Migration is inevitable. But when businesses hear that word, it often triggers a wave of dread. Visions of endless processes, skyrocketing costs, and inevitable downtime start dancing in their heads. But does it have to be this complicated?

At Corewide, we’ve helped hundreds of companies navigate the choppy waters of cloud adoption, working with every major platform out there – AWS, GCP, Azure, DigitalOcean, Alibaba, and the list goes on. We’ve seen it all, done it all, and lived to tell the tale.

How does one decide if one cloud suits their project better than another? Corewide’s way is to list things that make it worth looking at – and then decide if these features matter for your project. Our architects do the similar exercise with our customers when a migration is on the horizon, and we often wonder how DigitalOcean gets overlooked by them until we start highlighting some of the neat points about it. What’s worse is that in the scope of fairly the same services DigitalOcean has a lot to offer that you can simply miss out on by not having enough experience with the platform.

Today, we share a handpicked list of reasons why we think not considering DigitalOcean as your future cloud provider is a mistake. And these aren’t just nerdy engineering details – they’re details that can have a massive impact on your business. I hope you’re curious by now, so let me explain.

Simplicity That Doesn’t Sacrifice Power

This one is a bit philosophical: tinkering is fun but does your business need it? At Corewide, we embrace the values of DevOps culture, and that means we believe that the less effort you spend wrestling with infrastructure, the better.

Don’t get us wrong—we’re no strangers to complex projects, we’ve tackled our fair share of exotic implementations, but we prefer ours to be as straightforward and transparent as possible. DigitalOcean clearly wins in this regard because it doesn’t overwhelm you with options. You don’t need to be an infrastructure guru to understand how to work with their platform – or to spin up a project that only needs stable computing resources and a reliable database.

Instead of hundreds of disparate services, DigitalOcean offers a curated set of tools that seamlessly integrate and support each other. This simplifies your infrastructure setup and empowers you to focus on building and scaling your applications, rather than getting bogged down in complex configurations.

Like any cloud provider, DigitalOcean is a resource, it’s a tool – and a powerful one at that. But it aligns perfectly with our philosophy: things should work well out of the box, but when you want to enhance your infrastructure, the platform should empower you, not hinder you. That’s precisely what DigitalOcean delivers.

Cost-Efficiency That Doesn’t Cost You Your Sanity

Let’s face it: everything boils down to money. As cynical as it sounds, if your cloud spending is eating into your budget for product innovation, it’s holding you back.

It’s no secret that DigitalOcean offers a refreshingly sane pricing model compared to the “big three” cloud providers. It strikes a sweet spot between the behemoths and smaller niche players.

But simply migrating to a cheaper cloud isn’t a silver bullet. The real challenge we’ve seen with many clients is managing cloud costs effectively. Just think about it: cloud billing has become so complex that it’s spawned an entire industry of Cloud Cost Optimization/Management tools and services. It’s ridiculous!

DigitalOcean’s superpower is its transparency in cost management. There are no hidden costs lurking in the shadows, waiting to surprise you at the end of the month. Just a quick example: DigitalOcean offers a shared pool of traffic, so you don’t need to grapple with complex formulas to calculate the cost of inbound or outbound data transfer.

Most clouds nickel and dime you for every byte that goes in or out of your network. But with DigitalOcean, you get a generous chunk of network transfer per virtual machine – starting at 0.5TB, the bigger the droplet, the greater your traffic pool – baked right in, for free. And here’s the kicker: any unused bandwidth from one machine can be used by another in your pool. Sure, they’ll charge you if you go over your limit, but you’d have to be pushing some serious traffic to hit that threshold. Plus, with more machines comes more included bandwidth, so you’re less likely to get burned by surprise charges. It’s like getting a free pizza with every beer you order – it’s just good business.

Managed Databases That Just Work

Managing databases can feel like herding cats. It’s a complex dance of configurations, optimizations, and backups that can quickly turn into a full-time job. While every cloud provider claims to offer “managed” databases, the reality often falls short.

DigitalOcean, however, delivers on its promise. Their managed database service wrangles the most popular database engines – PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, and even Kafka – into a single, streamlined offering that truly lives up to the “managed” label.

PostgreSQL users will appreciate the platform’s robust connection pooling, which simplifies database connection management and optimization. Tightly integrated into the DigitalOcean ecosystem, PostgreSQL can be controlled from a single, intuitive interface. It’s the kind of set-it-and-forget-it solution that DevOps engineers dream of, and it won’t break the bank either.

