For such a long time I used HostGator’s shared hosting. Over a decade… On a trip with friends, we ended up with leftover currency from a country we wouldn’t visit again. That became an app idea. The app idea meant I needed better hosting. HostGator worked, but deploying anything was a chore. FTP uploads, cPanel file managers, manual configs. Every time I had an idea, the deployment friction killed my momentum. I’d heard about Digital Ocean during pandemic self-teaching. Asked Gemini about migrating. It pointed me to a Droplet with Coolify—automated GitHub deployments, better pricing. ...