DigitalOcean vs Netlify: Founders, CEOs and History
DigitalOcean was founded in 2011 by Ben Uretsky, Moisey Uretsky, Jeff Carr and is led by Paddy Srinivasan. Netlify was founded in 2014 by Mathias Biilmann, Christian Bach and is led by Mathias Biilmann.
Company facts
DigitalOcean
- Founded
- 2011
- Headquarters
- Broomfield, Colorado, United States
- Current CEO
- Paddy Srinivasan
- Employees
- 1,462
Netlify
- Founded
- 2014
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Current CEO
- Mathias Biilmann
- Employees
- 244
Founders
DigitalOcean
Ben Uretsky
Ben Uretsky co-founded DigitalOcean in 2011 and served as its CEO until 2018, leading it through Techstars, early venture rounds including the 2015 Series B, and global data center expansion. He previously co-founded ServerStack with his brother Moisey.
Moisey Uretsky
Moisey Uretsky co-founded DigitalOcean in 2011 and held product leadership roles, shaping its focus on a simple control panel and fast server provisioning. Like his brother, he came from the managed hosting business ServerStack.
Jeff Carr
Jeff Carr co-founded DigitalOcean in 2011. Frustrated by the extreme complexity and opaque pricing of AWS, he helped design the initial architecture for 'Droplets' (simple, affordable virtual machines) that could be spun up by a solo developer in under a minut…
Mitch Wainer
Mitch Wainer co-founded DigitalOcean in 2011. He was the absolute driving force behind the company's legendary content marketing strategy, building a massive library of thousands of high-quality tutorials that organically captured millions of developers search…
Alec Hartman
Alec Hartman co-founded DigitalOcean in 2011 alongside his partners from ServerStack.
Netlify
Mathias Biilmann
Mathias Biilmann is Netlify's co-founder and CEO, a role he has held since 2014. He coined 'Jamstack' in 2015, led the company's 2021 Series D at a $2 billion valuation and its five acquisitions from 2021 to 2023, and has steered Netlify toward AI agents since…
Christian Bach
Christian Bach (Chris Bach) co-founded Netlify in 2014 alongside Mathias Biilmann.
CEOs and their tenures
DigitalOcean
- Ben Uretsky2012–2018
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
As Co-Founder and CEO, he guided the company's hyper-growth phase, taking it from a Y Combinator startup to the third-largest hosting provider in the world by web-facing computers.
Source - Mark Templeton2018–2019
Chief Executive Officer
As the former CEO of Citrix, his brief tenure at DigitalOcean provided crucial enterprise credibility to a company previously seen exclusively as a tool for hobbyists.
Source - Yancey Spruill2019–2024
Chief Executive Officer
Serving as CEO from 2019 to 2024, he successfully led the company through its 2021 IPO and achieved its first-ever billion-dollar revenue run rate before being replaced by the board.
Source - Matt Steinfort2022–present
Chief Financial Officer
As CFO, he oversees the company's massive transition from a purely growth-focused startup into a highly disciplined, publicly traded cloud provider.
Source - Paddy Srinivasan2024–present
Chief Executive Officer
Appointed CEO in 2024, he is tasked with re-accelerating revenue growth in an incredibly brutal macroeconomic environment where small businesses are heavily cutting cloud spending.
Source
Netlify
- Mathias Biilmann2014–present
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Founder-CEO who took Netlify from a static hosting tool to a platform with more than 10 million developers.
Source - Chris Bach2014–present
Co-Founder
As Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, he orchestrated the massive ecosystem partnerships required to integrate Netlify with thousands of third-party APIs and headless CMS platforms.
Source
Timeline: DigitalOcean and Netlify side by side
2011DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean founded in New York
Ben and Moisey Uretsky, Mitch Wainer, Jeff Carr, and Alec Hartman start the company.
2012DigitalOcean
Techstars Boulder and $5 SSD Droplets
Launches SSD-based cloud servers starting at $5 per month.
2014DigitalOcean
Series A Funding
DigitalOcean raised $37.2 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz in March 2014.
2014Netlify
Founding by Mathias Biilmann and Christian Bach: Danish entrepreneurs Mathias Biilmann and Christian Bach start the company in San Francisco around BitBalloon, a drag-and-drop static hosting tool.
2015DigitalOcean
$83 million Series B
Funding led by Access Industries with Andreessen Horowitz participating.
