The DigitalOcean Newsletter

Your monthly deep dive into all things DigitalOcean, including product updates, new tutorials, upcoming events, and more.

Earlier this month, we brought together developers, partners, and cloud enthusiasts for our biannual event that featured practical technical sessions along with major product and partnership announcements.

If you weren’t able to join us at Deploy London, don’t worry, we’ve got the highlights so you can catch up on all the excitement.

Here’s a look at what went down at Deploy London:

• Keynote: DigitalOcean leadership shared their vision for simple, accessible cloud computing and how we are helping digital native enterprises scale with AI and modern infrastructure. Customers like Fal.ai, Sakazamba, Development Aid and partners like AMD and Laravel joined them on stage to showcase how they’re building, experimenting, and growing on DigitalOcean. Watch the Keynote
• Dedicated sessions: From deep dives on infrastructure and AI agent development to hands-on demos of new features, attendees got practical insights and saw customers like LawVo, Traversal, GentooMedia, and more showcasing real-world proof points on how they build faster and smarter while reducing costs using DigitalOcean. Watch Sessions

From new AI capabilities to enhanced infrastructure, Deploy London showcased how we’re helping developers and growing businesses build what’s next in the cloud. 

We know startups need more than just tools to build and launch amazing products. DigitalOcean’s new AI Startup Ecosystem brings together established technology partners, AI developer tools, and university entrepreneurship programs to help founders build, launch and scale faster on DigitalOcean's comprehensive agentic cloud.

There’s more being added to the AI Startup Ecosystem, and we want you to be a part of the action. Click here to learn more and start building something better, faster.

Only a few days left for Hacktoberfest. You still have a few more days to complete your 6 PRs/MRs and get a chance to win limited edition Hacktoberfest t-shirt. Register Now

Image and audio generation models from fal now on DigitalOcean Gradient™ AI Platform

You can now generate high-quality images and audio on the Gradient AI Platform using fal’s cutting-edge models. These new models are available in public preview through Serverless Inference—so there’s no infrastructure setup needed. Check out the announcement blog for sample code to get started.

Introducing Storage autoscaling, the newest feature for Managed Databases

DigitalOcean Managed Databases now automatically increase storage size as your needs grow, giving your applications a proactive safety net without any manual work. This new capability is included across all Managed Database offerings, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Caching for Valkey, MongoDB, Kafka, and OpenSearch.

Introducing DigitalOcean Organizations, a new and comprehensive account layer
Organizations for account management is now generally available for all DigitalOcean customers. This new feature allows you to structure your accounts into a logical hierarchy, making it easier than ever to manage access for different Teams and environments at scale. This new capability is included across all DigitalOcean offerings.

Prioritize node pool selection with Priority Expander

Priority Expander is now available for the DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS) Cluster Autoscaler. This feature lets your workloads automatically scale across multiple node pools in a defined priority order, automating fallback and eliminating the need for manual intervention to add capacity. This new capability is included across all DigitalOcean Kubernetes clusters using the Cluster Autoscaler.

Introducing cost-efficient storage with Network file storage, cold storage, and usage-based backups

Network File Storage (NFS) is now generally available, offering a high-performance, fully managed, shared file system optimized for demanding AI and machine learning workloads. We've launched the public preview of Spaces Cold Storage, a new S3-compatible tier for infrequently accessed data with instant retrieval and transparent, low pricing. Plus, our new Usage-based backups are in public preview, helping you meet aggressive Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) with flexible scheduling, including backups as frequent as every four hours.

Reduce scaling costs with per-sec billing, new Droplet plans, BYOIP, and NAT gateway preview 

Effective January 1, 2026, per-second billing for Droplets (with a 60-second minimum) will slash costs for short-lived, ephemeral workloads like CI/CD jobs. New dedicated Droplet plans will allow for in-place performance upgrades without needing to migrate your data or change your IP. Plus, the Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP) feature is now generally available, enabling you to transfer your existing IPv4 prefixes for business continuity and IP reputation protection. The VPC NAT Gateway preview is also available to provide a fully managed, cost-effective solution for centralized egress and static outbound IPs, enhancing security and simplifying management for private resources.

