1. Best dedicated hosting provider: InMotion Hosting
2. Best cloud (dedicated alternative): ScalaHosting
3. Most cheap dedicated hosting: IONOS
4. Best dedicated for beginners: Hostgator
5. Most customisable dedicated hosting: Liquid Web
6. Best reliable dedicated host: DreamHost
7. Best powerful dedicated host: Inter server
8. FAQ
9. How we test
The best dedicated hosting provides your own resources, extra security, and more speed and reliability than shared or VPS hosting. As resources are yours and yours alone, there is more flexibility allowing you to do what you want when you want. Dedicated servers are often used for gaming, critical tasks, and separating infrastructure.
With so many use cases you'll only know what's best for you but we've narrowed down the list to these categories to help you find the fastest, most reliable, configurable, or most secure dedicated hosts for whatever you want to do with them.
You need a bit more tech savvy with a dedicated host and if you're looking for something for gaming our best Minecraft hosting guide might be a better suit. You may also want to consider whether you really need a dedicated host and whether one of the best VPS servers could also cover your needs.
The best dedicated hosting providers of 2024 in full
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Best dedicated host
✔️ You need class-leading security: with free SSL certificates, a custom firewall, DDoS protection, auto-updates, and heavily guarded data centers, InMotion sets the bar high for security.
✔️You need powerful specs: you can go as high as a 32-core CPU and 512GB DDR4 RAM with InMotion, so there’s enough power for heavy workloads.
✔️You care for the environment: InMotion’s eco-friendly policies and green data centers allow it to significantly reduce cooling costs and carbon output.
❌ You want comprehensive support: phone support is only available from the third plan, so entry-level users will have to make-do with live chat and email.
❌ You need Windows support: InMotion dedicated hosting plans are only available for Linux.
In our expert opinion InMotion Hosting offer very well rounded and secure dedicated hosting plans
InMotion Hosting was founded in 2001, and now with over two decades of experience, it boasts 170,000+ customers, 24/7/365 customer support, and a world-class range of hosting products, including shared, WordPress, VPS, reseller, and dedicated.
The highlight is its comprehensive set of security features, including free SSL certificates with 2048-bit encryption, automatic updates, custom firewall, and DDoS protection so that your internet-facing applications and system resources are protected from attacks and malware infection.
A backup manager comes standard with all dedicated InMotion hosting plans as well. It is an off-server backup and recovery service that protects your data from mishaps. InMotion’s infrastructure is connected to four Tier 1 ISPs, so you can rest assured that your website will always be live even if a natural disaster were to occur.
According to InMotion, all of its data centers are secured by armed guards, locked vaults, and hand scanners—if you are big on security, what’s not to like? It is also an environment-focused hosting company, and its Green Data Center in Los Angeles is proof of that.
Besides free website transfer and server setup, as well as free backup storage of 10GB-1TB depending on the plan you choose, InMotion Hosting also offers one of the best uptimes in the industry. Its 99.999% uptime guarantee is only bettered (and that too, slightly) by Liquid Web and DreamHost. The service isn’t short on power, either, as higher-end plans can offer 12/24/32-core CPUs and up to 512GB DDR4 RAM.
InMotion’s dedicated hosting plans start at a reasonable $35/month, which is more or less on par with the cheapest dedicated hosting plan i.e. IONOS’s. What's interesting is that InMotion doesn't offer HDD storage, no matter the plan you choose—your range of storage choices starts from 1TB SSD and goes up to 2 x 3.2TB NVMe SSD with the most expensive plan ($749.99/month).
It's also worth noting that while InMotion hosting does offer phone support, that's only available from the Advanced plan onwards—so, both Aspire and Essentials plans only come with live chat and ticket support. If you are looking for class-leading support, we recommend checking out HostGator. Furthermore, all InMotion hosting plans, whether that's dedicated hosting or cloud hosting, are Linux-only. Unfortunately, there's no support for Windows OS.
Best cloud (dedicated alternative)
✔️ You need excellent scalability: with ScalaHosting’s single-click auto-scaling functionality, you can meet unexpected spikes in website visitors and only pay for the resources you actually use.
