Cloud Hosting
DigitalOcean Reviews for Your Web Hosting Needs
Website users must be familiar with web hosting, or commonly known as, (just) “hosting”. You could say hosting is an initial requirement for building a website. For those of you who are just about to create your own personal website or your company’s website, you need to know what hosting actually is and why its existence is so necessary to do?
In case you are not familiar, hosting is a storage place for all data on a website, in the form of writings, pictures, videos, music, and the list goes on and on. If there is no hosting, the data on the website cannot be displayed. Hosting itself consists of several kinds of options that website users can choose and use according to their needs.
Each of the web host service providers in the market offers different types of hosting to suit their client’s needs. There are mainly 5 examples of hosting that are most often used by website users such as Shared Hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting, Cloud Hosting, WordPress Hosting and Dedicated Server Hosting. However, here, we will focus on discussing only one of the types of hosting above, mainly Cloud hosting.
Cloud hosting is the best solution for those of you who want the convenience of shared hosting with dedicated resources such as a VPS. In fact, this technology has been widely used by web developers since the early 2000s. The primary use of a cloud server is to store data connected to the internet network. Storing data using a cloud server is also more practical than storing data on a physical device.
Therefore, before you go for this particular hosting provider, it’s a good idea that you learn a little bit about this provider which will be reviewed in the DigitalOcean reviews down below.
An Overview of DigitalOcean
The DigitalOcean hosting provider, whose main headquarter is in New York, is one of the most popular names in the world of servers.
The company itself provides cloud hosting infrastructure, and the most interesting thing is that most website users use SSDs (Solid State Drive) which work faster than HDDs (Hard Disk Drive).
This particular cloud hosting provider is reserved specifically for developers of all scales, from individuals to businesses.
In addition, since 2011, DigitalOcean offers what is known as a cloud developer which is a type of network with virtual machines designed to allow users to upgrade as their website grows.
Unlike other hosting companies, DigitalOcean specializes in cloud computing, which it does not really provide shared or VPS hosting.
As you land your sight on this hosting website, it’s hard to tell what it actually does. Since, this developer is clearly focused on attracting experts in website developers, and it’s almost plain and straightforward homepage is actually aiming at keeping out non-technical visitors, of course.
Meanwhile, the company founded by Ben and Moisey Uretsky, has spread across 12 data center locations in various parts of the world, including San Francisco, Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Singapore, and even India, and also serves more than one million developers in 195 countries.
Thus, DigitalOcean itself provides several types of cloud server packages even from the cheapest ones.
And moreover, with the cloud feature, you can upgrade to a higher package with only one click, or if you don’t need to, just downgrade again.
Very simple plan right?
With all that, are you now curious about the Pros and Cons of DigitalOcean?
Well, on this next discussion, a more in depth information, specifically about DigitalOcean reviews altogether will be discussed, so that you will know and are able to decide between using it or leaving it.
DigitalOcean Pros
The ease of convenience and usage are always prepared by DigitalOcean.
Thus, this will make it easier for all website developers to be more productive on the software development side.
Therefore, some of the advantages of DigitalOcean are as follows:
● The subscription price is inexpensive
When compared to other hosting, you can say that DigitalOcean is reasonably priced.
With the cheapest package for US $5, you can have a self hosted Cloud VPS, which is also pretty similar to shared hosting.
● The use of SSD devices that will benefit all users
When compared to HDD, SSD has a much faster speed and makes it superior to HDD devices.
This means that your website’s performance will also improve significantly.
● Fairly easy installation
DigitalOcean Cloud hosting labeled their installation system as “droplets”. This is also like an unfilled private VPS.
Once the droplet has been created, you will also have a public IP address that you can access immediately.
In the droplet creation process, you can choose what operating system you want to apply to the droplet.
Thus, you will be given the options to choose from CoreOS, Fedora, Ubuntu, and many more.
Meanwhile, in order to install with “just one click”, the options available such as WordPress, Ruby on Rails, NET Core, and others.
● Interesting hosting packages
They offer several levels of cloud-based hosting depending on your storage and volume requirements, and are billed monthly or hourly.
The level you choose will determine the amount of memory, processor core, disk space, and transfer limits already included in your package.
● Free credit worth US $10
DigitalOcean hosting also gives you the opportunity to get a free credit worth US $10. Plus, this way the droplets can be used for as long as two months.
For more information, you can get the information by visiting the hosting official website.
● Fairly good uptime
Uptime is still safe based on monitoring data from Uptime Robot.
● Migration
To perform a migration, you just need to change the nameservers at your registrar. This process is fairly straightforward and easy.
DigitalOcean Cons
As a matter of fact, no human creation is perfect. This includes the world of technology that most certainly have some weaknesses in the making.
Thus, this applies to the cloud server technology as well. Therefore, before deciding to use DigitalOcean, then you might also need to know what its weaknesses are.
In addition to the various advantages that they offered, hence, these are the disadvantages of DigitalOcean:
● Digital Ocean providers are not ideal for beginners
As has been mentioned, this Cloud hosting provider aims for website developers who have more understanding of the website hosting world and technology.
● The registration process is also complicated
Upon your subscription with DigitalOcean, a form of identity verification is required and you will be asked to upload a scan of your ID.
● DigitalOcean is a little off when it comes to speed
Too bad, in terms of speed, DigitalOcean is a bit slow. The reason is the fact that the disk speed of DigitalOcean is only 193 Mbps.
● Unmanaged support system
In terms of the quality of support, their system is unmanaged. So, you have to adjust everything alone or you can just read the tutorial on the DigitalOcean website itself.
Maybe this feels a bit complicated if at some point you are unable to fix some of the technical problems yourself.
Final Thoughts on DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean is a specialist provider, so it is most suitable for developers who want to install a cloud infrastructure (cloud hosting) at an affordable cost.
In terms of speed, it is considered a disadvantage. However, for a good experience of your website making process, it’s good enough since the price is quite friendly which makes it have an advantage.
Overall, it has all the features you would expect a cloud provider to provide, and for a fairly reasonable price as well.
Should you choose to continue using DigitalOcean? Yes, you should as long as you pay close attention to its terms of service and all agreements before you sign-up.
In other words, as with any web hosting, it all has its advantages and disadvantages, but as long as you fully understand what you are buying, there will be no problems.
If you want to use Virtual Server Cloud hosting services with simple usage and also using a SSD device, then DigitalOcean is the best solution for you.
Otherwise, if a simple web cloud hosting provider without complicated technical details is what you are looking for, then DigitalOcean is not suitable for your website needs.
DigitalOcean is generally suitable as an option for experienced developers who prefer flexible hosting needs with complete control over their own servers.
Hence, this hosting company is suitable for independent developers who are already adept at managing their own websites and finding answers to any technical glitches.
So, hopefully, the DigitalOcean reviews mentioned above can be a reference for you and will be useful for choosing your website hosting later on.
