntu server and the organization can save several salaries of specialized sys admins in favor of more active roles.
    • Having been an Ubuntu user for many years personally, setting up new Ubuntu servers on my organization came with zero cost for me. I just deployed one instance from my hosting/cloud provider and started working right after it was running, no need to ask support or hire new staff for these tasks.
    • Replacing paid options with Ubuntu have also saved thousands of dollars on Windows Server licenses. I've migrated Windows/SQL Server based systems to Ubuntu/MySQL/PostgreSQL several times during my career and saved about USD 5000/year in licenses to many of them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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