✔️You want a money-back guarantee: ScalaHosting offers a unique anytime unconditional money-back guarantee where you’re given a refund for the remaining duration of your plan after you cancel.
✔️You don’t have the budget for traditional dedicated hosting: ScalaHosting’s managed and unmanaged cloud VPS plans can be more affordable than dedicated hosting.
❌ You want a traditional dedicated server: while some believe dedicated hosting is becoming obsolete the amount of hosts still offering great dedicated plans says otherwise
Not quite dedicated hosting in the tradition sense but everything good about it and the advantages of cloud
ScalaHosting has over 15 years of experience and is one of the most prominent names in the cloud hosting space. It is the best cloud hosting service in our tests and while it is absolutely a wildcard in this list of otherwise only traditional dedicated hosting services, it is one to watch out for.
This is because it is setting forth a much more reliable and cost-effective way of hosting that not only gives customers everything they want from a dedicated server (despite not getting a dedicated physical machine in the traditional sense) but also better redundancy, failover, and scalability.
You will save a sizable chunk of your budget with ScalaHosting’s cloud VPS as opposed to a dedicated hosting plan wherein you pay for the entirety of the dedicated server, so no matter how much of its total capacity you actually use, you are going to have to pay the full price.
However, ScalaHosting comes with auto-scaling, meaning you can add/remove RAM and CPU on the fly with just a single click. This way, you will only pay for what you actually utilize—and you will get free credits for any unused resources. Additionally, auto-scaling will help you meet unexpected spikes in website visitors and prevent slowdowns and crashes.
Speaking of pricing, ScalaHosting's managed cloud VPS hosting starts at $29.95/month and this plan comes with 2 CPU cores, 4GB RAM, 50GB turbo-fast NVMe SSD, and unmetered bandwidth. Strictly in terms of hardware, this is still on par with dedicated hosting plans of, say, DreamHost that costs around 4.5x more and whose only real advantage is increased storage capacity.
The next most important ScalaHosting benefit is geo-redundancy, which is the ultimate hallmark of reliability. As part of its geo-redundant infrastructure, ScalaHosting distributes your website’s resources and backups across multiple data centers worldwide. So, regardless of whether a server is facing downtime or is under maintenance, your website will always be up and running.
Also, while a dedicated hosting service doesn't offer any money-back guarantee or even a free trial, ScalaHosting comes with a whopping anytime unconditional money-back guarantee. So, you can cancel anytime and rest assured that you will get a refund of the payment pertaining to your plan's remaining duration.
In addition to cloud hosting benefits, ScalaHosting comes with a myriad of other benefits (at a much more affordable price point, by the way) that give traditional dedicated hosting services a run for their money. For instance, you get 24/7 real-time protection of all your websites and web applications from web attacks and breaches.
Additionally, it offers free SSL certificates, automated backups, brute-force protection, two-factor authentication, and free site migrations—as well as a custom control panel known as sPanel that is more secure, lightweight, and feature-packed than cPanel.
Best cheap dedicated hosting
✔️ You’re on a tight budget: with IONOS’s cheap server deals, you can get a dedicated server for as low as $32/month without compromising on features.
✔️You want to pay by the hour: IONOS is the only provider on the list with a pay-per-hour pricing model, so you only pay for the resources you use.
✔️You need dedicated storage servers: just like InterServer, IONOS also offers storage dedicated servers where you can get up to 80 TB of RAID storage.
❌ You want configurability: IONOS' dedicated hosting plans come with little to no customization options.
❌ You don’t want to pay extra for setup: IONOS charges a flat fee of $50 for setting up your account on its cheap server deals.
If you just need a dedicated host for a short time IONOS is a great option with its pay-by-hour billing option
IONOS started operations in 1988, and through its comprehensive product range that includes web, cloud, VPS, and dedicated server hosting solutions as well as website and online store-building, serves both SMBs and large-scale businesses on various fronts.
We like how neatly all dedicated server plans are organized—AMD and Intel servers are in separate tiers and everything from the chip’s core-thread count to its base clock and boost clock speeds are clearly mentioned.
