A VPS and a dedicated server both give you root access and your own operating system. The difference is the hardware underneath: a VPS shares one physical server with other customers, a dedicated server is yours alone. That one difference decides price, performance and what you can run.
What a VPS is
A virtual private server (VPS) is a virtual machine on a larger host. You get a fixed share of CPU cores, RAM and NVMe storage, and the virtualization keeps your VPS separate from the others on the same host. Our EPYC VPS start at €3.99 a month and our Ryzen VPS at €4.99, and both are usually ready within minutes.
What a dedicated server is
A dedicated server is a whole physical machine. Every core, every gigabyte of RAM and every disk is yours, and nobody else runs anything on it. On our own servers you also get access to the hardware itself through IPMI/KVM, so you can install any operating system, including your own ISO.
The differences at a glance
| VPS | Dedicated server | |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Shared host, fixed share for you | The whole machine |
| Price | From €3.99 per month | From €49.99 per month |
| Performance | Good, can vary with load on the host | Constant, all resources are yours |
| Maximum size | Up to 32 vCores and 96 GB RAM | Up to 3 TB RAM |
| Hardware access | Console in the browser | IPMI/KVM, own ISO, RAID |
| Ready | Within minutes | Instant servers usually within the hour |
When a VPS is enough
Choose a VPS for websites, shops with moderate traffic, automation tools like n8n, your own Nextcloud, Discord bots, small game servers and test systems. If your project needs less than 8 cores and 32 GB RAM, a VPS is usually the cheaper choice, and you can move to a bigger plan later.
When you need a dedicated server
Choose a dedicated server when performance must stay constant, for example for large game servers, databases with many queries, or virtualization with Proxmox. You also need one when you want to install your own hypervisor, use special hardware such as many large disks, or need more than 96 GB RAM.
Our recommendation
Start with a VPS if you are not sure. When you hit its limits, your data moves to a dedicated server. Ask us in the live chat if you want a second opinion; a person from our team answers.