When it comes to MongoDB, DigitalOcean gives you the real deal – native MongoDB, not some watered-down imitation. Other cloud providers often offer MongoDB-compatible alternatives, but while they can match the performance and scalability of the real deal, they don’t support some Mongo-specific functionality – which is likely why you’ve chosen MongoDB in the first place.

Similarly, not every cloud provider offers native Kafka support. And let’s be clear, there’s no substitute for Kafka when you need a high-throughput, distributed streaming platform. DigitalOcean understands this, which is why they offer Kafka as a fully integrated service on their platform, not as a third-party afterthought.

While backups aren’t a groundbreaking feature, DigitalOcean’s implementation is top-notch. By now, everybody is used to configurable backup policies in their clouds – but DigitalOcean takes this a step further. Backups for managed databases are enabled out-of-the-box with dedicated storage capacity based on how much data you have. And the best part? It’s all included in the price. No hidden fees, no gotchas.

At first glance, DigitalOcean’s managed databases might not seem groundbreaking, but look under the hood, and you’ll find a meticulously crafted engine that’s been fine-tuned for performance, reliability, and ease of use. If you’re tired of wrestling with database management, DigitalOcean’s managed databases might just be the secret weapon you’ve been searching for.

Documentation That Empowers

If you’ve ever worked with us, you know we’re documentation fanatics. We believe in crafting guides so clear that even your grandmother could understand them. So, as documentation enthusiasts, we have a lot to say about DigitalOcean’s approach.

We’re big fans of DigitalOcean’s documentation. It strikes the perfect balance between being comprehensive and concise. If we had to describe it in two words, they would be: simple and clear.

But what truly sets it apart is the invaluable contribution of the DigitalOcean community. Their articles make up the vast majority of the documentation, ensuring that you can find a guide for virtually any topic. These community-driven resources are always up-to-date and often include templates and examples to help you get started quickly.

And here’s the kicker: these guides often go beyond DigitalOcean-specific solutions, offering insights and best practices that can be adapted to other cloud environments. If you ever had to Google how to deploy something anywhere, odds are one of the first articles you encountered was one of the guides from the DigitalOcean community. It’s like DigitalOcean is secretly helping users of other cloud platforms – talk about good karma!

In contrast, some cloud providers seem to think documentation is about telling what to do without explaining how it works. My favorite joke here is about an article that literally says “Enable FeatureX checkbox enables FeatureX”, and I wish it was just a joke. 

DigitalOcean, on the other hand, is all about clarity and practicality. Their community-driven documentation is a testament to their commitment to empowering users, regardless of which cloud platform they choose. It’s a refreshing change of pace in an industry that often seems more interested in confusing you than helping you.

Kubernetes Done Right

Working with Kubernetes is the bread and butter of a DevOps engineer’s life. It’s the engine that powers modern cloud-native applications, orchestrating containers like a conductor leads an orchestra. And despite DigitalOcean’s reputation for simplicity, their Kubernetes offering is anything but basic. In fact, it’s fully loaded, and we’re absolutely smitten with it – but in the best DO fashion, it’s not complex until you decide you want to dive deeper.

DigitalOcean’s Kubernetes (DOKS) goes toe-to-toe with the competition, offering all the features you’d expect from a mature, enterprise-grade platform. It comes with autoscaling out of the box, ensuring your clusters can handle any workload you throw at them. And thanks to their diligent maintenance and upgrade schedule, you’ll always be running the latest and greatest Kubernetes version.

Everything you’d expect from a managed Kubernetes is there: seamless integration with other DigitalOceanservices, like block storage and load balancers, but without crippling restrictions on the control plane level. . And for those who love tinkering, DOKS offers plenty of customization options, allowing you to fine-tune your clusters to perfection.

With that said, what’s so special about DO’s flavor of Kubernetes? Not much: it just works. But that alone in my book is a good reason to try it out.

A Cloud Provider That’s Heading in the Right Direction

We believe that before making any migration decision, it’s crucial to look beyond individual services and assess the cloud provider’s overall trajectory. Are they innovating? Are they listening to their customers? Are they focused on the things that would benefit your project in the long run?

DigitalOcean checks all those boxes. They’re evolving at a rapid pace, but they’re doing it strategically. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, they’re doubling down on the core services that businesses actually need. They’re focused on quality, not quantity: somebody out there clearly knows the hidden meaning of “Jack of all trades”.

