DigitalOcean

In 2003, Ben Uretsky and Moisey Uretsky, who founded ServerStack, a managed hosting business,{{cite web |last1=Luenendonk |first1=Martin |title=DigitalOcean | Interview with its CEO – Ben Uretsky |url=http://www.cleverism.com/digitalocean-interview-ceo-ben-uretsky/ |work=Cleverism |date=2015-01-03}} wanted to create a new product that would combine web hosting and virtual server and target entrepreneurial software developers.{{cite web |last1=Reich |first1=Dan |title=Startup CEO: Ben Uretsky on Launching Digital Ocean, Raising Money And Joining TechStars |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/danreich/2012/09/19/startup-ceo-ben-uretsky-on-launching-digital-ocean-raising-money-and-joining-techstars/#6b24a3554d42 |work=Forbes}}

In 2012, the Uretskys met co-founder Mitch Wainer following Wainer's response to a Craigslist job listing.{{cite web |last1=Bort |first1=Julie |title=These Guys Met On Craigslist And 2 Years Later Their Startup Raised $37 Million And Is Threatening Amazon |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-from-craigslist-to-amazon-killer-2014-4 |work=Business Insider |language=en}} The company launched their beta product in January 2012.{{cite web |last1=Duskic |first1=Goran |title=Fast Growing DigitalOcean Is Fueled By Customer Love |url=https://whoapi.com/blog/1497/fast-growing-digitalocean-is-fueled-by-customer-love/ |work=WhoAPI |date=2013-12-26}} In mid-2012, the founding team consisted of Ben Uretsky, Moisey Uretsky, Mitch Wainer, Jeff Carr, and Alec Hartman. DigitalOcean accepted the offer of TechStars 2012's startup accelerator in Boulder, Colorado, and the founders moved to Boulder to work on the product.{{cite web |last1=Lardinois |first1=Frederic |title=Digital Ocean's Journey From TechStars Reject To Cloud-Hosting Darling |date=23 March 2014 |url=https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/23/digital-oceans-journey-from-techstars-reject-to-cloud-hosting-darling |work=TechCrunch |language=en}} At the end of the accelerator program in August 2012, the company had signed up 400 customers and launched around 10,000 cloud server instances.{{cite news |url=https://www.techstars.com/content/blog/techstars-demo-day-boulder-2012/ |title=Techstars Demo Day: Boulder 2012 |date=2012-08-09 |work=Techstars |access-date=2018-04-27 |language=en-US |archive-date=2018-04-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180428093639/https://www.techstars.com/content/blog/techstars-demo-day-boulder-2012/ |url-status=dead}} On January 16, 2018, new droplet (virtual machines) plans were introduced.{{cite web |first1=Ben |last1=Schaechter |url=https://blog.digitalocean.com/new-droplet-plans/ |title=Kicking Off the New Year with New Droplet Plans |date=2018-01-16 |website=The DigitalOcean Blog}} In May 2018, the company announced the launch of its Kubernetes-based container service.{{cite web |title=DigitalOcean launches its container platform – TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/02/digital-ocean-launches-its-container-platform/ |access-date=2018-05-11 |website=TechCrunch |date=2 May 2018 |language=en-US}}{{cite news |title=DigitalOcean launches Kubernetes-based container service |newspaper=The Economic Times |url=https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/corporate/digitalocean-launches-kubernetes-based-container-service/64007829 |access-date=2018-06-27 |language=en}}

In June 2018, Mark Templeton, former CEO of Citrix, replaced co-founder Ben Uretsky as the company's CEO.{{cite news |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/digitalocean-new-ceo-former-citrix-chief-mark-templeton.html |title=Former Citrix chief Mark Templeton takes over at cloud start-up DigitalOcean |last=Novet |first=Jordan |date=2018-06-20 |work=CNBC |access-date=2018-06-22}} In July 2019, Yancey Spruill, former CFO and COO of SendGrid (a fellow Techstars company), replaced Templeton as CEO.{{cite web |last1=Lardinois |first1=Frederic |date=2019-07-30 |title=DigitalOcean gets a new CEO and CFO |url=https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/30/digitalocean-gets-a-new-ceo-and-cfo/ |access-date=2019-07-31 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US}} Bill Sorenson, former CFO of EnerNOC, was appointed as the company's new CFO. Spruill left DigitalOcean in February 2024.{{cite news |last1=Koebler |first1=Jason |title=CEO Attempted to Navigate Anti-LGBT Hate Incident By Telling Employees His Mentor Was a KKK Member |url=https://www.404media.co/ceo-attempted-to-navigate-anti-lgbt-hate-incident-by-telling-employees-his-mentor-was-a-kkk-member/ |access-date=December 5, 2024 |work=404 Media |date=December 5, 2024}}

