How can I view my work in draft?

Hi all, first-time website setter-upper. My website is going to be editorially based and will need frequent updating. As a journalist, the sites I have worke for have always had ‘draft’ buttons so that you could see your work but it wouldn’t go live, which is obviously an important precaution. How can one do this on a Digital Ocean droplet please? Someone has suggested to me that I create a second droplet and use that as a safe dummy site but a) that’s more expense, b) it presumably means I have to replicate the work (ie.do the work twice) too and c) sounds pretty complicated. Any ideas? Thanks so much! James