Where to Host in 2026: DigitalOcean, Hyperscalers, and the Edge
DigitalOcean is still a great default, but the hosting conversation has moved. Here's how I pick infrastructure for small Australian businesses today.
In 2023 I recommended DigitalOcean to most small businesses as a sane middle ground between shared hosting and AWS. That advice mostly still holds, but the decision now has three reasonable shapes.
Path 1: Managed platforms (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare)
If your site is a marketing site, blog, or modern web app, deploy it to the edge. Global CDN, automatic SSL, preview deploys, near-zero ops. For most of my clients this is now the default.
Path 2: DigitalOcean App Platform or Droplets
Still the right answer when you need a long-running process, custom backend services, or you're hosting WordPress and want predictable pricing without AWS-grade complexity.
Path 3: Hyperscalers (AWS, GCP, Azure)
Only when scale, compliance, or specific managed services demand it. The complexity tax is real and most SMEs never recover it.
The honest summary
Pick the simplest tier that meets your actual constraints, not the one that sounds most impressive on a slide.