&gt;  Typing apt-get install mongo &#x2F; mysql &#x2F; rethinkdb after the droplet is really all there is to it.<p>It&#x27;s clear that the author was overspending—even a small dyno with a resource-hungry language like Rails can do a lot of traffic—but there&#x27;s a lot more than just installing a web server, DB. Firewalls? WAL-E backups? Monitoring (of any kind)? A correct TLS setup? DB security?<p>Setting those up—in a way that you can replicate if the box is hosed—is a whole &#x27;nother side project unto itself. Learning Ansible, Salt, etc. is great, but if your goal is to build X thing as a side-project, you&#x27;ll never get anything done in a timely manner if you start reinventing wheels.