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Cloud hosting is an essential component for businesses to manage and store data online, reducing costs and minimizing the risks of losing critical data by storing everything in a dedicated server or system. Digital Ocean is a fantastic option for businesses and users seeking a reliable and cost-effective cloud hosting solution.
Our team at Aloa understands the importance of cloud hosting services for the development processes. We empower our clients looking to develop a consistent online presence to find a reliable website service. Digital Ocean is a platform we reviewed that can help manage and store data while maintaining sufficient and reliable uptime to prevent crashes or critical information loss.
This blog post will discuss Digital Ocean's different features and benefits. We will also discuss the product's pricing plans and the functionality behind Digital Ocean as a cloud hosting solution.
Let's start.
What is Digital Ocean?
Digital Ocean is a cloud-hosting software solution that provides quick and seamless applications to help scale innovation and increase productivity in the workflow. This platform offers multiple additional tools, solutions, and products to help develop the right system for your business.
Users interested in Digital Ocean can take advantage of its many products and software solutions to help businesses reach their full potential. Software developers will find that this company can offer flexible services to fully utilize each component of cloud hosting and manage open source API or set up mobile application development.
Digital Ocean Capabilities and Features
Digital Ocean offers a wide selection of features that open up opportunities for different companies to scale their business to their specific target goals. Each product and service can be individually toggled on or off depending on the business's needs while minimizing unnecessary resources and development time costs.
Droplets
Cloud computing makes developing virtual machines to run online businesses fast and stable. Regardless of the scale and scope of the API, companies can easily choose to scale their droplets based on the intensiveness of the software. Basic and general-purpose virtual machines, memory-intensive, storage-optimized, and CPU-centered applications are all options that businesses can choose when developing a new droplet console.
Kubernetes
Digital Ocean's Kubernetes is an open-source system that manages containerized workloads and services designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. This system ensures automatic scaling alongside protecting your clusters with seamless SnapShooter backups intended to manage data clusters.
Containers are lightweight, portable units that encapsulate software and its dependencies, making deploying and running applications consistently across various environments easier. Digital Ocean helps businesses launch their applications and websites reliably and rapidly.
Paperspace
There is a rapid increase in AI or machine learning-focused businesses. Most cloud hosting services would offer products directly contributing to developing these advanced technologies. GPU-powered Jupyter IDE can help craft a proof of concept for startups, while businesses wanting to shift towards artificial intelligence and machine learning can train and fine-tune their models directly using Paperscape.
Digital Ocean also offers GPU instances to enable desktop cloud support while opening up collaboration tools and integrations to help streamline and automate the software development process.
Cloudways
Establishing an online presence is the main component of web hosting. Cloudways is the premier cloud hosting service that Digital Ocean utilizes to help businesses create a simple website in under a couple of minutes.
Their product also comes with a dedicated team of cloud hosting experts monitoring each website to ensure that it operates at high performance at all times. It also comes fully equipped with advanced DNS and DDOS protection to ensure safety and security with sensitive company data.
App Platform
Digital Ocean offers a fully managed and specialized app development center that prioritizes the serverless components of an application. The service also focuses on increasing scalability without adding unnecessary costs to its clients by modifying the software's main foundation and structure to suit bigger data blocks and future development integrations.
Use Cases of Digital Ocean
Digital Ocean has an extensive list of services and solutions that interested customers can choose depending on their project goals. One of the main benefits of utilizing this cloud hosting solution is its robust network of servers to ensure that your data is accessible at all times through its extensive system.
Programming Language Support
All software development projects come out of the box with developers and engineers who can craft a system entirely in multiple programming languages. More complex application and web hosting systems can be quickly addressed with an extensive team ready to develop the project in multiple programming languages, including Node.js, Python, Django, PHP, and more.
Affordable Web Hosting
Managing an online website takes more than building a website. You need to take care of SEO, web hosting control panel, domain expiration, technical audits and much more. Keeping the domain and site operating at peak capacity is a complicated process that requires careful management and maintenance. Digital Ocean provides affordable VPS hosting and web hosting solutions that businesses can choose to help manage the size and scale of their browser site regardless of the company's position.
