[mezuky]

Snapshots are used because they persist even after the droplet/volume was deleted and you pay per GB/month instead of 20% of the droplet price. For volumes, you only have the option to create a snapshot.

The "backups" term is used mostly for SEO purposes. When a user wants backups for his droplet, probably for him is not important if the backup is considered by DO a "backup" or a "snapshot".

The DigitalOcean backups are also images at the core because the point-in-time image is created in the same way.

From the DO docs:

1. A snapshot of the live system is taken, creating a crash-consistent, point-in-time image.

2. The snapshot is backed up off-disk.

3. The snapshot is deleted once the backup is complete.

Regarding the recommendation of powering of the droplet, in the future maybe there will be an option to choose if you want this before taking the snapshot. This will be useful for droplets with write-intensive operations.

Thanks, Alex