DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider. I used its Droplet virtual machines for early DigiSpace projects, managing the Linux environment and deploying the applications myself.

Working with Droplets

Running separate virtual machines gave each service its own configuration and release cycle. The work included web servers, database setup, firewall rules, operating system updates and backups. A Droplet is an unmanaged server: creating it is quick, but keeping its software running remains the operator's responsibility.

Moving to dedicated hosting

As my hosting setup grew, I moved workloads to a rented Hetzner dedicated server with Proxmox. Docker made the application environments easier to transfer. Persistent data, DNS changes and recovery planning still needed separate attention.

How I compare hosting options

I consider resource use, maintenance time, backup storage and availability requirements together. Cloud virtual machines are useful when environments need to be created or resized independently. A dedicated server can suit steady workloads, but it also concentrates services on one physical machine. Neither option is automatically cheaper for every project.