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DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean

Overview

What is DigitalOcean?

DigitalOcean 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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

DigitalOcean is a versatile platform that has been widely adopted for various use cases by different types of users. For web developers …
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Popular Features

View all 9 features
  • Pre-defined machine images (29)
    8.7
    87%
  • Dynamic scaling (28)
    8.2
    82%
  • Monitoring tools (30)
    7.7
    77%
  • Operating system support (29)
    7.7
    77%
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Pricing

View all pricing

1GB-16GB

$5.00

Cloud
Starting Price Per Month

8GB-160GB

$60.00

Cloud
Starting Price Per Month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Demo: Deploying Librarian to DigitalOcean's App Platform in 3 minutes

YouTube

Hands on with Redis Labs and DigitalOcean

YouTube

MICROWEBER TUTORIAL + DEMO + INSTALL + REVIEW

YouTube

DigitalOcean Swimmer Demo

YouTube
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Features

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

IaaS provides the basic building blocks for an IT infrastructure like servers, storage, and networking, in an on-demand model over the Internet

8.2
Avg 8.1
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Product Details

What is DigitalOcean?

DigitalOcean 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.

Deployment

  • Create managed Kubernetes clusters just by specifying the size and location of worker nodes

  • Standard, general purpose, or CPU-optimized compute types

  • App marketplace

  • Global availability

Scalability

  • Scale up, scale down, or migrate between Droplets (virtual machines)

  • Distribute traffic across droplets

  • Redirect network traffic

  • Hourly billing

Storage

  • Managed MySQL, Redis, or PostgreSQL databases

  • Store and retrieve any amount of data (audio, video, etc.)

  • SSD-based storage support

  • Backups and snapshots

Security

  • Cloud firewalls

  • Private networking

  • Two-factor authorization and centralized billing

Monitoring

  • Native integration

  • Resource usage reports and graphs

  • Real-term alerts and notifications

DigitalOcean Video

Premium Droplets by DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

DigitalOcean 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.

Reviewers rate Pre-configured templates highest, with a score of 9.3.

The most common users of DigitalOcean are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(127)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

DigitalOcean is a versatile platform that has been widely adopted for various use cases by different types of users. For web developers and engineers, DigitalOcean offers a seamless hosting solution for websites and web applications, allowing them to easily set up and manage their own servers. This includes hosting personal and professional websites, managing documentation for migration and setup, as well as providing support throughout the process. Customers have praised DigitalOcean for its user-friendly interface and the ability to quickly spin up servers for testing new WordPress 'stacks' within minutes.

In addition to web hosting, DigitalOcean is also utilized by organizations for cloud computing needs. This includes hosting cloud instances, managing DNS records, utilizing floating IP addresses, deploying Kubernetes instances, and setting up load balancers. The flexibility and scalability of DigitalOcean's services allow organizations to easily adapt their infrastructure based on their specific requirements. Moreover, development teams appreciate the low-cost reliable servers and support provided by DigitalOcean when it comes to developing, testing, and deploying production infrastructure.

One notable use case is DustMoon, a media company that switched to DigitalOcean for hosting their website. They reported improved performance after moving to an entry-level VPS plan. Another use case involves customers using DigitalOcean to host custom scheduling software publicly, eliminating the need for VPN accounts or exposing servers to public access, thus enhancing security in the process.

DigitalOcean's simplicity, flexibility, and affordability make it an attractive option for both small client projects and larger organizations. Customers highly recommend DigitalOcean as a web hosting service due to its fantastic performance at a great price point. However, while users appreciate the features provided by DigitalOcean, some have suggested that the support could be more effective. Overall, DigitalOcean has proven to be a reliable solution for various cloud computing needs such as hosting websites and web apps, running microservices, and launching prototypes quickly and cost-effectively.

Developer-friendly tools and APIs: Users have expressed their appreciation for the developer-friendly tools and APIs provided by DigitalOcean, finding them useful and conducive to efficient development processes. Several reviewers have stated that these tools have made it easier for them to develop and manage their cloud resources effectively.

Great documentation: The comprehensive and well-structured documentation offered by DigitalOcean has been highly praised by users. Many reviewers have found the documentation to be helpful, particularly when setting up various configurations and services. They have highlighted its wide coverage of topics as a valuable resource for guidance.

Active and helpful community: The active and supportive community of DigitalOcean has garnered positive feedback from users. They have commended the community's responsiveness in providing assistance whenever needed. Reviewers also appreciate the availability of official help articles and public forums, which contribute to their positive experience with the platform.

Limited product offerings: Some users have mentioned that DigitalOcean offers a limited range of products compared to other cloud providers, specifically noting the absence of enterprise-level options such as Windows Server, MS SQL Server, and Oracle products. This may be a drawback for users who require a wider variety of services.

Limited number of regions: Users have expressed concern about the limited availability of data center regions in DigitalOcean. While the platform is expanding rapidly and introducing new data centers, some reviewers feel that having fewer options could be disadvantageous for those who require specific geographical locations.

Complex email server setup: Setting up email servers on DigitalOcean can be complex according to some users, leading them to recommend external services like Zoho instead. The intricate process may pose challenges for users who prefer a simpler email setup within the DigitalOcean platform.

Users have made several recommendations based on their experiences with DigitalOcean. The three most common recommendations are:

  1. Users suggest DigitalOcean as a good choice for enterprise or small-medium businesses, but not for beginner individual developers. They appreciate the ease of setup compared to other cloud providers.

