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DigitalOcean logo

DigitalOcean

Self-managed cloud servers for developers, billed by the second..

DigitalOcean rents virtual servers called Droplets, starting at $4 a month, plus managed databases, storage and an app platform. You set up and maintain the server yourself, and billing runs per second up to a fixed monthly cap. It does not offer classic web hosting with a control panel, email or domains.

Move in if you rundevelopers
Think twice if this bothers youSelf-managed, you handle updates, security and backups
Rent over three years$144

One floor per score. Lit windows out of five.

DigitalOcean logoDigitalOceanfrom $4.00/mo See DigitalOcean's prices

What comes with the flat

  • Entry Droplet from $4 a month, no long contract
  • Per-second billing capped at the monthly price
  • 12 data centre regions on three continents
  • Public IPv4 included in the Droplet price
  • Trustpilot score of 4.5 across about 2,603 reviews

The small print

  • Self-managed, you handle updates, security and backups
  • Backups cost 20 to 30 percent of the Droplet price
  • Free support is email and tickets only
  • No control panel, email hosting or domain registration

Floor plans

Basic Droplet 512 MiB

$4.00 /mo
then $4.00/mo
1 vCPU, 512 MiB RAM, 10 GiB SSD, 500 GiB transfer
Too little memory for most WordPress sites.

Basic Droplet 1 GiB

$6.00 /mo
then $6.00/mo
1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD, 1,000 GiB transfer

Basic Droplet 2 GiB

$12.00 /mo
then $12.00/mo
1 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 50 GiB SSD, 2,000 GiB transfer

Basic Droplet 4 GiB

$24.00 /mo
then $24.00/mo
2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer

Read on 2026-10-14 on DigitalOcean's own pricing page, USD excl. tax. Work out the rent year by year

What the neighbours say

4.5
out of 5 on Trustpilot
2,603 reviews, read 2026-10-14

Our verdict

Good for developers and small teams who are comfortable on the command line and want clear, predictable server prices in 12 regions. Beginners who expect a ready WordPress host with support on call should look at a managed host instead. Free support is by ticket only, and faster help costs extra.

The details

Kinds of hosting
cloud
Control panel
custom cloud console, no hosting panel
Backups
Paid: 20% of the Droplet price for weekly or 30% for daily, or usage-based from $0.01 per GiB
Support
Free email and ticket support; faster paid support plans
Moving in
do it yourself
Free domain
no
Free SSL
No
Data centers
San Francisco, USA, New York, USA, Richmond, USA, Kansas City, USA, Atlanta, USA, Toronto, Canada, Amsterdam, Netherlands, London, United Kingdom, Frankfurt, Germany, Bangalore, India, Singapore, Sydney, Australia
Prices are the Basic Droplet table; the page does not say whether it is Regular or Premium CPU, and Premium prices were not shown. No money-back guarantee exists, usage is billed as it runs. SSL is not included on a bare Droplet, you install a free Let's Encrypt certificate yourself. The pricing page only gives a $5, 90-day credit as an example, and a review mentions $200 for new accounts; neither was confirmed as a current offer on DigitalOcean's site. Scores are editorial. Billed per second up to the monthly cap, so the only term is 1 month.

Sources

Scores are our reading of the sources above, on a 1 to 5 scale. We did not run our own server tests for this listing.

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