In September 2021, DigitalOcean announced plans to acquire Nimbella, a serverless startup. In March 2022, the company acquired CSS-Tricks, a learning website for front-end developers.{{cite web |title=As Austin aims to build a Southern Silicon Valley, it's spending $20 billion on infrastructure |url=https://fortune.com/2022/03/15/austin-southern-silicon-valley-20-billion-infrastructure/ |access-date=2022-04-07 |website=Fortune |language=en}}{{cite web |last=Gooding |first=Sarah |date=2022-03-15 |title=DigitalOcean Acquires CSS-Tricks |url=https://wptavern.com/digitalocean-acquires-css-tricks |access-date=2022-04-07 |website=WP Tavern |language=en-US}}

In May 2022, the company released DigitalOcean Functions.{{cite web |last=Miller |first=Ron |date=2022-05-24 |title=DigitalOcean launches serverless product based on Nimbella |url=https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/digitalocean-launches-serverless-product-based-on-last-years-nimbella-acquisition/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US}}{{cite web |last=De Simone |first=Sergio |date=2022-05-29 |title=DigitalOcean Enters the Serverless Arena with DigitalOcean Functions |url=https://www.infoq.com/news/2022/05/digitalocean-functions-serverles/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=InfoQ |language=en}} Based on technology acquired from Nimbella and the open source Apache OpenWhisk project, DigitalOcean Functions is a serverless platform that allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage servers.{{cite web |last1=Banergee |first1=Zinnia |date=2022-05-31 |title=DigitalOcean launches a serverless computing solution |url=https://analyticsindiamag.com/digitalocean-launches-a-serverless-computing-solution/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=Analytics India Magazine |language=en-US}}{{cite web |last1=Mann |first1=Tobias |date=2022-05-24 |title=DigitalOcean sets sail for serverless seas with Functions |url=https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/24/digitalocean_serverless_functions/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=The Register |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Dee |first1=Katie |date=2022-05-24 |title=DigitalOcean launches serverless offering |url=https://sdtimes.com/softwaredev/digitalocean-launches-serverless-offering/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=SD Times |language=en-US}}{{cite web |last=Kerner |first=Sean Michael |date=2022-05-27 |title=DigitalOcean Functions Enables Serverless Cloud Infrastructure |url=https://www.itprotoday.com/cloud-computing-and-edge-computing/digitalocean-functions-enables-serverless-cloud-infrastructure |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=ITPro Today |language=en}}

In August 2022, DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways, a Pakistani cloud hosting service provider, for $350 million in an all-cash deal.{{cite web |title=DigitalOcean acquires Pakistan's Cloudways in $350m deal |url=https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/digitalocean-cloudways-305116/ |access-date=2022-08-24 |website=DealStreetAsia}}

In March 2025, Flexential announced a partnership with DigitalOcean to expand its GPU infrastructure.{{Cite web |title=Flexential to Support DigitalOcean's GPU Infrastructure Expansion with High-Density Deployment |url=https://www.flexential.com/resources/press-release/flexential-support-digitaloceans-gpu-infrastructure-expansion-high-density |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=Flexential |language=en}} The partnership involves a phased deployment of high-density GPU servers at Flexential's Atlanta-Douglasville data center, aimed at supporting AI and machine learning workloads.{{Cite web |title=Flexential Backs DigitalOcean’s GPU Expansion |url=https://hostingjournalist.com/news/flexential-backs-digitalocean%E2%80%99s-gpu-expansion |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=HostingJournalist.com |language=en-US}} This expansion is expected to provide additional GPU Droplets powered by NVIDIA H200 and AMD Instinct GPUs.{{Cite web |date=2025-03-18 |title=Flexential Backs DigitalOcean's GPU Expansion with High-Density Deployment |url=https://hostdean.com/news/flexential-backs-digitaloceans-gpu-expansion/ |access-date=2025-03-19 |website=HostDean |language=en-US}}

