Today I will talk about my experience with Digital Ocean and why I consider it to be the best cloud hosting available. I will also recommend easy ways for you to host your website in the Cloud without the hassle of configuring servers via SSH.
When searching for web hosting, thousands of sites like Hostgator, Hostiger, Godaddy, KingHost, Bluehost and many others are recommended. Most of the time the user is attracted to the low prices and ends up falling into the bad of shared hosting.
Honestly, no offense, these lodgings suck, even if it's VPS or Cloud. I myself had terrible experiences with Blue Host's Cloud, which despite being flashy is nowhere near the cheapest Digital Ocean cloud.
I have nothing against shared hosting, but if you really want to have a future on the web, you need to invest in cloud hosting that has a much faster speed and can handle more sites. Especially if you want to use WordPress!
Cloud is the English term used to refer to servers or cloud hosting.
This is a Complete Guide, so I ask for a bit of patience to understand all the topics covered here. If you have any difficulties, just get in touch at contact, and I am entirely willing to help. To make navigation easier, let's provide a table of contents:
Why did I choose Digital Ocean?
I spent years of my life using Hostgator, but there was a time when my site went over 100,000 monthly visits. Despite the unlimited traffic advertisement, my server crashed several times when more than 150 people went online.
It was during this time that I met Cloud Hosting. A kind of VPS that is not available on just one machine, but several machines make up your dedicated server. If one machine fails, your site remains online without any issues thanks to the other servers.
It was at that time that a friend recommended Digital Ocean to me, one of the most popular cloud hosting services today. Here you not only host websites but can also do practically anything you would do through a VPS.
There are thousands of cloud hosting services, but what attracted me to Digital Ocean was its price. With an investment of 5$, you can host a WordPress site capable of handling more than 500 people simultaneously if the server and cache are well configured.
With an investment of 20 $ I was able to rent a cloud server with 4GB of RAM and two processing cores. Another big difference that made me choose Digital Ocean was the SSD that is available on all servers.
In it, I host a website that receives 500,000 monthly visits; this site is also the email marketing tool called mautic. All of this without spending even 30% of the CPU (that is, I could be using a cheaper plan).
One of the things that made me afraid is the fact that I have to configure my hosting server myself, but I discovered tools (websites) that made this very easy and I will recommend them in this and other articles.
Wouldn't a server in Brazil be better? Some people ask this question, but in reality the servers in Brazil are slow and delayed, even though the response time may be good, the difference is imperceptible, and nothing that a CDN like WordPress Jetpack solves. Not to mention that Brazilian servers are very expensive and always give some problem.
Digital Ocean Services and Benefits
With Digital Ocean you can have servers with 1 up to 32 processing cores or up to 64GB of ram. Not only that, in DO (affectionate nickname) you can also choose the location of your server, add a backup option, add storage, choose between IPv6 and other options when configuring your server.
You can also manage the DNS of domains through Digital Ocean, distribute traffic to other droplets (servers), and many other services that are constantly expanding.
At DO plans start from $ 5 and go wherever you want:
The site also offers Two-factor Authentication to make your hosting server more secure. You can also set up SSH keys and SSL Certificates (HTTPS).
One of DO's new services is Spaces, which consists of cheap file storage where you pay $ 5 for 250GB of HD with 1TB of monthly download.
You can create the image of a cloud, duplicate, clone, monitor, use API and countless other functions without counting the options outside of Digital Ocean that are also important for your hosting.
Digital Ocean as of the date of this article offers data center servers in New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto and Bangalore.
With Digital Ocean you have complete control
Don't be fooled by advertisements! Before joining Digital Ocean, I had done a test at BlueHost, where the offered server had 6 cores and 8GB of ram for less than 100 reais. As soon as I went up my site I felt the performance was very slow and the CPU was using 99% of the machine.
My friend uses Blue Host with satisfaction, but whenever he launches his online course, the server crashes due to the huge amount of traffic. If he had a cloud with full control and used SSD, he wouldn't have these issues.
One of the advantages of Digital Ocean is that you can create your cloud server however you want. You can choose from thousands of operating systems or you can already install a script when creating your server. You have full access to SSH and can install whatever you want on your cloud.
In addition, Digital Ocean uses a system called Droplet, where you can customize and change the RAM, CPU, and Storage of your server in a few seconds without affecting your website or cloud project.
You can create and delete cloud servers anytime you want, without spending a fortune on monthly contracts, as Digital Ocean charges for server time online. For example, you can test robust servers without paying hundreds of dollars.
The servers available as of the date this article was written are: Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Fedora, Debia and CentOS, CoreOS, RancherOS and thousands of One-Click-Apps for you to install on your cloud.
Get $ 100 credit at Digital ocean
I wish I had this back when I met Digital Ocean. People who sign up through my link will receive 100$ in credit to spend and test on Digital Ocean for the next 60 days.
If you have enjoyed the best cloud hosting, I earn $ 25 if you continue to use the service. You can also recommend Digital Ocean to other users in the future.
Just click on any of the links that lead to Digital Ocean in this article. For example, access the link below to learn about Digital Ocean's plans and register:
Do not think that I am doing this article just to earn the $ 25 from people who use Digital Ocean. To tell the truth, any cloud or even shared hosting offers a referral fee.
I could be referring other accommodations, or you could just be accessing someone else's link that they recommend Digital Ocean. I really recommend this company for considering it the best, and I will also recommend others.
I am talking about this here because one of the focuses of this site is to teach readers how to make money and work online. So I want to make you aware of the methods I use to earn my daily bread and recommend them to you as well.
