Regular website hosting with DigitalOcean?

with DO you get your own virtual private server, hostgator gives you ftp/sftp + mysql database it all depends on what you need to run, DO is perfect if you have your site based on nodejs like the ghost blogging platform

if you are willing to learn linux then DO is perfect

Absolutely! I’ve been running my own webserver and mailserver for several years and have recently switched to DO to free up my own local server for some development work. I’ve personally found DO a fantastic platform to spin up any type of server you can dream of - and the one thing where DO excels (for me at least!) is that I can “grow” and shrink the server depending on the load and what I’m expecting it to do.

You do need to have some understanding of *nix to utilise DO safely and effectively - but there are loads of tutorials to help and of course if you want to “play” with changes you can spin up a second server based on a snapshot of your first, allowing you to try new code or major changes without effecting your ‘main’ server.

Don’t forget you can spin up a basic LAMP environment in one click on your droplet too.

So yes, DO really can be a perfect platform for a simple website with the advantages of having SSD storage and being able to increase processing power and storage as your needs change.