Dedicated servers are the way to go if your business needs powerful hosting to expand its web presence. These tested, recommended web hosts deliver the reliability that mission-critical websites demand.
The average person builds a website to share thoughts online, sell a few items, or promote interesting hobbies and lifestyles. If you fall into this boat, a shared server is an ideal investment. However, that doesn’t cut it for businesses and other large organizations that require serious server power, hosting flexibility, and impeccable reliability. For that winning combination, you need to invest in a dedicated server.
Dedicated hosting is a great choice if you experience high traffic levels and/or seek optimum load-time performance. Our team of experts put the top dedicated server hosts to the test — signing up for accounts with each to compare uptime, support, usability, pricing, and much more.
What’s the Difference Between Shared Web Hosting and a Dedicated Server?
Shared hosting is just like it sounds: Your website shares server resources with other sites. Building your website on a shared server means that your pages may be affected by a neighboring site that devours too many CPU and RAM resources. For example, if that site receives a huge spike in traffic, your pages might load slowly—or not at all.
Unlike a shared server that powers multiple websites, a dedicated server hosts just one site. Website stability and reliability are the twin benefits of investing in a dedicated server. Your site leverages a server’s full CPU, RAM, and storage resources, as it doesn’t share them with other sites. You shouldn’t underestimate the importance of these benefits in terms of site speed and reliability.
Investing in a dedicated server also gives system administrators greater control over the apps and scripts that they can install on the server, too. Shared hosting is far more limited in that regard, because anything you do could potentially affect the other sites that share the server. When you’ve got the server all to yourself, your scripts and apps won’t impinge on anyone else’s bandwidth or RAM.
Do I Need Dedicated Web Hosting?
Dedicated web hosting is an attractive option for companies that require a rock-solid website foundation. Sure, it’s more expensive than shared web hosting, but you get greater reliability and more flexibility in exchange for the additional money that you pay. We’ve reviewed many dedicated hosting services and include our 10 favorites in this guide. The charts above and below give you a quick overview of the features you can find with each service, including pricing, hardware specs, data caps, and other pertinent information to help you find the best dedicated host for your needs.
What to look for when buying a dedicated server hosting plan
Dedicated hosting is geared towards those who’ve outgrown other options. Less expensive plans require you to share resources with other clients. With your own server, you get full access to a computer set up to your specifications.
You may already know some of the features you want to keep an eye out for when considering which dedicated server hosting providers have the best offers. To name the key features:
- The type of Central Processing Unit (CPU) used
- How many CPU cores are included and at what clock speed they run
- The amount of Random Access Memory (RAM) the server has available
- The amount of storage space provided
- How much bandwidth the server can support
- The number of dedicated IP addresses set up for you
- What Operating System (OS) the server uses
However, keep in mind that servers use a different type of CPU architecture than, say, a desktop computer. You may not recognize some of the models mentioned when you’re shopping for dedicated hosting.
Most starter dedicated hosting plans also offer less RAM than you see in consumer-ready computers. That’s because these machines are committed wholly to running your website. In a lot of cases, you don’t need massive amounts of memory to do that (although it doesn’t hurt).
Considering how expensive dedicated hosting can be, you want to make sure you’re not overpaying for your needs. WordPress itself can run on a very modest setup and there are a lot of managed WordPress hosting providers to choose from.
However, most dedicated servers start around the four-core, 8 GB of RAM mark. Those additional resources are meant to handle high traffic levels.
Who is Dedicated Hosting For?
A dedicated hosting plan is ideal for larger organizations or websites with high volumes of traffic.
If you own a local restaurant or small business with just a few thousand visitors per month, you don’t need a dedicated server. You’d be better off with shared hosting or VPS hosting.
However, if your website has upwards of 50,000 or 100,000+ visitors per month, you should consider a dedicated hosting plan. Dedicated servers make it easy for you to scale your website as well.
Traffic isn’t the only thing to consider. There are other types of services, such as cloud hosting, that can accommodate scalable site traffic.
Dedicated hosting plans are for businesses that want complete customization and flexibility of their server functions. That’s why large ecommerce businesses and enterprises typically choose a dedicated server.
Websites that require strict security, such as ones that involve medical data or financial information should be using a dedicated server.
Finally, dedicated servers are for websites that can afford it. While most of you can find some great cost-effective options, there are dedicated plans out there starting at $1,000 or $2,000 per month.
One of the big drivers in terms of cost is whether you go with:
- Managed hosting: the host takes care of all the server configuration, patching, and updates for you.
- Unmanaged hosting: also known as self-hosting, where you take care all of the server setup and maintenance yourself.
Managed hosting is more expensive because the host takes over a lot of the legwork that keeps a server fast and secure. Unmanaged hosting is a great way for companies with a lot of in-house IT support to keep costs down.
Many of the providers I’ve chosen offer both managed and unmanaged hosting.
Dedicated Hosting in Summary
If you’re pushing your current hosting setup to the limits, you’ll really appreciate having a server of your own. Your site visitors will also enjoy a fast, seamless experience.
With dedicated hosting, you also get a lot more control over the server. So you want to pick something that matches your technical confidence and in-house IT resources.