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ServerPilot

Create a server on DigitalOcean

Use this guide to begin hosting on servers at DigitalOcean.

Create a DigitalOcean account

You can create a DigitalOcean account at the DigitalOcean account signup page.

Choose a region

A server’s region determines the city where your server will be located.

The following DigitalOcean regions are available.

See the DigitalOcean regions documentation for details about regional availability of some server types and features.

Choose a server plan

DigitalOcean groups servers into five plans. Within each plan, there is a set of vCPU, memory, and disk size combinations you can choose from.

PlanvCPU accessMemory to vCPU ratio
BasicSharedVaries
General PurposeDedicated4:1 (4 GB memory per vCPU)
CPU-OptimizedDedicated2:1 (2 GB memory per vCPU)
Memory-OptimizedDedicated8:1 (8 GB memory per vCPU)
Storage-OptimizedDedicated4:1 (4 GB memory per vCPU)

Within each server plan, DigitalOcean offers multiple CPU options:

  • Regular uses a mix of Intel and AMD processors.
  • Regular Intel uses Intel processors.
  • Premium Intel uses newer Intel processors.
  • Premium AMD uses newer AMD processors.

The price of a server depends on the CPU type as well as the server’s vCPUs, memory, and whether the disk space is doubled (2x the default disk space of the server configuration).

See the DigitalOcean server pricing page for a full list of prices.

Create a server

In DigitalOcean, a cloud server is called a “droplet”.

To create a server:

  1. In the DigitalOcean dashboard, go to the Droplets page.
  2. Click Create droplet.
  3. Choose a Region.
  4. For Datacenter, leave the default option selected.
  5. In the Choose an image section, click OS.
  6. Click Ubuntu.
  7. For Version, select 24.04 (LTS) x64.
  8. Scroll down to Choose Size.
    • Choose a plan.
    • Choose a CPU type.
    • Choose the number of vCPUs, amount of memory, and disk size.
  9. Scroll down to Backups.
    • Check the box for Enable automated backup plan then select Daily Backups.
  10. Scroll down to Authentication Method.
    • If you are not familiar with or do not use SSH key authentication, select Password and enter a password for the server’s root user. Save this password as you will need it in the future.
    • If you use SSH key authentication, click on New SSH key and upload your SSH public key.
  11. Check the box for Add improved metrics monitoring and alerting (free).
  12. Scroll down to Finalize Details.
    • Enter a Hostname for your server.
  13. Click Create droplet.

Run the ServerPilot installer

To connect your server to ServerPilot, use the option below that matches the Authentication Method you chose when you created your server.

  1. In the ServerPilot dashboard, go to Servers and choose Connect Server.
  2. In the form, enter your server’s IP address and root password.
  3. Click Connect to ServerPilot.
  4. The installation will begin and you’ll see ServerPilot’s progress configuring your server.
  5. When ServerPilot is done configuring your server, you’ll see the message “You can now create your first app on this server.”

Once your server is connected to ServerPilot, you can create an app to begin hosting sites on your server.

Clean up

If you no longer need the resources you created using this guide, delete the resources to stop further costs from accruing.

Delete the server

Deleting the server will permanently delete the data on the server.

  1. In the DigitalOcean dashboard, go to the Droplets page.
  2. Click on the name of the droplet you want to delete.
  3. Click Destroy.
  4. Click Destroy this droplet.
  5. In the confirmation dialog box, enter the name of the droplet.
  6. Click Destroy.

After deleting the server from DigitalOcean, delete the server from ServerPilot.