On January 15, 2013, DigitalOcean became one of the first cloud-hosting companies to offer SSD-based virtual machines.{{cite web |last1=Dillet |first1=Romain |title=TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS To Take On Linode And Rackspace |date=15 January 2013 |url=https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/15/techstars-graduate-digitalocean-switches-to-ssd-for-its-5-per-month-vps-to-take-on-linode-and-rackspace/ |work=TechCrunch |language=en}} Following a TechCrunch review, which was syndicated by Hacker News, DigitalOcean saw a rapid increase in customers. In December 2013, DigitalOcean opened its first European data center, located in Amsterdam.{{cite web |last1=Lardinois |first1=Frederic |title=DigitalOcean Expands In Europe With New Amsterdam Data Center, Singapore Coming Next |date=2 December 2013 |url=https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/02/digital-ocean-launches-amsterdam-data-center-location/ |work=TechCrunch |language=en}} During 2014, the company continued its expansion, opening new data centers in Singapore and London.{{cite web |title=DigitalOcean Cloud Expands In Europe, Asia |date=2 December 2013 |url=http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/platform-as-a-service/digitalocean-cloud-expands-in-europe-asia/d/d-id/1112850 |work=InformationWeek}} During 2015 DigitalOcean expanded further with a data center in Toronto, Canada.{{cite web |last1=Galang |first1=Jessica |title=DigitalOcean Launches First Canadian Data Centre in Toronto |url=http://betakit.com/digitalocean-launches-first-canadian-data-centre-in-toronto/ |work=BetaKit |date=2015-09-23 |language=en}} and Frankfurt,{{cite web |title=DigitalOcean Opens New Data Center in Germany |url=https://www.digitalocean.com/press/releases/digitalocean-opens-new-data-center-in-germany |url-status=dead |access-date=2020-11-20 |archive-date=2020-11-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201119214523/https://www.digitalocean.com/press/releases/digitalocean-opens-new-data-center-in-germany/}} Germany. Later in 2016, they continued expansion to Bangalore, India.{{cite web |last=Hossen |first=Galib |date=2016-05-31 |title=Digitalocean Has Recently Launched a Datacenter BLR1 in Bangalore, India {{!}} DigitalOcean |url=https://affiliatiz.com/digitalocean-launched-a-datacenter-in-india/ |access-date=2016-06-03 |website=Affiliatiz}}

The company's seed funding was led by IA Ventures and raised US$3.2 million in July 2013.{{cite web |last1=Farr |first1=Christina |date=2013-08-07 |title=Developer favorite Digital Ocean nabs $3.2M for its cloud hosting service |url=https://venturebeat.com/2013/08/07/developer-favorite-digital-ocean-nabs-3-2m-for-its-cloud-hosting-service/ |work=VentureBeat |language=en}} Its series A round of funding in March 2014, led by venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz, raised US$37.2 million.{{cite web |last1=Kerner |first1=Sean Michael |title=DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M in New Funding to Build Cloud |url=https://www.eweek.com/cloud/digitalocean-raises-37.2m-in-new-funding-to-build-cloud/ |work=eWeek |date=6 March 2014 |language=en}} In December 2014, DigitalOcean raised US$50 million in debt financing from Fortress Investment Group in the form of a five-year term loan.{{cite web |last1=Vanian |first1=Jonathan |title=With a $50M line of credit, DigitalOcean will build more data centers |url=https://gigaom.com/2014/12/09/with-a-50m-line-of-credit-digitalocean-will-build-more-data-centers/ |work=GigaOm |date=2014-12-09 |access-date=2016-02-12 |archive-date=2018-08-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826122004/https://gigaom.com/2014/12/09/with-a-50m-line-of-credit-digitalocean-will-build-more-data-centers/ |url-status=dead |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Chernova |first1=Yuliya |title=DigitalOcean Arms With $50 Million in Debt for Big Data-Center Battle |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/12/09/digitalocean-arms-with-50-million-in-debt-for-big-data-center-battle/ |work=Wall Street Journal |date=2014-12-09 |language=en}} In July 2015, the company raised US$83 million in its series B round of funding led by Access Industries with participation from Andreessen Horowitz.{{cite web |last1=Vanian |first1=Jonathan |title=This fast-rising cloud startup just raised $83 million |url=http://fortune.com/2015/07/08/digital-ocean-raised-83-million/ |work=Fortune |language=en}} In April 2016, the company secured US$130 million in credit financing to build out new cloud services.{{cite news |url=http://fortune.com/2016/04/14/digitalocean-130-million-cloud/ |title=DigitalOcean Gets Mo' Money To Build its Cloud |work=Fortune |access-date=2018-06-22 |language=en}} In May 2020, DigitalOcean raised an additional $50 million from Access Industries and Andreessen Horowitz.{{cite web |last1=Wilhelm |first1=Alex |date=2020-05-14 |title=DigitalOcean raises $50M more from Access Industries and a16z |url=https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/14/digitalocean-raises-50m-more-from-access-industries-and-a16z/ |access-date=2020-05-15 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US}}

