If you’re looking to use a VPS (virtual private server), but don’t know where to start, DigitalOcean is one of the most popular options on the market today. The company offers many different plans and option packages that make it easy to get started with your first virtual machine. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to sign up for a DigitalOcean account, create your first droplet, choose an operating system, select a size for your VM, and add an additional option or leave it blank. You can learn more about Digitalocean Account by reading this article on “Buy Digitalocean Accounts”. Let’s begin our discussion of the main topic.
IMHO, Digital Ocean is simply the best option for hosting a WordPress website if you don’t want to spend a lot of money. From my experience with their service, they’ve been fast and responsive whenever issues arise and have been easily accessible via live chat when you need assistance.
Go to DigitalOcean’s website and sign up.
- Go to DigitalOcean’s website and sign up.
- Sign in with an email address, or a Google, Facebook, or GitHub account.
- You will be asked to verify your email address. This is important as it will help you recover your account if anything happens to it (like forgetting your password). Once verified, you’ll receive an email from DigitalOcean asking you to confirm that this is indeed your account before proceeding further. To do this simply click on the link provided in that email and log in again using the same credentials.
- Once logged in again, enter all necessary billing information such as payment method and preferred currency for invoicing purposes (if applicable).
Add your billing information.
Once you’ve created an account, you’ll be taken to the billing page. Here, enter your credit card information for processing and choose how you want to pay for the services: monthly or annually. You can also add a payment method if you don’t want to use a credit card; this could be PayPal or any other option that’s available in your area.
Once this is complete, click “Continue” at the bottom of the screen. The next screen will prompt you for a billing address (this can be different than where you live). Enter it into what’s provided on-screen; then click “Continue” again at the bottom of the window once finished so that another verification code can be sent via text message (or email depending on what works better with your phone) before continuing with Step 3 below!
Create a droplet by clicking the ‘Create Droplet’ button in the top right corner.
When you’re ready to purchase your first digital ocean account, simply click the blue button in the top right corner of their website. This will redirect you to a page that allows you to pick your preferred plan and customize it to fit your needs. You can also choose between three types of images: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, or Debian 8 (Jessie). The difference between these operating systems is explained below:
- Ubuntu 16.04 LTS – this version includes an updated version of PHP 7 and has been optimized for performance machines.
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS – this version includes an older version of PHP 7 but is still considered secure enough for most business’s needs.
- Debian 8 (Jessie) – this OS does not include default support for Docker containers.
Choose an operating system.
In this step, you will be asked to choose an operating system. You can select one of the many available options by clicking on it and pressing ‘Continue’.
- Choose an operating system, version, region, and size of your droplet. This is the virtual machine where you will install the software for hosting your website or application. If you already have a preference for which server environment to use, feel free to skip this section and scroll down until you see “Choose additional options” in bold text; otherwise read on!
- In addition to these basic settings there are also some optional ones that we recommend enabling before proceeding with creating your droplet: “Automatically create a new private network” (this makes it easier for other users on shared servers who want secure connections) and “Enable IPv6 support”.
Once done here click ‘Create Droplet’ at the bottom of this page!
Select a size for your virtual machine.
Select the size of your virtual machine. This can be a tricky decision since there are so many options. The best way to make the right choice is to consider your needs and choose the smallest configuration that meets those needs. If you’re not sure what size would be best for you, leave this field blank, and we’ll help you determine it once we’ve created your account. In most cases, though, adding block storage will go unused as well (unless you need to store large amounts of data).
Select an additional option or leave it blank.
You’ll see that there are several additional options you can choose from. These include:
- Adding a data transfer (1TB for $12/month)
- Adding block storage (20GB for $3/month)
- Adding DNS service (1 domain, no charge)
Conclusion
If you’re looking to start hosting a website or need more disk space, DigitalOcean is an affordable and easy-to-use option. It also offers many different features that other providers don’t have, such as one-click installs and the ability to create droplets from the command line.