A standout IONOS offering is the pay-per-hour pricing model (and you can cancel anytime) so that you only pay for what you use and nothing extra. The most basic AMD server costs $0.0972/hour ($70/month) and its Intel counterpart is priced at $0.1389/hour or $100/month.
However, the real deal is IONOS’s cheap server deals that start at a mere $32/month where you get 12GB RAM, 1TB HDD storage, and a 4-core Intel CPU with a respectable 3.4 GHz turbo boost. What's more, the base SSD plan at $50/month allows you to use a 240GB SSD for powering your server and a 1TB HDD for storage purposes—a great way to bring prices down while still ensuring excellent performance. It’s worth noting that the ‘cheap server deals’ do not come with pay-per-hour pricing—and you will have to pay an additional flat charge of $50 as setup fees upfront.
There's lots to like about IONOS’s comprehensive security, too. You get a wildcard SSL certificate, anti-spam, anti-fishing, firewall management, administrative logs (info on all actions performed in the IONOS cloud panel), and VPN SSL that allows you to create a secure VPN connection between a local computer and your cloud server network.
IONOS is also one of the very few providers we've tested that offer dedicated storage servers—a fantastic offering for large businesses with lots of websites and heaps of data (including large files) to store.
Unlike in a Network Attached Storage (NAS), in a storage server, the data transfer rate is not limited to the network connectivity rate. Sure, the storage capacity of a NAS can be expanded, but it will be characterized by limited computing power, operations, and transactions—all of these restrictions are eliminated in a storage server.
Coming to the downsides, the uptime guarantee, like InterServer, is 99.9%, which is nothing to sniff at, especially for the price but it’s not extraordinary. Next, although the plans read that they are configurable, there's not much to play around with once you click the “Configure” button—just RAM, storage, and OS.
Also, at the time of writing, almost every extra storage configuration is out of stock. If you are looking for highly (or even moderately) customizable dedicated hosting, you will be better off with Liquid Web or InterServer.
Best dedicated for beginners
✔️ You want the best-in-class support: in addition to 24/7/365 phone, chat, and email support, HostGator also offers in-depth help articles, YouTube tutorials, webinars, and an active Facebook community.
✔️ You're looking for ease of use: HostGator's dedicated plans support cPanel and Softaculous, making for simple site management.
✔️You want a shorter commitment: HostGator gives you lots of options to choose from when it comes to the payment cycle—you can pay monthly, quarterly, or biannually.
❌ You need tons of computational power: HostGator isn’t ideal for advanced usage such as data-intensive tasks or machine learning applications, as its hardware is limited.
❌ You want a top-notch uptime guarantee: HostGator's 99.9% uptime guarantee is decent but not extraordinary, particularly when compared to DreamHost or Liquid Web.
Great host with plenty of features
HostGator, the best shared web hosting provider, also offers a straightforward yet powerful dedicated hosting tier. The company is based out of Texas and has been helping customers establish a successful web presence since 2002.
In addition to 24/7/365 phone service (toll-free, and you can also request a call back), live chat, and email, as well as server monitoring and remediation, one of the main reasons HostGator is among the best for customer support is that it has separate sections for help articles and a general blog with informational guides on various related topics.
The help section has different categories, topic-wise, such as website transfers, WordPress, DNS modification, FTP, MySQL, and Softaculous—and each of them contains answers to queries users may have regarding that particular topic. Then there's also a resource-rich HostGator YouTube channel with step-by-step tutorials, HostGator webinars, and a thriving Facebook community.
This is simply fantastic and unlike what we've seen with other providers, namely InterServer and DreamHost. The only dedicated hosting services that come close to HostGator in terms of support are Liquid Web and InMotion.
Where HostGator falls behind is customizability. There’s little to no customizability in terms of the actual resources of the plan, but it does offer a lot of options as far as the plan's duration is concerned—from a single month to as long as three years, including quarterly and six-month payment cycles. This is unique to HostGator (and InMotion) and might be an actual perk for users who want dedicated hosting for shorter periods—perhaps for trial purposes or for a temporary project.
