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Plausible Analytics on DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean publishes its own guide for deploying Plausible Analytics.

Compare DigitalOcean with

Open-source web analytics deployed as a Docker Compose stack, requiring PostgreSQL for application data and ClickHouse for the event store.

01.

What Plausible Analytics needs.

Every host claims to run Plausible Analytics, so the claim on its own decides nothing. These are the things Plausible Analytics actually requires from the platform underneath it, and what DigitalOcean publishes about each. DigitalOcean documents 4 of the 4.

Managed databases

Supported

Plausible needs PostgreSQL for application data alongside ClickHouse for events. The Postgres half is the part a managed database service can take off your hands; ClickHouse you run yourself.

Sources (1) →

Persistent storage

Supported

ClickHouse writes the event store to disk, and that store is the whole point of running Plausible. An ephemeral filesystem loses your analytics history on every deploy.

Sources (1) →
  • Volume Features — DigitalOcean Docs ↗

    “Volumes are network-attached block storage. You can use them with Droplets or Kubernetes clusters, move or resize them, and create snapshots at any time.”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official docs

Memory (entry plan)

512 MiB on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo).

ClickHouse holds a great deal in memory. An instance sized for a small blog will not run a Plausible stack, so the entry plan's RAM decides whether this is viable at all.

Sources (1) →

Docker deployment

Supported

The supported self-hosted install is a Docker Compose stack of Plausible, PostgreSQL and ClickHouse together, not a single process.

Sources (1) →

The requirement and the reason it matters are ours. Every value beside them was read from DigitalOcean's own pages — expand a source to see the sentence it came from.

02.

What DigitalOcean documents.

DigitalOcean publishes its own guide for deploying Plausible Analytics.

In addition to creating a Droplet from the Plausible Analytics 1-Click App via the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API.

Sources (1) →

Plausible Analytics features on DigitalOcean

Capabilities DigitalOcean documents specifically for Plausible Analytics, with the constraint it documents alongside each.

docker_compose

Supported

This 1-click enables you to create a DigitalOcean droplet pre-installed with recommended Docker tools (docker-engine, docker-compose).

one_click_image

Supported

On your first SSH login to the droplet or launch of the Droplet console of your Plausible Droplet 1-Click, you will be greeted by a Plausible setup script.

smtp_outbound

Not supported

SMTP ports 25, 465, and 587 are blocked on Droplets to prevent spam and other abuses on our platform. This block applies to all Droplets by default and includes traffic passing through a Reserved IP address.

automated_backups

Supported

Backups are automatically-created disk images of Droplets. Enabling backups for Droplets enables system-level backups at intervals of every 4 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, day, or week, which provides a way to revert to an older state or create new Droplets.

vertical_resize

Supported

Resizing a CPU Droplet changes the resources (CPU, RAM, and disk) that the Droplet has. You cannot resize GPU Droplets.

Sources (5) →
03.

What it costs to run there.

Entry paid plan
$4.00
Pricing model
billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher
When you exceed a cap
Billed automatically — outbound transfer beyond the pooled plan allowance is charged at $0.01 per GiB; inbound transfer is free
Regions
Thirteen regions holding 16 datacenters: New York City (NYC1, NYC2, NYC3), Amsterdam (AMS3), San Francisco (SFO2, SFO3), Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Bangalore, Sydney, Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City and Memphis.
Sources (3) →
  • Droplet Pricing — DigitalOcean ↗

    “Memory vCPU Transfer SSD $/hr $/mo 512 MiB 1 vCPU 500 GiB 10 GiB $0.00595 $ 4.00 1 GiB 1 vCPU 1,000 GiB 25 GiB $0.00893 $ 6.00”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing

  • Droplet Pricing | DigitalOcean Documentation ↗

    “billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher”

    Read 2026-09-05 · official docs

  • Regional Availability — DigitalOcean Docs ↗

    “DigitalOcean has 16 datacenters across 13 regions. [...] Datacenter Region Slug NYC1 New York City, United States nyc1 NYC2 New York City, United States nyc2 NYC3 New York City, United States nyc3 AMS3 Amsterdam, the Netherlands ams3 SFO2 San Francisco, United States sfo2 SFO3 San Francisco, United States sfo3 SGP1 Singapore sgp1 LON1 London, United Kingdom lon1 FRA1 Frankfurt, Germany fra1 TOR1 Toronto, Canada tor1 BLR1 Bangalore, India blr1 SYD1 Sydney, Australia syd1 ATL1 Atlanta, United States atl1 RIC1 Richmond, United States ric1 MKC1 Kansas City, United States mkc1 MEM1 Memphis, United States mem1”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official docs

04.

Whether it suits you.

Teams that want plain Linux virtual machines with predictable per-second billing from $4 a month, and the option of managed databases beside them. App Platform adds Git and Docker deploys on top.

Consider something else if…

You want a platform that manages the runtime for you rather than a server you administer.

Written by Palash Bagchi on 2026-09-05. This is a recommendation, not a sourced fact — it carries no citation because it is an opinion.

Visit DigitalOcean documentation

Zoom out

Best hosting for Plausible AnalyticsEvery provider that documents Plausible Analytics, ranked by how they document it.DigitalOceanCloud infrastructure provider offering Linux virtual machines, managed databases, object storage and an app platform across global datacenter regions.

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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Every page here is sourced and dated.