2015Netlify
Coined the Term "Jamstack": Biilmann coins and popularizes the term "Jamstack" (JavaScript, APIs, Markup), advocating for pre-rendering, decoupled architectures, and global CDN delivery.
2016Netlify
Launch of Deploy Previews for Git Pull Requests: Introduced Deploy Previews, automatically spinning up unique, immutable preview URLs for every Git branch and pull request, radically accelerating desi…
2017Netlify
Series A Funding Led by Andreessen Horowitz: Raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Peter Levine at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), validating cloud-native developer infrastructure.
2018DigitalOcean
Mark Templeton becomes CEO
Mark Templeton became CEO of DigitalOcean in 2018. Former Citrix CEO; led DigitalOcean from June 2018 until July 2019.
2018Netlify
Series B Funding Led by Kleiner Perkins: Secured $30 million Series B round led by Mamoon Hamid at Kleiner Perkins, funding high-performance CDN edge infrastructure expansion.
2019DigitalOcean
Yancey Spruill Becomes CEO
Yancey Spruill became chief executive of DigitalOcean in 2019.
2020Netlify
Series C Funding Led by EQT Ventures: Raised a $53 million Series C led by EQT Ventures in March 2020 with about 800,000 developers on the platform; it passed 1 million that August.
2021DigitalOcean
NYSE IPO (DOCN)
Goes public in March 2021, raising about $775 million.
2021Netlify
Series D Funding at $2 Billion Valuation: Raised a $105 million Series D led by Bessemer Venture Partners in November 2021 at a $2 billion valuation.
2022DigitalOcean
Acquires Cloudways
Buys the managed hosting platform for about $350 million.
2023DigitalOcean
Acquires Paperspace
Buys the GPU cloud platform for $111 million to expand AI offerings.
2023Netlify
Acquisition of Gatsby Inc.: Acquired open-source framework Gatsby and Gatsby Cloud, uniting the two most popular developer platforms in the Jamstack ecosystem.
2024DigitalOcean
Paddy Srinivasan becomes CEO
Former GoTo CEO succeeds Yancey Spruill in February 2024.
2024Netlify
5 Million Developers: Netlify passed 5 million developers, about four years after reaching 1 million.
2025DigitalOcean
$901 million revenue
Full-year revenue up 15% with $259 million net income; December run-rate reaches $1 billion.
2025Netlify
10 Million Developers: Netlify crossed 10 million developers on December 24, 2025, helped by AI app builders such as Bolt.new.
2026DigitalOcean
AI-Native Cloud and Russell 1000
Launches AI-Native Cloud at Deploy 2026, joins the Russell 1000, and reports Q2 revenue growth of 29%.
2026Netlify
Seat-Free Pro Plan: In April 2026 Netlify made Pro $20 a month with unlimited seats and simplified usage billing to five credit meters.
Acquisitions
DigitalOcean
- Paperspace2023$111M
- Cloudways2022$350M
- CSS-Tricks2022Undisclosed
Netlify
- Gatsby Inc.2023Undisclosed
- Stackbit2023Undisclosed
- Quirrel2022Undisclosed
- OneGraph2021Undisclosed
- FeaturePeek2021Undisclosed
Questions about DigitalOcean vs Netlify
Who is the CEO of DigitalOcean and Netlify?
DigitalOcean is led by Paddy Srinivasan and Netlify is led by Mathias Biilmann. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was DigitalOcean founded vs Netlify?
DigitalOcean was founded in 2011 — 3 years before Netlify, which was founded in 2014. DigitalOcean's longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Netlify.
How many employees does DigitalOcean have compared to Netlify?
DigitalOcean employs approximately 1,462 people, while Netlify employs approximately 244. DigitalOcean has the larger workforce at 1,462 employees, compared to Netlify's 244. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are DigitalOcean and Netlify headquartered?
Both DigitalOcean and Netlify are headquartered in United States. Their local rules and tax obligations may still differ.
Who founded DigitalOcean and Netlify?
DigitalOcean was founded by Ben Uretsky, Moisey Uretsky, Jeff Carr, Mitch Wainer, Alec Hartman. Netlify was founded by Mathias Biilmann, Christian Bach.
Which company has a longer operating history — DigitalOcean or Netlify?
DigitalOcean has been operating for approximately 15 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Netlify has been in operation for around 12 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the DigitalOcean vs Netlify overview