Coming to the crux of its dedicated hosting i.e. the hardware, right off the bat, you can see that HostGator likes to keep everything simple—and that there's not enough firepower if you need tons of computational power or even storage. However, it will pull through nicely for small and mid-sized businesses.
There are three plans to choose from, ranging from 8-30GB RAM, 1-2TB HDD (or 512GB-1TB SSD), and $91.98-141.99/month. The base plan comes with a 4-core/8-thread CPU whereas the following two plans are double that. All in all, these are just about the only differences between the plans.
Everything else, from free content transfers and cPanel to advanced DDoS protection and manual backups are available on every single plan—HostGator’s no-nonsense approach and simplicity are admirable.
- You could save on HostGator VPS hosting with our HostGator discount codes.
Most configurable
✔️ You want highly customizable plans: from the control panel to OS to backups, you can customize pretty much everything while purchasing a Liquid Web dedicated hosting plan.
✔️You need minimum downtime: Liquid Web is one of two providers on this list to offer a 100% uptime guarantee, and it also comes with an SLA.
✔️You need excellent security: besides DDoS protection, you also get an antivirus, vulnerability removal, and intrusion detection.
❌ You’re on a tight budget: Liquid Web's dedicated server hosting, including its entry-level plans, is not cheap.
❌You need more options: with fewer chips and plans, Liquid Web does not offer a lot of hardware options, which can be disappointing for experts.
For tailored VPS packages Liquid Web really stand out. Especially if you are looking to find hosting for clients.
Founded in 1997, Liquid Web is a popular hosting service provider that has more than 500,000 sites under management, 10 global data centers, and a myriad of both managed and unmanaged dedicated hosting solutions. It's also one of the very few to offer dedicated cloud hosting. To know more about Liquid Web's cloud offerings (which include true auto-scaling and a pay-per-hour pricing model), check out our best cloud hosting page.
A standout of Liquid Web is the customizability of its plans—it's even more customizable than InterServer as it gives you a few more options to tinker around with. These include a choice of control panel and backups—you can choose between Liquid Web's off-server backup (data is sorted in the Liquid Web Cloud) and Acronis cyber backups where data is stored both off-server and off-site in the Acronis Backup Cloud. And, of course, everything from RAM to storage to bandwidth is easily customizable.
It's also right up there with DreamHost as one of the most reliable providers on the market. It guarantees a network uptime of 100% through a clear-cut Service Level Agreement (SLA) that promises to give you free credits if it doesn’t deliver on its promises.
We also like Liquid Web's security offerings. In addition to DDoS protection that comes standard with all dedicated hosting plans, you can also opt for an antivirus for malware cleanup and remediation, vulnerability assessment and scanning, and/or an advanced intrusion detection system. However, all these are paid add-ons, starting from $10/month to $49/month for the whole package that's called Server Secure Plus.
Another thing to admire about Liquid Web is its overall simplicity. The entire process of customizing your plan is the simplest we've seen—plus, its website design is more pleasing to the eye than, say, InterServer’s very blue and very bold customization page.
All that you have to do is select your desired location (US Central/US West/EU Netherlands) and your operating system (Windows/Linux). It’s worth noting that you can change the OS later while configuring your plan. You will then be presented with three pre-designed plans—and a fourth customizable plan for large enterprises that entails getting in touch with Liquid Web’s agents. All in all, you don't have to sift through tons of plan options, as is the case with InterServer or IONOS.
Also, there are only 3-5 chips in total in Liquid Web’s kitty, whereas other providers like InterServer, IONOS, or InMotion offer a lot more. This makes it a great choice for non-tech-savvy customers who want a plug-and-play solution without getting into the nitty-gritty.
However, it can be a tough pill to swallow for those who know what they are doing and would like more chip options—or even more pre-designed plans for that matter. The pricing (plans start from $199/month) is rather steep as well, so beginners will be better off with budget solutions from IONOS or InMotion hosting.
Most reliable dedicated hosting
✔️ You need top-notch reliability: DreamHost offers a class-leading 100% uptime guarantee, thanks to various data centers and constant monitoring.
✔️You prioritize ease of use: the custom-built control panel is pretty straightforward and allows you to manage your websites, email, etc. without missing a beat.
