DigitalOcean

Overall: I've been really happy with DigitalOcean. I started out just messing around with a small side project to stay sharp. I'm now running a server for an API, another server for a frontend app, and a managed DB that the API pulls from. Connecting these was easy and connecting my domains to different servers was easy. I have loved working in DigitalOcean and I love that the prices are low enough that I could play around without any real intent of making a profitable project, and that breathing space let me run the servers and resources for long enough that I actually have something up and running pretty nicely with just a few hours here and there to tinker.

Pros: - Great UI - you can do everything in the browser without using CLI - create new web servers, managed databases, bucket storage - API matches Amazon S3 - familiar methods of interacting with resources - Pricing is great, 200GB bucket storage runs $5/mo, Servers start at $5 month, managed DB at $15/mo. - CDN for fast delivery across the globe - Easy to understand your bill and not get bit. You can create an image of your server and then kill the server, so you are not being charged server prices ($$/month) and just image prices (pennies/month). This makes it easy to put a project on hold and come back in the future without paying a ton to host something that's just waiting for you. - One-click to spin up a provisioned Ubuntu droplet, LAMP stack or dozens of preconfigured server images. I especially liked this feature because I'm not a linux genius and getting Apache and PHP setup can take me hours of tears and frustration. Instead, you can just select an image that interests you and 30 seconds later you have a server ready to go. - Floating IPs let you lock in a permanent IP address even though you may start and stop servers and their individual IPs might change - Domain management. This is a key feature. If you move your nameservers to DO, it's stupid easy to create subdomains and point them to your DO servers. - Easy to resize/upgrade a server, add RAM or disk space. - Tons of Q&A, any time I had a question someone else had already asked it and received a clear answer.

Cons: There is the occasional UI bug, and sometimes I get an email about a region having some temporary hold on creating new servers. Nothing that lasts more than a few minutes, and usually its something like "We are temporarily disabling the ability to create new servers in the NYC3 Region" but existing resources don't go down and if I desperately needed to start a new server I could just use any other region and move it to the NYC3 region later if necessary.

Reasons for Choosing DigitalOcean: Amazon is a little more expensive and their UI is not terribly friendly or pretty. I know that seems silly, but in DigitalOcean the UI explains itself and I always know where to look for what I need. Amazon seems like a really busy UI. Pricing is easy to understand and I felt more confident with DO that I wasn't going to get a surprise bill.

Overall: A solid experience but the pricing is far too high. However if budget is not a problem for you, definitely check them out.

Pros: This company does offer some good services and a decent user interface. They are straight forward with the pricing and you know exactly where you stand.

Cons: Far too expensive in the current climate. The market is saturated with cloud-based storage solutions, and with the likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft, there is too much competition for DigitalOcean to provide their services at the right prices.

Overall: Excellent. Start working in minutes, and I am not an IT professsional. Digital Ocean offers very flexible plans and it is very easy to switch alternatives when needed. Invoices are clear and fair. I use Digital Ocean to mount one or more servers for my personal work, involving data analysis and education. It has saved me hours of installing software and allows working virtually from any location and any device.

Pros: Very easy to setup, all the options that I need are available, can start working in minutes.

Cons: I would like more low-cost alternatives.

Reasons for Choosing DigitalOcean: Digital Ocean is very, very easy to setup, even for non-experts as my case. I have found straightforward directions to install every software I have needed, with up-to-date information.

Reasons for Switching to DigitalOcean: The former service was very difficult for me.