Which release to take
LTS releases get five years of updates, which is why both options here are LTS. Take the newest unless a dependency of yours has not caught up with it.
What we change from stock
Your name on the login
The banner and the hostname are yours from the first SSH session.
Keys before passwords
The server can boot with password authentication already disabled.
Reverse DNS set for you
The PTR points at your hostname, which is what mail servers check.
Start small, resize in place
A bare server has no idea what you will put on it, so start at the entry tier. Upgrading in place keeps your data and your addresses.
From order to a working Ubuntu
Pick Ubuntu as the image
And the release you want.
Paste your cloud-init
Optional, and it runs exactly as written.
Log in with your key
Root prompt, about a minute after ordering.
Build your server
Everything from here is yours.
Straight answers before you deploy
No. Yours travels as its own part of a multipart file; ours only sets the hostname and the login banner, and never merges with yours.
Yes — qcow2 or ISO, uploaded once and deployed in any region.
Ready when you are.
Configure a server now. Your account is created right before payment, with the configuration saved.