Digital Ocean

DigitalOcean provides dozens of other services, features, and tools including one-click applications, Kubernetes clusters, extensive support documentation, a global community, serverless cloud computing, cloud firewalls, and various networking features.

DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure and hosting provider offering virtual private servers (VPS), which they term “droplets”, to host applications and websites. Droplets are easily created and managed through a user-friendly web interface or API via a line-command terminal. Developers can manage the resources allocated to each droplet to efficiently scale their application’s computing power to meet fluctuating demand – without the wasted cost of maintaining dedicated servers that sit idle when demand is low.

For advanced configuration and customization, DigitalOcean also offers a robust API that can be accessed via a command-line terminal, providing even more flexibility and control over server management. While this requires programming knowledge and proficiency with Linux (in most cases), it allows for more customization and flexibility.

DigitalOcean Droplets are Virtual Private Servers (VPS) used to host applications and websites on the cloud. Droplets are easy to create, manage, and configure with DigitalOcean’s user-friendly web interface or by interacting with its API via a command-line terminal.

Each Droplet is a fully-fledged virtual machine, whereby users install any relevant software and configure it to their unique use case. Droplets are built on very powerful Hex core machines that have dedicated ECC Ram and RAID SSD storage – offering integration with almost any operating system, such as Linux and Windows. Droplets can be started up and provisioned in let than a minute – one of the fastest times in the industry at DigitalOcean’s price point.

DigitalOcean leverages its user-friendly interface to make it easy for developers with ranging skill levels to navigate and deploy both simple and complex applications. An intuitive design and simple deployment process ensure that non-technical users can get set up quickly and manage their applications without loads of time spent on configuration.

With DigitalOcean’s one-click marketplace, and an API (letting developers interact directly with DigitalOcean through programming, creating and deleting servers, monitoring resource usage, and much more), businesses have simpler and greater control over their cloud infrastructure and applications.

When compared to other popular cloud hosting providers, DigitalOcean’s UI is more intuitive and far less complex than, for example, AWS. While this comes with a limitation on supported features and functionality, it’s ideal for small to medium enterprises and small developer teams.

DigitalOcean has a collection of powerful tools designed to help developers better streamline their cloud infrastructure management and discover new tools from popular open-source applications and tools – which is ideal for startups and small, but growing, enterprises and teams.

One-click applications allow developers to effortlessly deploy and configure popular web applications with WordPress, Drupal, and NodeJS, requiring minimal effort and resource allocation – but with limited feature sets and versatility. DigitalOcean provides businesses and developers with a wealth of pre-configured infrastructure options including popular databases, message queues, and much more.

The DigitalOcean API is also a valuable resource, enabling the automation of various tasks such as creating and deleting servers, scaling resources to meet usage spikes, creating backups, and much more. With over 1.3 million developers utilizing its API, DigitalOcean is a popular choice for automating cloud infrastructure management.

A powerful command line tool, doctl, equips developers comfortable with command line operations and automation to manage DigitalOcean Droplets and other resources more easily. Doctl is open-source and lets developers avoid web-based interfaces for daily development and management tasks. It’s a time-saving feature for small teams of developers that can boost efficiency – but requires more experience.

DigitalOcean is a fantastic option for businesses and startups looking for cost-effective cloud hosting solutions. Many of the top platforms offer very complex pricing and often require experienced teams to follow spending best practices. DigitalOcean follows a simple and transparent pay-as-you-go pricing model, meaning businesses only pay for the resources they use – giving them more control over their expenditure – a key facet for startups and small enterprises.

Flexible pricing structures let businesses better adapt to changes in their resource requirements without incurring additional costs or having to maintain expensive cloud real estate during slow periods. DigitalOcean’s pricing structure is competitive and often more affordable than the big cloud platforms, making it an ideal alternative to other cloud hosting providers – particularly for small organizations and teams of developers. DigitalOcean boasts that businesses can save up to 60% on their cloud infrastructure costs – but take this with a pinch of salt.

DigitalOcean is renowned for its high-performance cloud infrastructure and were among the first cloud-hosting pioneers to offer SSD-based virtual machines, providing lightning-fast disk I/O and overall speedy performance. DigitalOcean was one of the early IPV6 adopters, equipping them with a more efficient way to use IP addresses. Their virtual servers, called Droplets, boast some of the fastest boot times in the industry – at around 55 seconds.

Under the hood, DigitalOcean Droplets are powered by Hex-core machines with dedicated ECC RAM and RAID SSD storage, capable of handling demanding workloads. To take this performance to world-class levels, DigitalOcean leverages private networking options for running database clusters and distributed systems in selected regions. Currently, DigitalOcean has a global reach with 6 data centers spanning North America, Europe, and Asia – with plans to expand into more regions in the future.

DigitalOcean’s support documentation is a true gem among the top cloud hosting providers. Not only is it extensive and thorough, covering everything from simple LAMP stack setup to deploying complex Kubernetes clusters, but it’s also geared towards developers of varying skill and experience levels. Teams and enterprises new to the cloud – or experienced professionals – can find digestible support at an achievable starting point.

DigitalOcean’s support system sets itself apart from many other cloud hosting providers with a unique crowdsourcing approach. In place of outsourcing support documentation to technical writers and professional agencies, DigitalOcean invites subject matter experts from the community to contribute, compensating them according to the depth of the provided content – ensuring up-to-date and relevant content, but it also creates a sense of transparency and community engagement.

Scaling is a crucial aspect of any application and growing business. DigitalOcean stands out as a top choice for scaling due to its user-friendly interface, robust infrastructure, and scalability options providing dozens of key developer tools to scale more easily. Enterprises can easily increase or decrease their resources (CPU, RAM, etc.) as needed, ensuring they have the necessary resources to handle any level of traffic, temporary spikes, or rapid growth.

DigitalOcean’s powerful, reliable, and globally located servers make sure that the increased load is handled smoothly and efficiently, regardless of where the majority of your user base is located. DigitalOcean’s scalability options are also flexible, allowing applications to be scaled up or down when necessary, on-demand, and/or scheduled. DigitalOcean’s combination of simplicity, reliability, and powerful scaling features and tools paves the way for businesses to grow and expand their online presence.