✔️You want quality support: 24/7/365 expert availability and an in-depth knowledge hub mean that help is never far away.
❌ You want affordable pricing: both monthly and yearly prices are pretty significant, especially when compared to other competitors.
❌You need ample storage: DreamHost caps out at 2TB HDD and 240GB SSD—and it does not offer SSD storage on the first few plans.
DreamHost started from a dorm room back in 1997 and has since then served over 400,000 customers spanning more than 100 countries. It currently hosts more than 1.5 million websites and is widely known for its cheap web hosting and WordPress hosting. Today, though, we shift our focus towards its dedicated server hosting services.
Where dedicated hosting services are happy offering 99.9% to 99.999% uptime guarantees, DreamHost knocks it out of the park with a whopping 100% network uptime guarantee. This is made possible by DreamHost’s multiple data centers spread worldwide, emergency generators, redundant cooling, and constant monitoring.
However, you are certainly paying a premium for class-leading reliability—DreamHost’s entry-level plan is priced at $149/month on yearly billing. In this plan, you get a 4-core/8-thread CPU, 1TB HDD, and 4GB RAM. Compare that with InterServer’s base plan ($62/month), for example, and you will see that a slight compromise on uptime gives you 14x RAM and 4x storage, and that too, NVMe SSD.
All in all, if you are after maximum reliability, meaning you just can't afford to have your site down for even the smallest portions of time—and you value simplicity and ease of use—then DreamHost is a solid choice all day long.
It comes with an easy-to-use custom-built control panel that allows you to seamlessly manage your websites, email, databases, and billing. A few more likable DreamHost features include unlimited bandwidth, DDoS protection, and OPcache for faster load times.
Additionally, you get 24/7/365 expert support on every dedicated hosting plan so that you can get your queries sorted without missing a beat. Plus, there's an in-depth knowledge hub with multiple guides and tutorials on various topics as well as a glossary for beginners for first-hand troubleshooting.
However, for all its reliability and beginner-friendly offerings, DreamHost comes with a handful of limitations that are worth discussing. First, it has only two CPU core options, a 4-core one and the other a 12-core CPU. Second, and the more concerning shortfall, is that you can only have SSD storage if you pick the 12-core CPU.
So, as long as you are getting the Xeon 4-core CPU, the maximum storage you can opt for is a 2TB HDD drive—only on the 12-core CPU plans can you get 240GB SSD. Plus, that's about the maximum storage you are going to get with DreamHost, as there is also no option to pair an SSD drive with a secondary high-storage HDD drive, which is something you get with Liquid Web as well as other providers on the list.
Most powerful dedicated hosting
✔️ You need a lot of power: with GPU-dedicated servers and powerful processors, InterServer is a frontrunner for customers who need tons of computational power.
✔️You need good storage and bandwidth: InterServer offers great storage and bandwidth on all plans, even the cheapest.
✔️You need storage dedicated servers: InterServer is one of the very few providers to offer dedicated storage servers with up to 120TB of storage space.
❌ You need comprehensive security: although there's DDoS protection, InterServer’s security package isn't as well-rounded as the competition.
❌You are a beginner: InterServer's dashboard isn't the easiest to navigate at times.
InterServer was founded in 1999 by two tech-savvy high-school students and is now one of the most experienced providers in the industry, serving customers with varying needs worldwide, including individual freelancers as well as Fortune 500 companies. It offers the entire spectrum of hosting services, from shared and cloud hosting to dedicated and reseller hosting.
InterServer is hands down the best dedicated hosting for users who need high-performance computing capabilities i.e. those who work with machine learning applications, complex simulations, or data-heavy workloads. This is because it is the only provider that offers GPU-dedicated servers that are capable of handling the aforementioned tasks all of which need massive processing power which is far beyond the capabilities of even a good high-end CPU.
While every other dedicated hosting service only offers CPU-based servers—notably the Intel Xeon lineup of chips—InterServer knocks it out of the park with AMD Radeon 7900, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, and RTX 2080 Ti. Note that these are among the best graphics cards on the market right now.
