How the products map across
Most of what a small team uses on DigitalOcean or Lightsail has a direct equivalent here:
- Droplet or Lightsail instance → cloud server (a KVM VPS), as a plan on the VPS page or any vCPU, RAM and NVMe mix on the server builder.
- Spaces or Lightsail object storage → S3 Advance, S3-compatible object storage in the same Indian region.
- DigitalOcean Kubernetes → managed Kubernetes on the same rate card.
- App Platform or Lightsail containers → BMH Apps: deploy from Git or a folder upload, with a free Hobby plan.
- Snapshots → one snapshot per VM is included in every plan.
- Hosted AI models → the AI API, an OpenAI-compatible endpoint billed per token. GPU servers are not rented here.
What is different for an Indian buyer
The servers are similar; the terms around them are where an Indian business notices the change:
- Currency and tax: DigitalOcean and Lightsail list their prices in US dollars. Here every price is in rupees and shown before GST; 18% GST is added at checkout, on a GST tax invoice with your GSTIN that appears in your GSTR-2B. See GST billing.
- Payment: UPI, Indian cards, net-banking or a prepaid wallet.
- CPU and RAM: basic Droplets run on shared vCPUs and Lightsail instances are burstable. Every server here is a dedicated VM: its vCPU and RAM are reserved for it and never overcommitted.
- Billing: per started hour with a minimum of 1 hour, or a monthly plan 30% below the hourly list, up to a 36-month term 65% below it. A term cancelled early returns the unused part to the wallet.
- What is in the price: a public IPv4 address, a 1 Gbps port, one snapshot and Cloudflare Magic Transit DDoS protection on every plan.
- Location and law: the company, the network (AS152523) and the Noida datacentre are Indian, so the data stays under Indian jurisdiction. See India cloud.
Where DigitalOcean or Lightsail may still suit you better
Be clear about the limits before you move. Noida is the only live region today, with Mumbai and Chennai coming; if you need servers in several countries, a global provider has more regions. BookMyHost does not sell physical dedicated servers or rent GPU servers. Every account completes eKYC before its first deployment, as CERT-In requires of Indian providers, which takes a few minutes once.
Moving a server from DigitalOcean or Lightsail
- Create an account and complete eKYC
Verify once with Aadhaar/DigiLocker or an ID document, and add your GSTIN so every invoice carries it.
- Deploy the same size on hourly billing
Pick a matching plan on the VPS page or the exact size on the builder, with the same Linux distribution.
- Copy the data across
Use rsync over SSH for files, a dump and restore for databases, and an S3 client to copy buckets into S3 Advance.
- Test, then switch DNS
Point a test hostname at the new server, check the application, then move the real DNS records.
- Move to a term once it stays
Convert the server to a monthly or longer term from the panel; the VM, IP and disk stay as they are.