I was recently looking for a decently priced VPS where I could host a couple of small to medium sized websites. I actually signed up for a few random ones that I found on Google and tried them for a few days, but they didn’t strike me as working very well. One of them actually crashed after about an hour, and it took about eight hours for support to finally restart it for me.



Eventually I started looking around the internet a bit more, and ran into a relatively new company called Digital Ocean.

I realize that not all web companies have nice looking web pages, but whenever I encounter one that does it immediately makes me feel more comfortable about trying it out. One of the claims on the front page really stood out to me: Deploy a SSD Cloud Server in 55 seconds. I had to test it out just to test that claim. Here is my Digital Ocean review of their VPS after using it for about a ten days.

Signing-up

To get your first Droplet going (Digital Ocean’s name for a VPS deployment) you have to enter your billing details as well as hand over your credit card. Digital Ocean actually offers per-hour billing for all their VPS offerings, so the credit card information is taken just to ensure they can bill you at the end of the month.

Their introductory Droplet configuration has 512MB of RAM, 1 CPU core, 20 GB on a SSD drive, and includes 1TB of transfer. I think it’s a pretty impressive offering, and is more than enough to run a basic web server. As I mostly deal with WordPress websites, I rarely ever hit my disk space limits. But I personally find RAM and the number of cores makes a big difference in the responsiveness of a webserver.

That’s why I eventually opted to test out the $20/month plan. While it has more storage space and more bandwidth, I really wanted it for the additional CPU core and RAM, both of which I believe helps with hosting websites.

When you create your Droplet, you have the option to configure a few different aspects of your VPN:

Your Droplet hostname
Your Droplet size and configuration
The region your Droplet will be deployed to. Right now there are two regions in New York City, one in San Francisco and one in Amsterdam.
The initial operating system and application set to be installed on your Droplet. In terms of operating systems you can choose from Centos, Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux, and Fedora.
Digital Ocean Operating Systems
Digital Ocean Operating Systems

As soon as you choose these options, your Droplet will begin being deployed. There is a little progress bar to show you the progress, but it’s not amazingly helpful since it seems to jump in stages. But as promised my Droplet was ready to go in less than 60 seconds, and I received an email with my server’s IP address and the root password for the system.

I was originally going to install cPanel on the server so I could easily administer some websites for friends and family, but I actually couldn’t find a license anywhere on the Internet for less than $15 per month. I don’t mind paying $20 per month for a VPS to host a few websites, but tack on another $15 per month (bringing the total to $35 per month) and it’s just a bit too much money to spend monthly.

Eventually I decided to install ISP Config 3 which is a free, albeit less refined, alternative for cPanel. It took a bit of getting used to, but it lets you easily manage a web server environment without having to modify configuration files manually all the time.

I’ve been really happy with the performance so far of my VPS Droplet. While my personal website doesn’t generate a huge amount of traffic, it’s enough that a typical shared hosting provider tends to not work that great for me. In terms of system load, I’m usually hovering around 0.10 during most times of the day, which is quite low for having two CPU cores available. As you can see in the performance graphs shown above (which you can review for each Droplet you have running), the CPU is pretty stable and definitely has some room to spare.

I was actually interested in downsizing to the $10 per month Droplet to see what kind of difference it makes for hosting my website, but that operating currently isn’t supported. However the option most people would probably want to use, increasing the size of their Droplet, is supported and can be performed in about a minute or so.

I think being able to deploy a new Droplet in less than 60 seconds is an amazingly useful feature, as it means developers can easily add resources whenever they need them. Plus the pricing is more enticing that Amazon EC2, and I think it would be fairly trivial to use the Digital Ocean API to create an expandable web or cloud service that could scale as needed, similar to Amazon EC2 and Amazon’s Simple Queue Service.

All in all I’ve been really happy with my new Digital Ocean VPS. It’s currently running this website, as well as my girlfriend’s and my dad’s. I still have some room to spare, which is great because I like to tinker on various things from time to time.

I’m still on Digital Ocean, and still loving them. A few of my friends have migrated their websites (and their client’s websites as well) and they love it.
When I first started looking at Cloud hosting, I did quickly hear about two services, iwStack.com and DigitalOcean. One month ago I signup for an account with DO, and have used their Amsterdam 2 DC since that. As always I started with a small VPS plan, to test uptime, network, hardware etc. Here is my review of DigitalOcean.


Product/hardware/price


DigitalOcean is not really a cloud host, but they offer cloud features like pay by the hour, snapshots, templates, quick deployment, use your credit to create lots of servers, backups, several locations etc. But still, you get a “normal” KVM server. They have no High Availability, no Fail-Over, no Own ISO, no External Firewall with GUI etc like iwStack do.


But still, they have a really good product. It’s super simple to create new droplets, it takes only around 55 seconds before it is online (you get the root password on e-mail)


Their prices starts at $5/mo or $0.007/hour. You pay for what you use, and they do only bill by the hour. But they do charge you 100% regardless of your servers is turned on or off. Still, you can create a template, and delete your server, then recreate it later on when you need it, without paying for it. Unlike iwStack.com, they do not charge for template/backup disk space.

Service/Support


The first (and only) time I used their support so far, it was a mixed experience. I asked them some really short and clear questions, and got BS replies back. But I had stumbled on a little “trade” secret, that the normal support guy did not know (or wanted to reply on). I did not understand why I could not get any reply, after I had repeated my self for the third time. I then tweeted about this issue, and then it took under 10 minutes before I got a reply, both on twitter and on my support ticket. This time from a Support Specialist. I got a really good explanation on my question, and as a really nice thing I got a credit on my account.

