Website deployment setup on DigitalOcean (Droplet/App Platform)

Configuring Website Deployment on DigitalOcean (Droplet/App Platform)

DigitalOcean offers two paths: Droplet (VPS with full control) and App Platform (PaaS with auto-deploy from Git). Popular with startups and small teams for simplicity and predictable pricing.

App Platform — Quick Start

# .do/app.yaml
name: myapp
region: fra

services:
  - name: web
    github:
      repo: user/myapp
      branch: main
      deploy_on_push: true
    build_command: npm run build
    run_command: node server.js
    environment_slug: node-js
    instance_count: 2
    instance_size_slug: basic-xxs
    http_port: 3000
    envs:
      - key: DATABASE_URL
        scope: RUN_TIME
        type: SECRET
        value: "${db.DATABASE_URL}"

  - name: worker
    github:
      repo: user/myapp
      branch: main
    run_command: node worker.js
    instance_count: 1

databases:
  - name: db
    engine: PG
    version: "16"
    size: db-s-1vcpu-1gb

# Deploy via CLI
doctl apps create --spec .do/app.yaml
doctl apps update APP_ID --spec .do/app.yaml

Droplet: Manual Setup

# Create droplet via CLI
doctl compute droplet create myapp \
    --size s-2vcpu-4gb \
    --image ubuntu-22-04-x64 \
    --region fra1 \
    --ssh-keys KEY_ID \
    --user-data-file cloud-init.yaml

# cloud-init.yaml
#cloud-config
packages:
  - nginx
  - php8.3-fpm
  - php8.3-pgsql
  - composer
  - certbot
  - python3-certbot-nginx

runcmd:
  - curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | bash -
  - apt-get install -y nodejs
  - systemctl enable nginx php8.3-fpm

Auto-deploy via GitHub Actions + Droplet

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
jobs:
  deploy:
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to Droplet
        uses: appleboy/ssh-action@v1
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.DROPLET_IP }}
          username: deploy
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_KEY }}
          script: |
            cd /var/www/myapp
            git fetch origin main && git reset --hard origin/main
            composer install --no-dev
            npm ci && npm run build
            php artisan migrate --force
            php artisan config:cache
            sudo systemctl reload php8.3-fpm

Managed Kubernetes (DOKS)

# Create cluster
doctl kubernetes cluster create myapp-cluster \
    --region fra1 \
    --node-pool "name=worker-pool;size=s-2vcpu-4gb;count=3"

# Get kubeconfig
doctl kubernetes cluster kubeconfig save myapp-cluster

# Deploy via kubectl
kubectl apply -f k8s/

Spaces (S3-compatible Storage)

# Upload static files
s3cmd sync ./dist/ s3://myapp-assets/ \
    --host=fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com \
    --host-bucket=%(bucket)s.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com \
    --access_key=$SPACES_KEY \
    --secret_key=$SPACES_SECRET \
    --delete-removed \
    --add-header="Cache-Control:public, max-age=31536000"

Load Balancer

doctl compute load-balancer create \
    --name myapp-lb \
    --region fra1 \
    --forwarding-rules "entry_protocol:https,entry_port:443,target_protocol:http,target_port:80,certificate_id:CERT_ID" \
    --droplet-ids "DROPLET_ID_1,DROPLET_ID_2" \
    --health-check "protocol:http,port:80,path:/health,check_interval_seconds:10,response_timeout_seconds:5"

Implementation Timeline

• App Platform from Git: 4–8 hours
• Droplet + Nginx + deploy: 1–2 days
• DOKS (Kubernetes): 3–5 days