Hi @damiantoczek,

1. This is really up to personal reference. If you don’t want to take much time on installing and configuring, I’ll recommend the first option. Having said that, I’ll recommend to check the following DO Articles - here and here. One of the articles is for Ubuntu however it’s pretty good and shows good implications.

1.1 On one hand the PostgreSQL droplet is specifically designed by DO to work with their systems. On the other, you can configure it the same way if not better for you application if you built it on your own. Having said that, I’ll again go with the first option.

2./ 2.1 You’ll need to allow connections on your PostgreSQL droplet from the droplet your applications is built on. As for the actual code and how to, I’ll recommend checking this Article

3 This really depends on the traffic you expect and the budget you have. If you expect a lot of traffic and have enough budget, it’s always better to separate your Web Service and SQL service to different load balancers.

3.1 The actual delay won’t even be noticed. If everything has been configured correctly, there will be no loss or delay to the connection. I’ll recommend going with that option!

Kind regards,
Kalin