
It’s 2021, and there are boatloads of Drupal hosting providers out there now. Choosing a hosting provider these days can be an arduous task in itself. However if you are here, you needn’t worry about that, because I will now tell you how easy it is to host a Drupal on DigitalOcean, one of the best hosting providers out there. According to Wikipedia, DigitalOcean was the second largest hosting company in the world in terms of web-facing computers. It is no doubt then, that it is still considered one of the best hosting companies out there. Simply put, you can’t go wrong with DigitalOcean at Cloudways. With prices starting from only $10/mo, it is affordable as well!
In this tutorial, I’ll take you through the steps for installing Drupal on DigitalOcean using Cloudways. You do not have to be an expert in setting up servers in order to host a website of your own, and this is what Cloudways offers you.
Reference: Builtwith, May 2021
Sign Up at Cloudways
The very first thing you need to do is Sign Up at Cloudways. You can do this from the main homepage by clicking the “Get Started For Free” button. The signup process requires a valid email address or a GitHub or LinkedIn account.
How to Install Drupal Framework
Nothing as Easy as Deploying PHP Apps on Cloud
With Cloudways, you can have your PHP apps up and running on managed cloud servers in just a few minutes.
Launch a New Server

Once you have signed up, launch a new server with a custom PHP application where I will install Drupal.
Launch SSH Terminal
Next, go to the server dashboard and click Launch SSH Terminal.
Once you are logged in, head to the public_html folder and simply run the download command to download the drupal framework.
Application > application name > public_html
Install Drupal
Now, I will demonstrate how you could install Drupal. If you thought this would be a manual (and hectic) task, here’s a surprise for you – You can install Drupal by simply typing the following command in the terminal
composer create-project drupal/recommended-project my_site_name_dir
This will now install everything automatically, including all the libraries and dependencies required by Drupal.
Setup Details
You can access the webpage by adding /my_site_name_dir/web/core/install.php at the end of the URL to open the Drupal installer. If you see the welcome page (see below), everything has been configured successfully.
Now let’s begin the installation by clicking the Save and Continue button. On the next page, select the desired profile for your Drupal application, then click Save and continue.
Get database access details from the Application Management > Access Details.
Enter the details for the database from the access details of the application. Click Save and continue when ready.
After that, the installation procedure should finish and you can enter the site information and the administrative login details.
Site name: Type in your website’s name;
Site email address: The e-mail address to which automated emails will be sent
Username, Password, and Email address: These are the administrative details used for the maintenance of your account.
Click Save and continue.
If you see the above message, Drupal has been successfully installed on your Cloudways managed server.
Conclusion
As you saw in this tutorial, installing Drupal on DigitalOcean using Cloudways is super easy and super quick. There aren’t any complex configurations or server side hassles that mar your experience. Cloudways provides a fully optimized and managed environment for your Drupal site, with all the security measures are already in place for your ultimate peace of mind. So what are you waiting for, head on over to Cloudways and get to it!
Create interactive Drupal websites easily on the Cloud.
Host your website on optimized Drupal hosting servers.Shahzeb Ahmed
Shahzeb is a Digital Marketer with a Software Engineering background, works as a Community Manager — PHP Community at Cloudways. He is growth ambitious and aims to learn & share information about PHP & Laravel Development through practice and experimentation. He loves to travel and explore new ideas whenever he finds time. Get in touch with him at [email protected]