Stillcode › Two-factor authentication › DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean takes both a texted code and a generated one, and they are not equivalent. Which is which, where its instructions are, and what happens when the phone holding your codes is gone.
These are the second factors DigitalOcean offers on digitalocean.com. Which ones you
see can depend on your plan and your country;
what each of the seven actually costs you is set out once.
| Method | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| Authenticator app (TOTP) | Supported | Computed on your own device; nothing is sent to produce it. |
| SMS text message | Supported | Texted to your number, so your carrier is part of the lock. |
| Hardware security key | Not offered | A physical key you tap; the one option phishing does not beat. |
Data sourced from 2FA Directory by 2factorauth. Snapshot 2026-09-24.
DigitalOcean offers both SMS and an authenticator app. They are not equivalent — a texted code depends on your mobile carrier and survives no longer than control of your phone number, while a generated code never travels. If both are enabled, the account is only as strong as the weaker one, because an attacker picks.
Of the fifty services on this site, thirty-five take both a texted code and a generated one,
and DigitalOcean is one of them. Eleven of the fifty accept exactly this combination, so the same
decision comes up on ten other
services here. Among the four services filed under cloud,
two accept a hardware security key —
DigitalOcean not among them.
The directory files DigitalOcean under cloud, records two of the seven second
factors it tracks, and points at instructions published at
www.digitalocean.com/docs/accounts/security/2fa.
DigitalOcean's own instructions: DigitalOcean — two-factor authentication — linked, never copied, because a stale menu path here locks people out.
DigitalOcean publishes no dedicated page for losing your second factor, which in practice means the route back is ordinary account recovery: proving who you are to support, on their timetable.
Background: how the codes work · what still works when the phone is gone.
An iPhone, iPad and Mac authenticator for these codes that makes no network calls at all. What is free and what Pro adds. Get it on the App Store