When I first heard about DigitalOcean I was excited as the price point was so low and the servers so nice. I knew I’d have to learn some things as I go, but I was happy to take it on. Turns out, I don’t have the time to learn all the things I need to know.

Severs work well when you know what you’re doing, but there is a lot more to learn than I thought. Even with the all the Googling in the world, I ended up having no clue what I was doing.

Google thing I wanted to do. Copy code. Paste code. Run code. That’s no way to run your web server. Sure, I managed, but it’s what I don’t know that scares me.

Security updates? I blindly ran them. The server told me to, so I did. Once a security update took all my sites down! Guess who you turn to? Google. Or hope you have some friends who know these things. Turns out I did know a guy who was able to fix it for me. I was scared to touch anything for a while after that.

Then there was a software update on the server that I just don’t know how to run.

Your current Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) is no longer supported
since 2014-08-07. Security updates for critical parts (kernel
and graphics stack) of your system are no longer available.

It tried to tell me how to upgrade, but the instructions didn’t work. I Googled it, and the instructions were over my head. I tried, but no luck. So I ignored it.

Turns out, running a site on DigitalOcean takes a much higher level of server knowledge than I have. Sure, the price point is great, but if no one is managing your server, then who is? How insecure is your server? How out of date is it? What are you going to do when it all comes crashing down?

At least I was smart enough to leave for managing hosting over at A Small Orange. DigitalOcean is great for those that know how to manage a server, but for the rest of us, you’re adding a lot of risk just for a small hosting fee.