On March 24, 2021, DigitalOcean became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange,{{cite web |title=DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. (DOCN) Stock Price, News, Quote & History – Yahoo Finance |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DOCN/ |access-date=2021-03-24 |website=finance.yahoo.com |language=en-US}} with their initial public offering price at $47 per share.{{cite web |last=Linnane |first=Ciara |title=DigitalOcean IPO prices at $47 a share, high end of range |url=https://www.marketwatch.com/story/digitalocean-ipo-prices-at-47-a-share-high-end-of-range-2021-03-24 |access-date=2021-03-24 |website=MarketWatch |language=en-US}}

Digital Ocean was blocked throughout Iran as part of its attempt to cut off use of the Lantern internet censorship circumvention tool.{{cite web |url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-january-3-2018-1.4470118/january-3-2018-episode-transcript-1.4472036#segment1 |title=January 3, 2018 Episode Transcript |work=The Current |publisher=CBC |access-date=4 January 2018 |language=en}}

According to Russian law, any host keeping its citizens' personal data needs to be located in Russian territory. This law led to a temporary block in April 2018 of Google, Amazon, Azure, and DigitalOcean, among others, in Russia by Roskomnadzor as a hosting provider for Telegram Messenger and VPS services.{{cite web |title=Russia bans Google Cloud, Amazon, Azure, Digital Ocean, Online.net, Hetzner, OVH, others |url=https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/142577/russia-bans-google-cloud-amazon-azure-digital-ocean-online-net-hetzner-ovh-others |access-date=2020-08-30 |website=LowEndTalk}}{{cite web |author1=Skymmer |title=Problem while trying to access 7-zip.org on some ISPs |url=https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/discussion/45797/thread/5965858b33/?limit=25#75ea |website=SourceForge |access-date=17 January 2019 |date=17 January 2019 |language=ru}}

DigitalOcean offers virtual private servers (VPS), or "droplets" using DigitalOcean terminology, using KVM as the hypervisor{{cite news |url=http://www.itekhost.net/digitalocean-vs-linode/ |title=DigitalOcean vs Linode – Detailed Comparison |work=iTekHost.net |access-date=2018-04-19 |language=en-US |archive-date=2016-07-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160712215539/http://www.itekhost.net/digitalocean-vs-linode/ |url-status=dead}} and can be created in various sizes (divided in two classes: standard and optimized), in 13 different data center regions ({{as of|December 2020|lc=y|post=)}}{{cite web |url=https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/platform/availability-matrix/ |title=DigitalOcean: Regional Availability Matrix |website=HostAdvice |access-date=2020-12-10 |date=2017-11-06 |language=en-US}} and with various options out of the box, including six Linux distributions and dozens of one-click applications.

In early 2017, DigitalOcean expanded their feature set by adding load balancers to their offering.{{cite news |last=Warren |first=Justin |title=DigitalOcean Adds Load Balancers |work=Forbes |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinwarren/2017/02/21/digital-ocean-adds-load-balancers/#46de7f7e787f |access-date=2017-08-29 |language=en}} Their platform is an alternative cloud offering and the company targets smaller developers, allowing them to spend as little as five dollars on their platform.{{cite web |last1=Kerner |first1=Sean Michael |date=2022-02-28 |title=DigitalOcean Grows Alternative Cloud as Akamai Linode Looms Large |url=https://www.itprotoday.com/cloud-computing-and-edge-computing/digitalocean-grows-alternative-cloud-akamai-linode-looms-large |access-date=2022-03-02 |website=ITPro Today |language=en}}

DigitalOcean can be managed through a web interface or using {{mono|doctl}} command line.{{cite web |last1=Mudrinić |first1=Marko |url=https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-doctl-the-official-digitalocean-command-line-client |title=How To Use Doctl1, the Official DigitalOcean Command-Line Client |date=2018-01-08 |language=en}}

DigitalOcean also offers block and object-based storage and since May 2018 Kubernetes-based container service.