Benchmark


The first test is with a 16 GB 8vCore server, and I got a UnixBench result of 2844. I did then run a test on a 64 GB 20vCore server, and the result was: 4226 points. It currently holds the 5.place on my Top20 list. I could not test their 96 GB RAM 24vCore server, they have disabled it on all locations because of high demand.

I get an average of 215 MB/S on my DD test, and thats not so impressive since they offer pure SSD disks on the nodes. I get twice that on iwStack, that “only” used normal disks in a SAN. Still, 215 MB/s is not bad, but it’s not Ramnode speeds either.

Network/uptime


My monitoring services tells me that I have a 100% uptime the last 30 days with 1 minute monitors. I’m using their AMS2 location for my test server.

Conclusion


DigitalOcean is not a complete cloud host, it lack some cloud features like HA, fail-over, firewall etc, but it still is a really good host. Servers is deployed within one minute, you can choose from several locations, templates etc. You can create templates and backups that you can transfer from EU to US and visa versa.


Their servers is really good, you can resize your servers with one click, and their uptime is really good. (the best).
Signup and do a test for your self, I’m sure you will like DO as much as I do.
DigitalOcean Coupons are promotional codes that can be used when ordering a DigitalOcean VPS or Dedicated Server in order to get a discounted price. If you have a DigitalOcean promo code that is not listed on our site, you can submit your DigitalOcean coupon here. How to Redeem a Coupon? - Choose a coupon that is the most suitable for your VPS or Dedicated plan; - Click the show coupon button next to the coupon; this will copy the coupon in your clipboard and it will open the DigitalOcean website; - Paste (Ctrl + V) the coupon in the order form; - Enter all the details in the order form and submit your order.



Basically, this service was introduced as an effort to attract more customers and also to show a bit of appreciation to the already existing ones. The promo codes and coupons are available under varying names and will expire on  this year. A few examples of coupon codes include.


It is quite simple and even conveniently, allows flexibility and saves on time. To get started and enjoy this promo codes and coupons, you need to visit the official DigitalOcean website, www.digitalocean.com and then sign up using you a valid email address.
Once you have created an account, you will be prompted to login, click on the “Get started” button to proceed. You will then be asked to fill in your billing account after which you will automatically be awarded with a $20 or $10 depending on the Digital Ocean Coupon you are using. Finally, deposit $5 using PayPal to enjoy free hosting services for up to 5 months.

For those of you who are familiar with websites and website hosting, at one point or the other, you must have heard about VPS hosting. This is a package that even the most experienced webmasters prefer to use for their hosting services simply because of its flexibility and unlimited number of options unlike with the normal shared hosting. Digital Ocean caught people’s attention when they introduced a package that allowed its subscribers to pay only $5 per month for VPS hosting, an investment that is rather expensive with other hosting companies. In addition, in bids to promote their services, Digital Ocean has now introduced a couple of discounted services popularly known as Digital Ocean Promo Code and Digital Ocean Coupons. These services let you as a subscriber to enjoy the same hosting services but at a fairly discounted rate.

In this article, we will be discussing about Digital Ocean promo and Coupons, but first, let us briefly go through the advantages of Digital Ocean.

Advantages of Digital Ocean


Digital Ocean services are affordable- actually, Digital Ocean is among a few hosting companies that provide cheaper VPS hosting.
Super high speed hard driver SSD- again, though cheaper, Digital Ocean provide stable hosting and interserver that are fast and easy to work with. In addition, their data centers are scattered all over guaranteeing excellent speed to all their subscribers regardless of their location.
Friendly support center- DO may be one among a few hosting companies with platforms that allows easy communication between clients and administrators. These community panels are user friendly and include; zpanel guide, VPS centOS, cpanel to mention but a few.
Digital Ocean have plenty of promotion program like the popular DigitalOcean free $5, $10, $15, and $20 credit that can be added to your account.
Each VPS is available in its own dedicated IP address and absolutely for free.
They provide DNS management for multiple domains.
They have enhanced their security and even made it more convenient by allowing easy and secure mobile login via mobile phone.
DigitalOcean Server Specification

512Mb ram DO package: System Benchmarks Index Score 910.1
1GB ram VPS DO package: System Benchmarks Index Score 1603.4.
Besides Vultr, DigitalOcean has been known as one of the best cloud hosting providers. With a cheap price level, you can start for only $5/month and have 512MB of memory, 1 Core CPU, 20GB SSD disk and 1TB bandwidth…

Moreover, their service is also very professional, the supporter answers quickly and enthusiastic. And no need to worry about payment method cause you can easily use PayPal or Credit Card to pay.
DigitalOcean often offers free credit for new customers by using Promo Code. After registering an account, go to Settings/Billing and enter the coupon code in the field, you will get $10 for free. The amount can be used for 2 months with the $5/month plan – 512MB of memory.
Note:
  • You have to use the promo code right after registering in order to get the credit.
  • Using time limits within 12 months.

How to use DigitalOcean Promo Code?

2. Access and confirm the email address.
3. Add $5 via Paypal account or add Credit information to verify account in the Billing section.
4. Enter the coupon code and you’ll receive $10 right away.
I’ve been trying DigitalOcean and I’m completely satisfied with their products. So let experience yourself.