Take their App Platform, for example. It’s essentially Kubernetes with a user-friendly web interface, making it accessible to a wider audience. Or consider their networking capabilities. Before October 2020, DigitalOcean didn’t offer VPCs (virtual private clouds). Now, they provide robust network control, allowing you to isolate and secure your resources like a pro.

Their managed database offerings have also been steadily expanding. Initially, they offered the essentials: MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis. In June 2021, they added MongoDB to the mix, and more recently, in September 2023, they launched managed Kafka, giving you even more flexibility to build the data layer your apps crave.

As engineers, we’re particularly impressed with the quality of their API and their well-written Terraform provider. It’s clear that DigitalOcean is a provider that truly listens to the needs of businesses and continuously improves its services to meet those needs. They’re not just sitting in their ivory tower; they’re getting their hands dirty and building solutions that actually work.

And that’s the principle we believe should be at the core of any company’s development. DigitalOcean is a cloud provider that’s not just keeping up with the times, they’re actively evolving one practical innovation at a time.

Support That’s Got Your Back

Let’s be honest, when it comes to cloud infrastructure, things can (and will) go wrong. That’s why having a reliable support team is like having a trusty sidekick in a superhero movie – they’ve got your back when the villains strike. With our own crack at the SRE department, we’re not just familiar with the importance of support, we’re on the front lines every day.

But when it comes to DigitalOcean’s support, we’ve never had a bad experience with them, and we’ve thrown some unexpected curveballs their way. Their team is responsive, knowledgeable, and genuinely eager to help you solve your problems. They don’t just read from a script; they actually understand the ins and outs of their platform and can offer practical solutions.

And because DigitalOcean’s documentation is so comprehensive (as we mentioned earlier), their support team can often point you to the exact resource you need to get back on track. It’s like having a personal guide who knows all the secret passages and shortcuts in the cloud.

“Even if you don’t subscribe to our support services, I’d say DigitalOcean’s support is a solid investment. It’s worth every penny.”

A Minor Quibble (Because We’re DevOps, Not Cheerleaders)

In true DevOps fashion, we can’t wrap up without a touch of constructive criticism. Despite all the positives, it wouldn’t be fair to our expertise if we didn’t mention the shortcomings we’ve encountered with DigitalOcean.

In true DevOps fashion, we can’t wrap up without a touch of constructive criticism. Despite all the positives, it wouldn’t be fair to our expertise if we didn’t mention the shortcomings we’ve encountered with DigitalOcean.

While our direct support interactions with DigitalOcean have been smooth, we’ve noticed some recent delays in their status updates regarding their own infrastructure health. Transparency and timing are crucial, especially when it comes to the stability of the very platform we rely on.

On a more positive note, we’re thrilled to report that DigitalOcean finally added granular role-based access control (RBAC) in August of 2024—a feature users have been eagerly awaiting for years! Access to most of the DigitalOcean services can now be managed with RBAC. However, it’s not all smooth sailing just yet. It currently only supports a predefined set of roles. While it is possible to assign these roles to team members, it’s not quite as flexible as full-fledged RBAC yet.

Our partnership with DigitalOcean gives us valuable insights into their current offerings, but not their future product roadmap until it’s ready for partners. However, we’re optimistic that they’ll continue enhancing RBAC soon, since the core functionality has already been rolled out.

So, Is DigitalOcean Right for You?

For a business considering a cloud migration, it’s crucial to understand what you’re getting into. DigitalOcean isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. They don’t offer specialized services for machine learning or high-performance computing (HPC), for example. We’re not claiming DigitalOcean is the one-size-fits-all cloud for every project.

Like any cloud provider, DigitalOcean has its niche, and within that niche, they’re a force to be reckoned with. So, manage your expectations accordingly.

Considering making the switch to DigitalOcean, but not sure if it’s the right move? Book a free consultation with our team and we’ll help you assess your needs, weigh the options, and make an informed decision. Or it might turn out DigitalOcean isn’t for you – but we’ll still be the ones to give you the straight talk.

P.S. If you think this is just a thinly veiled advertisement, we’re happy to debate it on LinkedIn or hop on a call to discuss your specific needs. We’re confident that once you experience DigitalOcean’s simplicity, transparency, and developer-friendly approach, you’ll see why we’re such big fans.