Digital Ocean VPS is a global company offering web hosting. It provides a wide range of virtual services include VPS, cloud storage, databases, and networking solutions. In this Digital Ocean review, we specifically look at their virtual servers and storage to see if they are a suitable fit for your needs.
In this review…
Digital Ocean Overview
Digital Ocean provides a number of eCommerce platform solutions, developer tools, content management tools and web hosting services.
They also provide firewalls and cloud hosting.
If you are looking for a versatile VPS hosting solution, Digital Ocean could be a great choice. Their VPS solutions are called Droplets. These are highly customizable and you only pay for the specs and capacity you need. For example, you can choose the number of CPUs, memory, and SSD disk size.
Some may find this a little complicated, but it gives you are greater control than many generic VPS plans offered by competitors.
The Droplet VPS solutions have a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%, and also have great speed ratings. This is complemented by the 14 different data centres with global locations. You can also easily deploy multiple droplets if you want to split your data.
Aside from VPS solutions, Digital Ocean also provides managed Kubernetes clusters, App platforms for developers, databases, and virtual storage solutions. Their prices are generally competitive compared to similar providers.
While Digital Ocean does have many positives, there are some potential drawbacks to consider too. Firstly, their customer support is limited. The support is ticket-based, and there is no telephone support for basic packages. Also, the droplet purchasing and setup process does require more VPS knowledge than some other providers.
While they do give a step-by-step guide and wizard, the process is certainly lengthy compared to other packaged solutions.
Features
- Droplet virtual servers
- Kubernetes managed virtual clusters
- App Platforms for app development
- Databases including MySQL and MongoDB
- Virtual object and block storage
Digital Ocean Pros & Cons
Pros
- Great range of adaptable price plans
- 14 global data centres
- High-speed VPS
- 99.99% guaranteed uptime
- Great tutorials and guides
Cons
- Not the best customer support
- Requires more manual setup than some other VPS providers
Digital Ocean VPS Services
In this Digital Ocean review, we look at the various services that this company provides. This includes VPS, their app platforms, and virtual storage. We also look at the availability of customer support and provide our verdict on who these products are suitable for.
Digital Ocean Droplets
The main solution provided by Digital Ocean is their Droplets. Droplets are essentially customizable VPS servers. Unlike most VPS providers, Digital Ocean has a highly customizable approach to its Droplets.
You essentially choose the server specifications and the price is calculated from this.
Pricing
The basic pricing structure for Digital Ocean Droplets is as follows:
- Shared CPU Droplets: From £5.00 per month
- Dedicated CPU Droplets: From £40.00 per month
The pricing structure is quite complex and varies depending on the exact configurations of the server. However, we have listed some examples below:
- Regular Intel Processor, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD: £5.00 per month
- Regular Intel Processor, 4GB RAM, 80GB SSD: £20.00 per month
- Premium AMD Processor, 1GB RAM, 25GB SSD: £6.00 per month
- Premium Intel Processor, 16GB RAM, 320GB SSD: £96.00 per month
You can also choose from a range of configurations for different purposes. For example, there are general-purpose Droplets, CPU optimized Droplets, and Storage-Optimized Droplets. The sheer versatility of configuration is fantastic and you can essentially get exactly what you need.
Specifications
It is also important to understand the available specs of the Droplet VPS servers. The available specifications are configurable for processors, memory, and storage. Also, each price plan includes a set transfer limit. The following are the upper and lower limits for the different server components:
- Processors: 1 to 32 vCPUS either Intel or AMD
- Memory: 1GB to 256GB
- Storage: 1GB to 7.03TB SSD
- Transfer Limit: 1000GB to 10TB
There is also a range of addons that you can buy to boost the utility of your Droplet. For example, you can add additional storage volumes to extend the SSD capacity of your server.
Usability
Aside from the more complex setup and choice of the Droplets, they do offer excellent functionality and usability. The Droplet can be deployed using distributions including Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, and FreeBSD. Also, you can deploy via 1-click apps and even custom images.
The Digital Ocean VPS Droplet API is also elegant and allows for excellent server management. Lastly, any Droplet can easily be scaled as the size of your business grows. You can also easily deploy multiple Droplets with just a few clicks using either the control panel or API.
Digital Ocean Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source system primarily used for automatic app deployment and management. Many companies like Digital Ocean have created their own Kubernetes services based on open-source code. These are essentially designed for developers and prices start from £10 per month.
Digital Ocean App Platforms
If you want to develop web apps, you could benefit from a Digital Ocean App platform. These are managed platforms that provide a secure place to produce, test, host and deploy apps. They support numerous languages including Node.js, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, and Docker. You can also deploy code directly from GitHub and GitLab.
Using an app platform, you can build things like web apps, static websites, APIs, and background workers. This is also a managed solution which means that SSL certificates are automatically maintained, and all security measures are taken care of.
In terms of pricing, there are three plans – starter, basic, and professional. The starter plan is free to use and allows you to build and deploy up to 3 static sites. Alternatively, the basic plan is relatively inexpensive at just £5.00 per month. This allows you to build and develop and includes up to 400 build minutes per month.
Digital Ocean Virtual Storage
Aside from VPS, Digital Ocean also provides two different types of virtual storage – spaces and volumes. These are relatively competitively priced and seem to be a decent storage solution.
Spaces Storage
The Spaces Storage solutions are £5 per month and this includes 250 GB of storage, up to 1TB of outbound transfer data, and unlimited uploads. Each space includes a built-in CDN which allows the storage to be scaled easily. The API is also easy to use and overall, this appears to be an inexpensive storage solution.
Volumes Storage
You can also extend the functionality and capacity of your droplets via Volumes Storage. These are essentially secure SSD-based storage blocks. The storage volumes are stored separately from your Droplet and also replicated multiple times for redundancy.
Sizes are also completely scalable and range from a minimum of 1GB up to a maximum of 16TB. We also like that you only pay for the storage you have provisioned – prices are £0.10 per GB per month.
Customer Support
Digital Ocean has OK customer support but it is not the most accessible. The first port of call is the support centre. Here you can find help topics on a vast array of subjects like backups, managing your droplets, and load balancers. The database is extensive and in most instances you should be able to find answers to your problems.
However, if you want to talk to someone, you must submit a support ticket. This can only be done if you have a valid Digital Ocean account. Basic account users only have developer support. This is the ticket-based customer support that is available 24/7.
Alternatively, there is business support for those who spend over £500 per month. This gives you contact with a team of customer success managers and proper technical infrastructure assistance.
Digital Ocean Review Summary
As you can see, this company has many different products. Their VPS droplets are some of the most versatile available. The customization and availability of choices for server specifications are some of the best available. However, some may find this a little confusing – there are certain providers that offer a more simplified approach.
We really like the customization, however. If you want maximum control over your VPS configuration, Digital Ocean is definitely one of the best choices of website hosting for your business. The droplets can essentially be customised to your requirements including memory, the number of CPUs, and SSD disk size.
This means that you will only ever pay for what you need whereas, with many standard pre-made packages, you are often paying for excess server capacity.
While the Droplets can be considered complex, their performance is fantastic. They have great ratings for speeds, and you can benefit from selecting a data centre based on your geographical location. We also like the guaranteed 99.99% uptime.
Overall, Digital Ocean does offer some great VPS products. However, you must also consider the limited customer support options, and the fact that the Droplet setup process can be a little complicated.
If this Digital Ocean review helped you, please recommend DigitalSupermarket.
