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Why DigitalOcean for Paperclip

DigitalOcean Droplets are clean, well-documented Linux VPS instances. They start at $6/mo (1 vCPU / 1 GB RAM) which is sufficient for a personal Paperclip deployment. DigitalOcean has strong documentation and a large community, which makes it a good choice if you'll be troubleshooting setup issues or building on top of your Paperclip instance.

Step 1: Create a Droplet

From the DigitalOcean control panel, create a new Droplet. Choose Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the Basic plan ($6/mo for 1 vCPU / 1 GB), and the datacenter region closest to your users. Add your SSH key during creation — you'll need it to connect.

Step 2: Connect and prepare the server

SSH into your Droplet as root, then create a non-root user and update the system.

ssh root@YOUR_DROPLET_IP
adduser deploy
usermod -aG sudo deploy
apt update && apt upgrade -y

Step 3: Install dependencies

Install Node.js, Git, nginx, and Certbot for SSL.

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | bash -
apt install -y nodejs git nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Step 4: Deploy Paperclip

Clone the repository, install dependencies, and configure your environment file.

su - deploy
git clone https://github.com/paperclip-app/paperclip.git
cd paperclip
npm install
cp .env.example .env && nano .env
npm run build

Step 5: Configure nginx and SSL

Set up nginx as a reverse proxy and obtain your SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt. Replace YOUR_DOMAIN with your actual domain.

# create /etc/nginx/sites-available/paperclip (same as self-hosting guide)
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/paperclip /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx
certbot --nginx -d YOUR_DOMAIN

Step 6: Keep it running with pm2

Install pm2 to keep Paperclip running as a background service.

sudo npm install -g pm2
pm2 start npm --name paperclip -- start
pm2 startup
pm2 save

DigitalOcean vs Hostinger for Paperclip

DigitalOcean Droplets and Hostinger KVM VPS are very similar setups at slightly different price points. DigitalOcean starts at $6/mo vs Hostinger's ~$3–4/mo on their sale pricing. Both require the same level of server management. We recommend Hostinger for the budget advantage if you're choosing purely on cost.

This is an independent guide. Paperclip Hosting is not affiliated with the official Paperclip project. Guide steps are based on real deployments and are subject to change as the software evolves.