Shared hosting is a fine starting point. It's cheap, setup is simple, and someone else handles the server. But at some point, many sites outgrow it — and when they do, the experience gets frustrating fast. This guide explains how to recognize when you've hit that wall, what you actually gain by moving to a DigitalOcean …

A Droplet is what DigitalOcean calls a virtual private server — it's a Linux computer running in a data center that you control entirely. Once it's set up, you can host a website, run an app, store files, or use it as a development environment. You pay by the hour (or a flat monthly rate), and you can delete it the …

Once you have a DigitalOcean Droplet running, the next thing most people want to do is put a website on it. This guide shows you how — step by step, in plain English. We'll install a web server called Nginx (pronounced "engine-X"), upload your site files, point your domain to the server, and turn on HTTPS. By the end, …