Digital Ocean and Vultr are Hosting companies.  They specialize in Cloud hosting.  The servers they use are called Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or Cloud servers and the names are often used interchangeably.  This type of hosting has it’s benefits over shared hosting.  Think of it like this…There are three main hosting platforms that you need to know about; Dedicated, Cloud, and Shared.  Shared servers are like sharing a house with a bunch of people.  Everyone shares what the house offers (water, heat, elec, etc).  Cloud Servers are like solo apartments.  You share the building with others but you control what utilities you use.  You have your own heat and water specifically for your space.  Your hot water isn’t affected when your neighbor decides to take a shower.  Dedicated servers are like owning your own house by yourself.  You have no neighbors and you have full control of your structure (house).

This is precisely how the servers work, except picture your house (your server) using Cpu, Ram, Bandwidth, Memory, etc, instead of heat, water, and electricity!

Cloud servers are an affordable option to maximize your site speed and control, without paying the high costs of a dedicated server.  Also, you don’t have to deal with the sluggish behavior of shared hosting.  They offer many benefits over shared hosting and are widely recognized for their speed.  Resources like RAM and CPU are dedicated to you and are not shared with others.  Digital Ocean and Vultr have server locations placed around the world, thus making it easier (and faster) for your customers to reach you.  If the majority of your traffic comes from California, then simply choose to be uploaded to a server in California.  If you have a global campaign, then choose a central location.  Another great feature that VPS Cloud servers offer, is their ability to be scaled or become “elastic”.  If you are receiving more online traffic than expected or if your website goes viral, simply log into your account and add more resources accordingly.  You can pay as you go and scale your resources back down after your traffic surge.  They are built for you to be independent and successful.  We recommend starting on a $15 a month plan and then working your way up if need be.  15 dollars a month should account for about 70 thousand page views per month.  If you know your site gets over 5 thousand visitors a day, you could pay more for VPS resources, but you should look into getting a dedicated server at that point.

We set you up on a Digital Ocean Virtual Private Cloud Server (VPS) from Cloudways.  You can also choose other hosting servers such as Amazon Web Services, Vultr, Google Cloud Platform, or Kyup.  We recommend Digital Ocean, as these are the cheapest servers and the ones WE trust.

Cloud servers and Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are the same thing and the names are often used interchangeably.  Do not be fooled though; there are hosting companies that sell VPS’ that are NOT cloud servers.  This is because, older VPS are still in use and do not offer the same features and flexibly as the new ones.  Cloud Servers, or new VPS offer much better flexibility for sites that get large amounts of on and off traffic, as you can purchase higher resource levels as you go.  You can even set the server so it automatically adjusts for you depending on your traffic.  Cloud Servers are the way of the future and are quickly growing because they are very fast and are more reliable for speed.  Most cloud server companies have several server locations to support all areas of the world, thus leading to faster connections depending where people visit your site from.  You can choose what geographical area you want your server to be in!  Digital Ocean uses solid state drives (no moving hard drive parts) which are better for speed and durability.  These cloud servers are shared with other customers, but resource levels are designated just to you so you won’t get bogged down by other sites on the server.  These are NOT your typical “shared servers’ from Go Daddy and Host Gator!

The problem with Cloud Servers is that they are very difficult to set up if you don’t know what you’re doing.  The good VPS companies don’t offer easy front end control panels yet, so making changes and uploading your site is not easy.  BUT!…We set you up with a company (Cloudways) that creates an easy front end control panel for you, and has a great VPS Cloud infrastructure designed for everyday people.  They support the best Cloud server companies like Digital Ocean, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, and Google!

Cloud hosting starts at about $17 per month but sometimes the $7 option is just fine.  For 90 percent of the sites we upload, we recommend starting in that price range.  Anything cheaper or anything that is NOT substantially more money, WILL NOT HELP YOUR SITE.  Do not be fooled!  Consult with us before you get sold something that is useless.  There are probably about 50 hosting levels and platforms that actually do nothing for your site speed.  They are all sales pitches to make MORE MONEY!!!  The only servers you need to know about are Dedicated Servers (your own personal expensive server), and VPS Cloud Servers (speedy and scalable shared server).  A content delivery network (CDN) could also be configured with your server if you need to support global traffic.  These are storage units placed around the world that store a copy of “some” of your websites content for faster loading times in a specified area.

If you want your site to be uploaded with a different hosting company or put on other servers, then it’s possible we can accommodate your request.  Just specify what you want in the form before purchasing.