Founded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cheddar emerged as a creator-focused, gamified video platform designed to help content creators monetize their audiences more directly than traditional platforms like YouTube and Twitch. Co-founded by Joshua Verdehem and Ethan Gilbert, Cheddar lets creators charge viewers for specific videos or early access to content series, rather than YouTube’s broad monthly subscriptions. Users can pay for just the content they want to watch. Cheddar also provides direct support to creators through different channels, unlike larger platforms, where creators often struggle to get responses to their support requests. This gives users more targeted content options while creators get better monetization tools and responsive platform support.

With DigitalOcean’s comprehensive cloud infrastructure, including Droplets, Managed Kubernetes, Managed Databases, Load Balancers, and Spaces, Cheddar has built a scalable platform that serves over 200,000+ registered users, with 102,000+ videos uploaded and 213,705,294 total video views. The platform maintains the agility to pivot quickly and respond to creator needs. The platform has generated 1,242 calendar years’ worth of video watch time, demonstrating strong user engagement across the community.

Building a scalable platform from day one

Unlike many companies that migrate to solve existing infrastructure problems, Cheddar’s challenge was building a reliable, scalable platform from inception. As a three-person team focused on rapid development and creator relationships, they needed cloud infrastructure to handle unpredictable traffic spikes without extensive server management expertise.

Joshua, who handles all technical operations, knew from experience that traditional bare metal servers would be inadequate. “The hardest part with bare metal servers is that it just takes forever to get set up,” he explains. “It’s always month to month. If we have a big spike during a single week, we would have to rent out servers for a full month, pay for the servers for a full month, and set them up."

The team needed a solution that would allow them to focus on product development and creator relationships rather than infrastructure management. This was especially true given their weekly sprint approach, which requires the flexibility to pivot quickly based on creator feedback and market demands.

Choosing DigitalOcean’s cloud infrastructure

Cheddar’s relationship with DigitalOcean began unofficially in 2016 when Joshua first learned web development using DigitalOcean’s community tutorials and free student credits. This early positive experience made DigitalOcean the natural choice when building Cheddar’s infrastructure, years later.

Today, the platform leverages DigitalOcean’s full suite of services, with Droplets as the foundation for core application hosting for boosted performance. Managed Kubernetes handles container orchestration and scaling, while Managed Databases support their MongoDB, Redis, and PostgreSQL workloads. Load Balancers distribute traffic across Kubernetes clusters, and Spaces provide backup storage and CDN capabilities for video content.

The migration from self-managed databases on Droplets to DigitalOcean’s managed services marked a significant operational improvement. “Once we switched to DigitalOcean Managed Databases, we haven’t had any problems,” Joshua notes.

Optimizing costs and growing flexibly

DigitalOcean cloud infrastructure has enabled Cheddar to achieve instant scalability, allowing the platform to handle unexpected traffic spikes. “We were seeing issues like the servers couldn’t handle it,” Joshua explains. “Click a button, you’re scaled, you’re good, and you have the capacity almost instantly.”

Cost optimization came as an unexpected benefit when upgrading to CPU Optimized - Premium Intel - 4vCPU 8 GB RAM" Kubernetes nodes. “We could have double the amount of users on a single server on the CPU Optimized - Premium Intel - 4vCPU 8 GB RAM” Kubernetes nodes, when compared to the Basic Droplets we were using. And it’s only maybe 20 or 30% more, so our actual monthly cost went down," Joshua reports.

The managed services approach has freed the small team to focus on product development rather than infrastructure maintenance. “If I burn a day setting up servers, that’s not a good use of my time. It saves me so much time,” he emphasizes. The platform has maintained exceptional uptime, with Joshua noting, “We have not had any downtime from DigitalOcean Kubernetes.”

Expanding to GPU-powered live streaming

Cheddar is preparing to launch live streaming capabilities, requiring significant GPU infrastructure for real-time video encoding. The availability of DigitalOcean’s GPU Droplets has made this expansion feasible. “We had no idea how we would do this before DigitalOcean launched GPU Droplets,” Joshua explains. The live streaming feature will require approximately one GPU per streamer per hour, potentially scaling to hundreds of concurrent streams.

Cheddar’s success came from choosing a cloud provider that matched their operational philosophy and growth trajectory. “Every question goes back to time,” Joshua reflects. “We’re paying a slight premium over doing it ourselves, but that’s worth it to us because it saves me so much time. It’s just a no-brainer.”

As Cheddar continues to innovate in the creator economy space, DigitalOcean’s scalable cloud infrastructure provides the foundation to support ambitious growth plans while maintaining the agility that sets it apart from larger platforms.