How to Create Your First DigitalOcean Droplet (Step-by-Step)
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 moment you're done.
This guide takes you from zero to a working, secured server. No prior experience required.
What You'll Need
- A credit card or PayPal account for the DigitalOcean signup
- A computer with a terminal (Mac: Terminal app, Windows: PowerShell or Windows Terminal)
- About 10 minutes
Step 1: Sign Up for DigitalOcean
Go to DigitalOcean and create an account. You'll need to verify your email and add a payment method. DigitalOcean charges a $5 hold that's immediately refunded — it's just to verify the card is valid.
Once you're in, you'll land on the main control panel. It looks busy at first, but you only need one button: Create at the top right.
Step 2: Create Your First Droplet
Click Create → Droplets. You'll see a page with a series of choices. Here's what to pick if you're starting out:
Choose a region. Pick the data center closest to your users. If you're not sure, New York or San Francisco work well for North American traffic.
Choose an image. This is the operating system that goes on your server. Choose Ubuntu 24.04 (LTS). Ubuntu is the most widely used Linux distribution for servers — you'll find more tutorials and help for it than anything else.
Choose a size. For a first project, the Basic plan at $6/month (1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB SSD) is plenty to get started. You can resize later if you need more power — no need to over-provision on day one.
Set authentication. This is how you'll log in to your server. The two options are:
- SSH key — More secure, harder to set up if you've never done it. Recommended for anything you'll run long-term.
- Password — Easier to start with, but less secure. Fine for learning and experimenting.
If you choose password, pick something strong — your server will be on the public internet within minutes.
Give your Droplet a name (anything you like), then click Create Droplet.
DigitalOcean will build your server. This takes about 30–60 seconds. When it's done, you'll see your Droplet listed with an IP address — something like 143.198.32.15. That's your server's address on the internet.
Step 3: Log In to Your Server
Open your terminal and type:
1ssh root@YOUR_IP_ADDRESS
Replace YOUR_IP_ADDRESS with the IP shown in your DigitalOcean control panel.
The first time you connect, you'll see a message asking if you trust this server. Type yes and press Enter. Then enter your password if prompted.
You should see a welcome message from Ubuntu — something like Welcome to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. You're now inside your server.
Step 4: Create a Regular User Account
Right now you're logged in as root, which has unlimited power to change or break anything on the server. It's good practice to create a regular account for everyday use and only use root when necessary.
Create a new user (replace yourname with whatever you want):
1adduser yourname
You'll be asked to set a password and fill in some optional details (you can skip those by pressing Enter).
Now give that user admin access:
1usermod -aG sudo yourname
This means your regular user can run commands with full admin powers by typing sudo in front of them — but they can't accidentally break things with a typo.
Step 5: Set Up a Basic Firewall
Ubuntu comes with a firewall tool called UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall). By default it's off. Turn it on and make sure SSH stays accessible:
1ufw allow OpenSSH
2ufw enable
When it asks "Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)?", type y.
Your firewall is now active. Any connection attempts that aren't explicitly allowed will be blocked. We'll open additional ports (like 80 and 443 for web traffic) later when you install a web server.
Step 6: Log In as Your New User
Open a new terminal window and log in as the user you just created:
1ssh yourname@YOUR_IP_ADDRESS
If it works, you're done. You now have a secured server with a named user account and an active firewall.
You can close the old root session.
What's Next
Your Droplet is running and secured. From here you can:
- Host a website — install Nginx or Apache and serve a site. See our guide on hosting a website on DigitalOcean.
- Run a web app — deploy Node.js, Python, PHP, or any other app.
- Set up a development environment — use the server as a remote dev machine.
DigitalOcean's documentation has step-by-step tutorials for nearly every common task, and they're among the clearest in the industry.