So I thank the readers of this article for using Digital Ocean through the links on my site, this way you enjoy the 100$ to create your cloud server and I enjoy my 25$ if you continue using Digital Ocean. A very good gain considering the value of the dollar.
How to create a server in Digital Ocean
The first thing you need to do is create an account using my referral link. After registering, confirming, and logging into your Digital Ocean account, you will create a server by clicking the create button (Create > Droplet). The droplets are your servers with IP, SSH access, and the operating system of your choice.
First, in Choose an Image, you must select which operating system to install on your Droplet. The most recommended one is Ubuntu, although there are One-Click-Apps options available, we do not recommend using them. It may seem simpler at first but it becomes more complicated and can cause headaches in the future.
Then choose your plan or Droplet Hardware, the values start at 5 $:
Then there are optional configurations like the Data Center, we recommend New York which is closer to Brazil. The other configurations are optional, we do not recommend changing anything.
After your server is online, we need to redirect your domain to the server on Digital Ocean. First, you should access the site where you manage your domain and redirect the NameServers to:
- ns1.digitalocean.com
- ns2.digitalocean.com
- ns3.digitalocean.com
Then you need to go to the Digital Ocean domain manager and create an A record for your droplet's IP. Then a CNAME record to redirect WWW to your domain.
Having done these two things you need to wait for your domain's DNS to propagate, but now the most important decision has come. What system to use to manage your server without complications?
Best way to set up and host your website on Digital Ocean
If you know how to use SSH and have experience with servers, very good, you can host the site however you want using whatever you want. But unfortunately not everyone knows or is not patient enough to deal with this.
That's why there are external sites you can use to manage your Digital Ocean DROPLET. These sites install all PHP on your Droplet, offer SFTP, and allow you to manage databases and install scripts like WordPress with one click.
The disadvantages are that it doesn't support things other than PHP and SQL, not even an email server, but you can do it manually, although we don't recommend clogging your server with unnecessary things that use processing.
My top recommendation goes to Runcloud! There is even an option to install Runcloud with one click during the creation of the Droplet on Digital Ocean. There is a free plan, and among the paid plans, Runcloud is the most affordable.
It is like a more simplified and optimized CPANEL to be ultra light and not to weigh your server. All you need to do before is to access SSH at least once to run code that installs the entire management platform.
Don't worry, you only benefit from using these external sites that serve as server managers. I started using serverpilot which WAS free, but unfortunately it became paid and offered practically nothing.
Later I met Runcloud, which in my opinion is the best and cheapest. With 8$, you can manage a server and an unlimited number of domains and applications. The site also offers a backup system and many benefits that I will list below:
- NGINX or NGINX + APACHE;
- FPM;
- Reports;
- Native CronJob;
- MardiaDB (better than mysql);
- REDIS (improves performance);
- Memcached;
- Beanstalkd;
- Brotli compression;
- Selection of the PHP version; 3
- GIT support;
- And much more;
If you register on RunCloud using our referral link, you get 15 free days when you sign up for a plan.
For me, runcloud is the best and lightest option for those who want to manage a PHP site like WordPress, Magento, Joomla, and others. It has never been easier to manage a server on Digital Ocean with speed, security, and ease.
We have also written an article that talks more about Runcloud and how to configure it.
Digital Ocean + Runcloud + Cloudflare + Cache Plugin
The combination for better performance and less use of the server is to use Digital Ocean together with the Runcloud management panel with the website directed to Cloudflare's DNS, along with some cache plugin like wp-rocket. So it is possible to take 100/100 out of vitals.
If you have not understood bulhufas of what I am talking about, I promise that in the future I will record several video lessons talking about these subjects and showing step by step how to configure these things. It took me years to join Cloudflare for fear of directing my DNS elsewhere.
The purpose of this subtitle is just to share the combination I use to make the site so fast. Additionally, I use WordPress on pure NGINX with runcloud server cache. I also enable the Jetpack image CDN.
Cloudways -An alternative that uses Digital Ocean
Some want to avoid as many problems and worries as possible. A company called Cloudways decided to make life easier for those who want to use cloud servers but do not want any headaches.
Cloudways is a kind of managed hosting where you choose a server from Digital Ocean, Vultr, google, Linode or Amazon. You rent this hosting directly from Cloudways and you don't need to have an account or lose your mind on any of the other servers mentioned.
The advantage of Cloudways is that they offer many options for security and optimization of hosting. They have their own panel like Runcloud and offer many options to activate and deactivate in one click. They offer a separate email service and also a CDN.
It is a good system for those who want to make life easier, the big problem is its price, which gradually increases depending on the server hardware you are going to use. A $ 5 cloud at Digital Ocean costs $ 10 on Cloudways with everything to offer, but a $ 20 server from Digital Ocean costs $ 42.
This is a little unfair, whoever buys a cheaper server pays only $ 5 to use Cloudways, but if the person wants a robust server pays $ 22 for Cloudways services? If you intended to use a DO $ 5 Droplet, we recommend using Cloudways.
Use our Cloudways referral link to register and win a few free trial days.
I was very anxious to use Cloudways, but after a lot of indecision, I ended up opting for runcloud, but I still recommend some to try Cloudways, especially if you want to avoid headaches.
I hope you enjoyed our article on Digital ocean! In my opinion it is without a doubt the best cloud server or cloud hosting for websites. If you liked the article, share it, and also leave your doubts or opinions in the comments.
What did you think of Digital Ocean? Stay tuned as many other articles on how to set up Digital Ocean, Runcloud, Cloudways, and other cloud hosting services can be found on my website. I am Kevin Henrique, and I conclude this article on the Best Cloud Hosting – Digital Ocean!