Reviewers have noted that DigitalOcean requires users to have some experience in sysadmin and DevOps. In his review for ScienceBlogs, writer Greg Laden warned: "DigitalOcean is not for everybody. You need to be at least a little savvy with Linux ... "{{cite web |last1=Laden |first1=Greg |title=Setting up a Digital Ocean remotely hosted WordPress blog |url=http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/11/18/setting-up-a-digital-ocean-remotely-hosted-wordpress-blog |work=ScienceBlogs}}

In 2021, DigitalOcean launched a managed MongoDB database service.

{{As of|2021|post=,}} DigitalOcean is hosting publicly available community forums and tutorials on open source and system administration topics. {{As of|August 2014|post=,}} the service claimed to have over 1,000 vetted tutorials.{{cite web |last1=Dillet |first1=Romain |title=DigitalOcean Raises $37.2M From Andreessen Horowitz To Take On AWS |date=6 March 2014 |url=https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/digitalocean-raises-37-million-from-andreessen-horowitz/ |work=TechCrunch |language=en}}{{Failed verification|date=July 2021}}

In 2017, in partnership with Stripe, DigitalOcean sponsored the Libscore tool to freely provide the developer community with open access to analytics on web development tools.{{cite web |last1=Kokalitcheva |first1=Kia |date=2014-12-16 |title=Libscore launches to track the most popular JavaScript libraries on the web |url=https://venturebeat.com/2014/12/16/libscore-launches-to-track-the-most-popular-javascript-libraries-on-the-web/ |access-date=2017-01-18 |website=VentureBeat |language=en}}

DigitalOcean Marketplace provides facilities to quickly deploy popular software bundles. Internally it's run by DigitalOcean Kubernetes, OpenChannel for the catalog API and data warehouse and Cloudflare for CDN and load-balancing.{{cite web |last1=Rosales |first1=Antonio |date=2019-10-25 |title=How we launched our Marketplace using DigitalOcean Kubernetes – Part 1 |url=https://blog.digitalocean.com/how-we-launched-our-marketplace-using-digitalocean-kubernetes-part-1/ |access-date=2019-10-25 |work=DigitalOcean |language=en}}

DigitalOcean was widely criticized for its role in creating a perverse incentive when it promoted Hacktoberfest 2020 with free t-shirts for contributions to open source projects, resulting in massive spurious pull requests on open source GitHub repositories, amounting to an unintentional "corporate-sponsored distributed denial of service attack against the open source maintainer community".{{cite web |date=2020-09-25 |title=Hacktoberfest 2020 |url=https://laravel-news.com/hacktoberfest-2020 |access-date=2021-01-31 |website=Laravel News |language=en}}{{cite web |last=Portfolio |first=Hwee's |title=#Shitoberfest: How free T-shirts ruined #Hacktoberfest2020 |url=https://ongchinhwee.me/shitoberfest-ruin-hacktoberfest/ |access-date=2021-01-31 |website=ongchinhwee.me}}{{cite web |last1=Thoms |first1=Joel |date=2020-10-01 |title=How One Guy Ruined #Hacktoberfest2020 #Drama |url=https://joel.net/how-one-guy-ruined-hacktoberfest2020-drama |access-date=2021-01-31 |website=joel.net |language=en}}{{cite web |title=DigitalOcean's Hacktoberfest is Hurting Open Source |url=https://blog.domenic.me/hacktoberfest/ |access-date=2021-01-31 |website=Hidden Variables |date=30 September 2020 |language=en}} DigitalOcean was quick to respond, and issued updates to Hacktoberfest to help prevent this, by allowing open source maintainers to specifically opt into Hacktoberfest, updating the Hacktoberfest process to allow maintainers to mark content as spam, and preventing repositories set up just to game the system from participating.{{cite tweet |number=1312220884665536512 |user=digitalocean |title=We heard you & made the biggest... |date=3 October 2020}}{{cite web |url=https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/faq |title=Hacktoberfest '21 |access-date=2021-02-16 |archive-date=2021-05-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210503011803/https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/faq/ |url-status=dead}}{{cite web |url=https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/details/#spam |title=Hacktoberfest 2018 |website=DigitalOcean |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181014194927/https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/details |archive-date=2018-10-14}}{{Better source needed|date=July 2021}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{official website|https://www.digitalocean.com/}}

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