SaaS platform
Service as a software businesses can develop and deploy their applications and virtual machines through Digital Ocean's fully managed services. Companies looking for an all-in-one solution to craft and host their apps can utilize this service to help reduce the costs of outsourcing development to other businesses.
Data Streaming and Storage
Tracking and managing storage data can cause significant problems for smaller businesses that need help to afford a solution that can organize their records. Data streaming websites can use Digital Ocean's Kubernetes and host their website on a secure cloud hosting service while capitalizing on containerization for all future storage needs.
Linux Hosting
DigitalOcean allows businesses to utilize their cloud hosting solutions to operate on Linux platforms, enabling more complex development techniques to ensure that the site operates based on its specific design. Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Debian, and Rocky Linux, give more options for companies to specialize and optimize their system integrations.
Pros and Cons of Digital Ocean
Like other products on the market, Digital Ocean offers plenty of benefits that can help consumers find the right cloud-hosting services and solutions they need. Understanding the main positives while addressing some of the negatives can also aid users in making an informed decision.
Pros
Let's start with the positives. Digital Ocean is one of the best options for affordable cloud hosting services. The company boasts a wide selection of solutions and tools to help make the security and development process much easier to manage.
Here are some of Digital Ocean's main pros:
Simplicity in Design
A design approach with cloud hosting is a necessity. Storing data across the internet would mean that each client that utilizes this type of service needs to be able to access and maneuver around the platform easily. Digital Ocean keeps its user interface in a minimalist, clean design to ensure users can easily take advantage of its many features.
Transparent Pricing
Digital Ocean prides itself on being transparent and direct with its pricing plans. Each plan is written with a direct price point on how much every service and solution costs. This pricing method allows customers to pick and choose specific functionalities or services they need from Digital Ocean while also having peace of mind, knowing that the prices they receive are fair and transparent.
Easy-to-Understand User Interface
User interface and user experience are two components that Digital Ocean focuses on with its cloud service. The simple-to-understand design gives companies complete control over different functions through a comprehensive control panel. Droplets also make it simple for all users to create virtual machines of varying sizes with a couple of buttons.
Cons
Digital Ocean is a developing cloud hosting service that offers plenty of opportunities for companies to develop their APIs quickly. However, there are notable cons to take note of for companies that are looking to choose this site as their hosting partner.
Here are some of the common cons reported for Digital Ocean.
High Learning Curve
Digital Ocean offers a large selection of features and solutions that can aid companies in scaling their business to their specific goals in mind. However, users report a steep learning curve, which makes understanding and fully capitalizing on the services more difficult if there is a lack of software development knowledge. Hiring developers proficient with programming to fully utilize all of Digital Ocean's products and solutions is highly recommended.
No Uptime Guarantee
Cloud hosting requires constant online presence and reliability to ensure that all data processes are stored and accessible at all times. Although Digital Ocean boasts a consistent cloud system, their services do not offer a no uptime guarantee for clients. Businesses requiring constant shifting on their data and development must secure a reliable backup service to ensure no data loss.
Smaller Online Presence Compared to Mainstream Services
Digital Ocean contains many unique solutions and products to help its clients attain their goals as a cloud hosting service. However, comparing the market reliability and feature-rich services to more extensive and more mainstream cloud solutions such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud shows its smaller online presence.
Digital Ocean Reviews
Compiling reviews for Digital Ocean allows potential customers to have a hands-on guide from experienced users at a glance. We gathered the most comprehensive review scores for Digital Ocean from the most respectable websites to ensure that all businesses have a transparent look.
- Capterra: 4.7/5
- G2: 4.6/5
- Software Advice: 4.7/5
- TrustRadius: 8.0/10
Digital Ocean is highly regarded in most reviews and offers an extensive look at the capabilities and potential of this cloud hosting service. Most positive reviews talk about the abundance of features and the flexibility of each solution to cater to each user’s specifications. On the other hand, the most common critique is the initial difficulty or learning curve to fully capitalize on the software.
