How do I install an SSL Certificate on a Droplet?

Validated on 4 Oct 2022 • Last edited on 19 Oct 2022

SSL certificates increase security for your Droplet and your users by enabling encrypted connections to your server. You can purchase certificates through a commercial SSL certificate authority or use an open source certificate authority like Let’s Encrypt.

Commercial SSL Certificates

Commercial SSL certificates usually cost money and remain valid for one year or longer. You can acquire a commercial SSL certificate and install it on an Nginx or Apache webserver running on your Droplet.

Let’s Encrypt SSL

Let’s Encrypt provides free SSL certificates that remain valid for three months but can be automatically renewed. An important difference between Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates and commercial certificates is that Let’s Encrypt certificates can only be installed after your domain name publicly points to the IP address of your Droplet.

You can install Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates on popular web servers, such as Nginx and Apache.

You can point multiple domains at a Droplet and serve multiple websites from it.
You can renew your certificate manually using Certbot.
You can reset your Droplet’s password using the control panel or the recovery ISO.
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