Sure, GPU-dedicated servers are more expensive than CPU servers, but given the sheer amount of power under their hood (they also come with 64-128GB memory and 2 x 1TB NVMe storage) and the fact that they are tailor-made for a small section of the hosting audience i.e. customers who need truck loads of power, they are well worth the splurge, especially when InterServer is the only hosting provider offering such a service in the first place.
However, that’s not to say that anyone with standard dedicated hosting needs won’t find value in InterServer. There are tons of CPU-based server options, too, and you can choose from three pre-designed plans with 64-256GB memory, 2-8TB SSD storage, and 1Gbps unmetered bandwidth or get hands-on with its customizable servers.
With InterServer’s customizable servers, you get a lot of options to choose from—AMD Ryzen, Intel Xeon, as well as chips from the AMD Epyc series. Not only that, but you can also go as high as a 52-core CPU and pair it up with another CPU with the same specifications to craft a highly powerful server. All of the plans are highly customizable, and you get tons of options whether that’s for RAM, hard drives, the operating system, bandwidth, or IP.
So, even on the CPU side of things, there’s a lot of power on offer, plus the advantage with these plans is that they are very competitively priced, with the most basic plan set at a reasonable $76/month and coming with a 6-core CPU, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD (you can ditch SATA SSD and opt for NVMe SSD at no extra cost), and DDoS protection.
DDoS protection is undoubtedly a nice security offering, but what we found slightly disappointing is that despite all of the muscle, InterServer doesn’t hit the sweet spot in terms of security—there’s DDoS protection and that’s it.
However, that shouldn’t be a deal breaker for most users, especially when there are quite a handful of other nifty features, such as 24/7 uptime monitoring, remote reboots, zero setup fees, and a Service Level Agreement (SLA) guaranteeing 99.9% uptime guarantee. It’s worth noting that the latter should be taken with a pinch of salt because providers like Liquid Web and DreamHost are out there offering a 100% uptime guarantee.
Best dedicated server hosting FAQs
How to choose the best dedicated server hosting for you
There are a number of things for you to consider when choosing the best dedicated server hosting for your online needs. It's is also worth mentioning that different features will apply to different people depending on what you are looking for.
We suggest picking a dedicated server hosting provider that is transparent with its services' performance. That way, you are able to determine if it's right for you.
Also, it's wise to consider potential downtime. In an ideal world, your website would run 24/7 365. There's also scalability to consider. Monitoring how well your application scales would be a good indicator of whether you need a dedicated server as some applications are difficult to scale on multiple servers.
While looking for the best-dedicated server for your expanding venture, there are essential features you must look out for. Dedicated servers continue to double yearly, each trying to get you to host your website on their server. Your specific needs will, in the end, determine the dedicated hosting server you choose, but here are five features you need to look for:
- Server uptime guarantee
Most dedicated servers boast a 99.9% server uptime, but the truth is that no server will be up 24/7. Dedicated hosting servers will have to perform maintenance and updates; hence, servers will be shut down occasionally. With money at stake, you need reliable dedicated hosting. Great hosts should tell you when the server will be down; this downtime is not counted towards the guarantee. You should also set up an uptime monitor to claim the money-back guarantee or analyze the frequency of downtimes.
- Server location
Choose a dedicated hosting server to host your website and files close to your target audience. A server with a global CDN like Liquid Web is your best bet if you intend to reach people worldwide. Choosing your server location can help with your website load speed.
- SSD vs. HDD storage
While looking for a dedicated hosting server, you must evaluate the available resources. A solid-state drive (SSD) is faster, uses less energy, and increases your website's overall performance. On the other hand, a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) only offers more storage and is only a good choice for personal servers.
- Customizations and add-ons
Evaluate the operating system and control panel of your server options. Good dedicated hosting usually offers free SSL certificates, DDoS protection, email addresses, email storage, and other perks.
- Storage and bandwidth
Your business will keep growing over the years, so it is best to consider features that will make it easy for you to scale. With a dedicated server with more storage, you can house more data and add more products, pictures, and videos. Your site's loading time will increase with greater bandwidth, allowing you to accept more visitors without interruptions.
What is dedicated server hosting?