Digital Ocean Alternatives
Interested companies that want to compare the services of Digital Ocean can take the opportunity to read about other cloud hosting services on the market. These alternatives offer different features and functionalities yet function in the same industry. Users can also use these options to determine the core services needed for your cloud hosting needs.
Vultr
Vultr hosts servers across 32 countries across the globe. Companies that use this business can select specific regions for their websites and applications to be hosted to ensure stable and reliable speeds and connections. Powered by NVIDIA Global Cloud GPUs, websites can run using a full stack cloud computing system tailored for specific business use.
Vultr Pricing Plans
- Cloud Compute: Ranging from general purpose to GPU-specific options for pricing considerations.
- Block Storage: Starting at $1/month per 10GB.
- Kubernetes Engine: Free of charge/ pay only for storage space usage.
- Object Storage: $6/month for 1TB of Storage and 1TB of Bandwidth.
Vultr Ratings
- Capterra: 4.3/5
- G2: 4.2/5
- TrustRadius: 7/10
Akamai
Akamai, formerly known as Linode, offers cloud computing services aimed at scalable online platforms and applications. With a one-click app marketplace, users can have an easier time hiring specific software developers who are well-versed in handling the exact parameters set for each project. CLI and API functionality allows for better handling for server management and monitoring for each client.
Akamai Pricing Plans
- Cloud Compute: Pricing varies based on memory usage and choice between dedicated or shared CPUs.
- Block Storage: Starts at $1/month for 10GB up to $1,024 for 10240GB
- Linode Kubernetes Engine: Dedicated 4GB GPU starts at $108/month and up to 512GB for $13,824/month.
- Object Storage: Begins at $5/month for 250GB and reaches maximum price at $20,000/month for 1PB.
Akamai Reviews
- G2: 4.1/5
- TrustRadius: 8/10
Digital Ocean Pricing Plans
Digital Ocean offers a flexible payment module that allows interested customers to select the types of products or solutions that they require in their system. Every service offers a pay-as-you-go system, which can be mixed and matched depending on the requirements and needs of a company.
- Droplets: Starts at $4/month based on the memory per GiB needed.
- Kubernetes: Prices begin at $12/month/node. The maximum cost for the premium option is upwards of $1,310/month/node.
- App Platform: Basic pricing for testing is free for all users, and it then escalates to $12/month for the professional module.
- Functions: Functions vary in pricing depending on the runtime and amount of memory used per GiB, starting at $0.
- Managed Databases: Pricing starts at $15/month for 1GiB, while the highest memory of 64GiB costs users $960.
- Spaces: The amount of buckets used will change the monthly pricing costs. Starts at $5 for 250 GiB and 1 TiB for outbound transfer.
- Volume Block Storage: Starts at $10/month for 100 GiB, and peak pricing costs $100/month for 1,000 GiB.
- Load Balancers: Each node costs users $12/month for 10,000 requests per second, 10,000 simultaneous connections, and 250 SSL connections per second.
- Container Registry: The starter option is free for users, reaching a maximum price of $20/month for the professional module.
- Support: General support is included for free with all services. Additional non-production workloads can utilize enhanced support for $24/month. Meanwhile, production workloads cost $99/month.
- Uptime: Digital Ocean offers a free uptime plan for all clients. Pricing increases to $1 per monthly check after the free 4-month trial period.
Key Takeaway
Digital Ocean is a fantastic option for cloud hosting businesses focused on developing a secure and stable website or application while minimizing direct costs per project development. Additional hosting solutions enable better security and stability for website and application developments to ensure reliable and consistent uptime.
Companies looking to find an affordable platform to develop their API and websites while having an open path for scalability will find Digital Ocean an excellent opportunity to partner with as a cloud hosting service.
If you want to learn more about the Digital Ocean and the benefits of cloud and web hosting, contact us at [email protected].