Automate and save with App Platform Cron Jobs

Support for Cron Jobs, a highly requested feature for DigitalOcean App Platform, is now in general availability. This new capability allows you to automate essential and repetitive tasks in your deployed applications, bringing classic Unix scheduling power directly into our modern Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment. Cron Jobs saves you time and helps ensure operations run predictably and efficiently so you can focus on building.

Running your cloud workloads shouldn’t be complex or expensive. That’s why we’re bringing you Sail to Success, a webinar series designed to help you simplify, scale, and save with DigitalOcean.

Register for our November webinars

• November 5 - The AI Inference Spectrum: Scale without Lock-in
• November 12 - Deep Dive: Multi-Node GPU Training for Large Language Models (LLMs) on DigitalOcean Kubernetes
• November 19 - Save big on cold storage for infrequently accessed data

Watch our past webinars in YouTube playlist

• With all the different AI models out there, how do the features and capabilities compare? Take a look at our matchup of Grok vs. ChatGPT and learn about each offering’s features, pricing, and use cases. 

• AI search engines are now becoming the new norm for users as Google and Microsoft increase their investment in AI features. Educate yourself on their capabilities and familiarize yourself with some available options. 

• If you’re curious about available alternatives to Runpod when it comes to GPU compute power, we’ve got you covered. Read about our seven suggested alternatives. 

• Our compilation of AI voice generator tools provides an extensive list of options for all your creative projects, from video voiceovers to music creation. Take a look and see what options can help you create your next voice project. 

• Claude and ChatGPT are two main contenders in the AI space. Learn more about how their features, pricing, and models stack up against each other. 

• To help you choose and expand your cloud platform that is the best fit for you, we've updated our comparison articles: DigitalOcean vs. AWS , DigitalOcean vs. GCP, DigitalOcean vs. Vultr, and DigitalOcean vs. Hetzner. With its simplicity, cost-effective pricing, and customer-centric support, DigitalOcean continues to attract businesses migrating their workloads from many cloud providers.

Introducing Web Rules (Public Preview)
Say hello to Web Rules, a new feature that lets you manage redirect, rewrite, and header rules — right from your Cloudways application dashboard.

No more editing .htaccess files — everything’s now built into an easy-to-use UI powered by our pure NGINX-based stack for better speed and control.

What You Can Do:

• Set up redirects and rewrites between pages, domains, or regions
• Manage security headers like HSTS and CSP
• Add, remove, and reorder rules effortlessly

Web Rules currently supports up to 10 header and 25 redirect/rewrite rules per application.

View the step-by-step KB guide

New Partnership: Cloudways x Omnisend

You asked, and we listened! We’re excited to announce our new partnership with Omnisend, a leading email & SMS marketing platform trusted by 100,000+ eCommerce brands.

With this integration:

• Lite by Default: Omnisend’s Lite plugin will be pre-installed on new WordPress applications.
• Seamless Pro Upgrade: Already using Omnisend Pro? Just add your license within Cloudways, and we’ll automatically install and activate it—no manual steps required.
• Exclusive Offer: Cloudways users get 30% off Omnisend Pro for the first 3 months — no prepayment required.

Now, whether you’re a freelancer, agency, or SMB, you can supercharge your email and SMS marketing right from the start—at a special Cloudways-only discount.

Stay tuned—more partner integrations are on the way through the Cloudways Partner Hub

• Accounting automation leader SaasAnt accelerated its product innovation with moving from week-long infrastructure scaling to just seconds after migrating to DigitalOcean Kubernetes from AWS and Vultr. (While saving 20% on overall operational effort, factoring in infrastructure, time, and staff resources!)

• WindBorne Systems is building a global “planetary nervous system” for weather forecasting—deploying long-duration balloons and deep-learning models that analyze 100+ terabytes of data on DigitalOcean Gradient™ AI Bare Metal GPUs. 

The DigitalOcean Marketplace offers 1-Click apps and tools to help you build faster—no setup hassle. Check out the newest solutions and see what’s fresh this month.