Dedicated server hosting is a single-user environment where performance is optimal, and the user does not need to compete for resources. It is an internet hosting option where physical servers serve only one business customer. Dedicated hosting users can access the physical server's computing resources, including storage, processors, and memory.
With the great features and add-ons on a dedicated server comes the role of maintaining the server to keep it at optimal performance. There are hosts like Liquid Web and A2 Hosting who offer to manage your hosting plan. These managed services usually include updates to security patches, monitoring, periodic virus scans, and backups. Dedicated server hosting offers speed, impressive uptime, security, and data protection.
Dedicated hosting: What are the pros and cons?
Pros
Scalability
Dedicated servers allow you to add as many websites as possible to your server without side effects. The large storage can hold several videos and images. As your business grows and your needs change, you can upgrade to another plan and increase your resources anytime.
Increased resources
You have root access to the server's resources, including CPU, RAM, storage, and bandwidth.
Reseller hosting
Some dedicated servers allow you to resell your dedicated hosting for a good amount of money and earn extra income.
Security
Dedicated servers offer free SSL certificates and DDoS protection, so you do not have to worry about hacks or DDoS attacks launched on other users.
Reliability
Dedicated servers offer great uptime guarantees and complete access to resources, ensuring your site performs better.
Cons
Costly
Dedicated server hosting is expensive when compared to shared and VPS hosting. While add-ons are available, they come at a cost.
Very technical
Installing operating systems, fine-tuning your firewall, and running content management systems on dedicated servers require technical knowledge and expertise. Some servers have a fully managed service for users without technical expertise, but managed plans are expensive.
How much does a dedicated server cost?
We figured out that what you spend on a dedicated server depends on the host you choose, SSD or HDD storage, whether you go with a fully managed or unmanaged plan, and if you add cloud hosting to your package. The cheapest dedicated server costs $47 per month from IONOS, and the most expensive best server costs $739 from InMotion Hosting. During signup and purchase, several companies offer a discount on the first month or year for a longer contract.
Signing up for a longer yearly contract is not exactly a cheap option, but it reduces the monthly cost, and your investment is safe as you can request a refund if the host cannot meet your needs. Your server's hardware also determines how much you might spend on a server. If you go with SSD, which performs better than HDD, you will spend more. Rather than focusing on the price tags on each hosting plan, you should focus on the long-term benefits of dedicated server hosting.
Dedicated vs bare metal
Hosting servers offer traditional dedicated hosting and Bare metal hosting. Dedicated and bare metal servers are single-tenant machines allowing users to rely on their private hardware and improve performance. Bare metal servers differ from dedicated servers in hardware. Bare metal usually comes with the latest hardware, from the newest generation of Intel CPUs to DDR4 RAM, with an Error-Correcting code (ECC). Bare metal servers provide better storage and high-speed 1Gb/s bandwidths.
Dedicated servers can cope with higher concurrent visitors and transactions. You can access hardware resources that fit your needs with a dedicated server. Bare metal and dedicated servers offer similar security, control, and complexity levels. Both give users full access to complete customization of the hosting environment. A big difference between dedicated and Bare metal servers is the pricing model. The Bare metal server offers the performance of a dedicated server with a flexible, per-hour billing structure instead of the rigid monthly or yearly contracts offered by dedicated hosting servers.
Both servers exist for different purposes. Dedicated servers are meant to be used consistently for months or years, while bare metal servers can be launched or shut down at short notice. Bare metal is advantageous over dedicated servers because they operate as nodes in wider networks like standalone servers. It is possible to use cloud integration with minimal configuration on a bare metal server, thus, creating hybrid load-balanced setups.
Who needs dedicated server hosting?
If you have more than 1,000 visitors on your site daily, it might be time to consider moving to a dedicated server. Some organizations that need dedicated server hosting include medium and large-scale businesses with large databases, inventory, and hundreds of transactions hourly.
System administrators, developers, agencies, and web hosting resellers need dedicated hosting to customize their environment and run resource-intensive applications like content-management systems, API-driven applications, and e-commerce sites. Dedicated servers also allow them to manage clients in one place.
Moving to a dedicated server early will prevent slow loading times, crashes, and extra costs. You do not need a dedicated server if you are not in any of the groups above and just started your business.
