DigitalOcean
Cloud servers that spin up in under a minute, with pricing simple enough to actually understand.
Our verdict
Cheap, predictable cloud servers with a control panel developers genuinely enjoy using.
How we rated it
Overall 4.3 / 5
Pricing
Basic Droplet
Popular$4/mo
The cheapest way to get a real Linux server running. Good for small sites, side projects, and learning.
- Starts at 512 MB RAM and scales up to 16 GB RAM / 8 vCPUs
- Best price-per-dollar in DigitalOcean's lineup
- 500 GB to 6,000 GB of free outbound data transfer, depending on size
- Regular or Premium (AMD/Intel) CPU options
CPU-Optimized Droplet
$42/mo
Built for jobs that need fast, steady CPU power, like video processing, gaming servers, or heavy data crunching.
- Dedicated vCPUs running at 2.6GHz or faster
- 2:1 ratio of memory to CPU
- Premium tier adds NVMe SSDs and up to 10Gbps network speed
General Purpose Droplet
$63/mo
A balanced mix of CPU and memory, built for everyday production apps and databases.
- Even balance of memory to dedicated CPU
- Good fit for most production workloads without over-paying for either resource
- Premium tier adds NVMe SSDs and faster networking
Memory-Optimized Droplet
$84/mo
Extra RAM per core, made for apps that eat memory, like large databases or in-memory caches.
- 8 GB of RAM for every vCPU
- NVMe SSDs standard for faster disk performance
- Helps avoid out-of-memory crashes on data-heavy apps
Features
- Droplets (DigitalOcean's name for virtual servers) launch in under a minute, no long setup wizard
- Per-second billing with a 60-second minimum, so short test jobs don't cost you a full hour
- Six droplet types to match the job, from cheap basic boxes to memory-heavy setups for big databases
- Free control plane for managed Kubernetes if you run containers
- Built-in monitoring and alerts, so you find out about problems before your users do
- One-click apps for WordPress, Docker, and dozens of other tools, no manual install needed
- Spaces object storage comes with a content delivery network built in, so files load fast worldwide
- A clean API and command-line tool for scripting and automating your whole setup
- One of the largest libraries of free, plain-English tutorials in the hosting world
- Data centers on multiple continents, so you can put your server close to your users
Alternatives
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Cloudways
Managed hosting on real cloud servers, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, or Google Cloud, your pick.