  2. Use DigitalOcean for hosting projects with great support and functionalities. Users find DigitalOcean to be an excellent platform for hosting web applications, virtual machines, and VPS servers. They recommend using DigitalOcean for quick and affordable hosting needs, especially for small projects or users with limited server management experience.

  3. Consider DigitalOcean as a reliable cloud provider for startups or new companies looking to quickly create a backend infrastructure or cloud-based computing. Users mention that DigitalOcean is easy to use, provides transparent monthly billing, and offers straightforward pricing. They also appreciate helpful documentation, interesting promotions, inbuilt monitoring, and consistent service without surprises at the end of the month.

Overall, users find DigitalOcean to be a competitive option in the market with flexible tariffs, easy setup, strong functionality, and affordability.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(26-31 of 31)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I've used DigitalOcean for business and personal use, the pricing is very flexible to meet the needs of both.

DigitalOcean is a great provider for virtual private server (VPS) web hosting for people who don't want to have to micromanage each and every minor step that is usually involved with setting up Linux-based web servers. DigitalOcean solves that issue with one click solutions that set up servers for you. This includes but isn't limited to WordPress, Ubuntu, and Fedora including custom ISOs.
  • Pricing is very affordable and scalable
  • Uptime is very dependable and consistant
  • Easy to set up, well documented FAQ and tutorials
  • I would like to see increased speeds against VPS providers such as Vultr
  • Expand the one click setup scripts
  • Certain resources could be increased to match the competition like Linode's basic offering
DigitalOcean is a VPS solution I would highly suggest to anyone that is starting out in VPS. It is very simple and easy to use as a beginner. DigitalOcean is also useful for web admins that are more comfortable and advanced working in a remote console/Linux environment. The documentation they have is very extensive.
August 01, 2016

DigitalOcean

Tom Thomas | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's a good cloud server for a decent price compared to its competitors. The interface is easy to use and allows you to host your own site without having to put in as much work. The features and value were great but their support lacked effectiveness and left a lot to be desired.
  • Easy to use
  • Fast, even compared to other cloud hosting sites
  • Great price
  • Support is not always top notch
It is a great VPS. It has very great speed capabilities and rarely goes down. It can however be difficult to get support from them, as their communication is limited to basically just messaging. They often take a long time to respond and the responses aren't necessarily very helpful or even useful.
June 24, 2016

Great cloud server

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use a team account to access the servers we use. It is well priced and the support is amazing.
  • Great support
  • Good pricing, very fair
  • Very stable
  • A little difficult to figure out if you're a beginner.
It is a great site to host a VPS on a budget.
Robert Allen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Digital Ocean to spin up servers for most client jobs. DO is one of the easiest web hosting services around and provides fantastic performance with a great price. We host our company website on Digital Ocean and have done so for over a year. Whenever a new WordPress 'stack' needs to be tested, we spin up a Digital Ocean server and are ready to go in just a couple minutes.
  • DigitalOcean is exceedingly easy to use, with one of the best user interfaces I've seen among web hosts.
  • DigitalOcean has some of the best site performance around. Their VPSs are fast, reliable, and virtually never go down.
  • The initial process of spinning up a server requires logging into the server via the console and changing passwords. This is, frankly, an absurd step. The first few times we spun up new servers we struggled with this opaque process.
  • Preventing disk images from being transferred from one server to another is an odd limitation which feels just shy of arbitrary.
DigitalOcean (DO) provides exceptional performance with a very low price. For clients with extremely low budgets, the price matters. That said, DO servers are fairly barebones. We tend to use managed hosting such as WP Engine for clients, and use DO for testing, internal projects, or clients with personal sites for whom the advantages of managed hosting are wasted.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used it for myself and it pretty much fixed the server performance issues.
  • Great performing servers
  • Lots of operating systems & images
  • Awesome management panel
  • Great community
  • Cannot install system by yourself or provide your own ISO
  • Security issues with ssh host keys
  • Does not have a SAN but instead uses local storage in RAID5
If you desire excellent server performance (server network speed: 1GBPS), access to scale down/up servers with a few clicks, then DigitalOcean is right for you.
Creede Lambard | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use DigitalOcean as a platform for my personal website, to manage email for several domains I administer, and for some personal projects related to my hobbies and interests.
  • Uptime. Since I joined a couple of years ago I don't think I've had a single outage.
  • Native IPv6. IPv6 is the way of the future and DigitalOcean allows me to participate without jumping through hoops (e.g. negotiating through a tunnel broker).
  • Simplicity. I can spin up a droplet and have it up and running quickly, and I don't have to go through a lengthy process to do so.
  • Platform. I love Ubuntu and it's standard with DigitalOcean.
  • External storage. This is the big one. When you spin up a droplet you have a fixed virtual disk size. It would be really nice to be able to temporarily or permanently add storage without resorting to hacks involving solutions like S3 or Dropbox.
  • DNS management. There are numerous DNS solutions available on the net but it would be nice to have one native to DigitalOcean.
I would recommend DigitalOcean to the small-scale operator who just wants to put up a Wordpress site or something similar; to the hobbyist learning about cloud computing; and to someone looking for a platform more powerful than shared hosting, less expensive than a dedicated host and more cost-effective than AWS. For example, until I found DigitalOcean I was making do with a t1.micro AWS instance that was costing about $15 a month when things like bandwidth costs were factored in. My DigitalOcean droplet runs about $20 a month, has much more computing power than the old AWS instance, and is chugging along happily running several Docker containers that house the services I use. However, for those who need a full ecosystem of products like CDNs, in-house DNS, dedicated database solutions and the like, or who are running larger-scale operations, something like AWS would be more appropriate.
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