Is dedicated hosting affordable?
You calculate this using the lifetime cost of hosting your website on a server. During the first year, the cost of using a dedicated server hosting is at its lowest due to promotional discounts offered by the companies. After this period, the billing goes back to its original price.
Paying low for subpar hosting can reduce conversions and cost you more money. With security patch updates, 24/7 support, impressive uptime, scalability, backups, free email, and an SSL certificate included in every package, dedicated hosting is worth its cost when performance and quality are considered. InterServer is a great and affordable dedicated server.
Is dedicated server hosting secure?
Yes. Dedicated servers offer more security than shared and VPS hosting because it is not shared with other users. This means a higher level of security against hacking and malware.
The best dedicated server hosting: How we test
Our team of website hosting experts spend countless hours testing and re-testing web hosting services. This also includes scheduling regular demo calls with service providers to go through new product releases, as well as hosting our test websites on each web host.
We use various external tools such as Uptime.com and GTMetrix to test the speed and performance of our sites hosted on each web hosting service, and our rigorous testing process also includes comparing bandwidth, storage, security, ease of use, pricing, and customer support.
Similar to other web hosting services, testing dedicated server hosting solutions is not much different.
We're particularly interested in features that many customers will use, but aren't available from every provider. For dedicated server hosting that could include SLA, public bandwidth, memory and more.
We also test and compare other features such as pricing, customer support, performance and ease of use. If you're a beginner, it's nice to know that the dedicated server hosting provider you choose has enough support to guide you through the setup process, should you need it.
To choose the top dedicated servers, we analyzed over 12 companies providing hosting services. Based on our thorough testing process, these companies were carefully weighted according to their importance to businesses to ensure we provide accurate and useful information on the criteria for the final 10 best server hosting providers.
Here are the criteria we analyzed to compile our list:
- Pricing
We looked at the dedicated server's price range to see if they offered discounts during holidays or lower pricing for annual payments. We also considered the number of plans available, money back guarantee, and the payment cycle.
- Uptime
We considered the percentage of the time the server runs without shutdown or restart. This also tells the percentage of your site that will be live per server response times. If your site goes down, customers can be lost to other competitors. Companies with an uptime of 99.9% received bonus points to denote the premium quality of service, while web hosts who could not offer a good uptime were given a lower rating.
- General features
When a business upgrades from a shared server or a VPS (virtual private server), you can expect differences like a significant increase in storage or disk space, SSD or HDD, data transfer, backups, and RAM. In our analysis, we considered the number of cores available, the processors, and other essential features a dedicated server should offer.
- Additional features
We also looked into the dedicated servers that offer more features besides the essential ones. Companies that offered extensive customization to choose the operating system (OS), increased security, business email, and backup or disaster recovery options were given more points in our rating.
- Server management
Some dedicated server hosting offers different management options depending on the users' technical expertise and requirements. We considered the self-managed hosting service and managed hosting provided by dedicated servers, where you can have full control of the server administration or allow the hosting provider to handle routine maintenance and updates on your behalf. Companies offering these options were given more points in our rating.
- Flexibility
We considered the features every dedicated server provided for expanding businesses. Companies that allow businesses to upgrade server resources without limitations are given more points in our rating. We considered this because you are more likely to seek an option that can accommodate evolving business needs.
- Technical support
We considered the host's knowledge base and the support options available. dedicated servers often provide dedicated customer technical support through specialized teams versed in these issues who can assist promptly.
- Security measures
We looked at dedicated servers' normal and extra security features, such as access controls, encryption methods, and firewalls. Companies that offered security features to reduce the risk of security breaches received extra points in our rating.
- Ratings and reviews
Reviews could be true. We used several review sites like Trustpilot and BBB, social media platforms like Twitter, competitor feedback, and the results of our testing process to give the server a final rating.
- Expert score
Finally, we considered expert opinions for each dedicated hosting. The locations of the hosting provider are considered to reduce latency and cater to an audience. Bandwidth up to 5TB transfer is good for a dedicated server every month. Each expert's review and how user-friendly the server is also accounted for our rating.
