Most people asking this question do not need the whole machine.
We do not sell dedicated servers, which means every sentence here dismissing one is self-serving. The corrective is to be specific: below are the four situations where dedicated hardware is genuinely the right purchase, stated clearly enough that you can recognise yourself in them and go buy one.
- VPS from $4.95
- KVM isolation on every plan
- Deployed in about 60 seconds
- We do not sell dedicated
$69.95/mo
8 Cores · 16 GB Dedicated RAM · 150 GB NVMe
- Full root access, same as dedicated
- Own kernel via KVM
- Deployed in about 60 seconds
- Not exclusive physical hardware
The Short Answer
Choose a VPS unless you have a specific reason not to — and the specific reasons are narrower than most people assume. A VPS gives you an isolated virtual machine with its own kernel and full root access, on hardware shared with other customers who cannot execute code inside your machine. A dedicated server gives you the physical box: every core, all the memory, no other tenants, and control over the hardware itself. The practical control is the same in both cases; what differs is exclusivity, and exclusivity only earns its very large price premium in four situations — compliance that forbids shared hardware, load that saturates every core around the clock, a physical hardware requirement, or a licence priced per machine. If none of those describes you, a VPS from $4.95 does the same job for a fraction of the money.
- Same practical control: full root access on both.
- Different exclusivity: a VPS shares physical hardware, a dedicated server does not.
- Not dedicated CPU: no VPS range here offers exclusive cores.
- Largest plan here: 8 Cores, 16 GB Dedicated RAM, at $69.95.
- Four genuine dedicated cases — listed below, not hand-waved.
- We do not sell dedicated servers. If you need one, buy it elsewhere.
Related: VPS vs VDS · High performance VPS · Enterprise VPS · KVM VPS · All five ranges
Which One Are You?
Four cases in the right-hand column. If none of them is you, the left column is the answer — and it is a much cheaper answer.
A VPS is the right call
- Websites, applications, containers, development or staging.
- A mail server — what mail needs is an IP, a port and a PTR record, not exclusive hardware.
- Traffic that spikes but does not sit saturated all day.
- You want to be running in a minute rather than after a provisioning queue.
- The cost difference matters to you at all.
From $4.95, with the same root access you would get on the physical machine.
Buy a dedicated server — elsewhere
- A compliance regime that explicitly forbids shared hardware.
- Sustained load saturating every core around the clock, not in bursts.
- A physical hardware requirement: a GPU, a specific RAID layout, a particular network card.
- A software licence priced or restricted per physical machine.
We do not sell these. If one of those four describes you, buy from a provider who does — and if you are not sure, tell us the workload and we will say honestly which side you are on.
Side by Side
The rows where both columns agree are the point: control and access are the same. What differs is exclusivity, speed of deployment and price.
| Factor | VPS | Dedicated server |
|---|---|---|
| What you are renting | An isolated virtual machine on shared hardware | The entire physical machine |
| CPU The row the previous version of this page got wrong. | Allocated, not dedicated | Every core is yours |
| Memory Dedicated RAM is stated on the VDS range only. | Allocated; dedicated on VDS | All of it, physically |
| Isolation from other customers KVM isolation is genuinely strong — it is not the same as being alone on the metal. | Separate kernel, separate VM | No other tenants at all |
| Root access | Full | Full |
| Time to deploy | About 60 seconds, automated | Provisioning is usually manual and slower |
| Changing size | Move to another plan | Hardware change or a migration |
| Physical hardware control Specific RAID layouts, GPUs, particular NICs. | None | Complete |
| Cost | From $4.95/mo | Whole-machine pricing, substantially higher |
| Sold here | Yes — 16 plans | No |
Three Things to Check Before Paying for a Whole Machine
Bursts are not saturation
The commonest mistake in this decision is treating a traffic spike as evidence of outgrowing virtual hardware. Spikes are exactly what a VPS absorbs well. The dedicated case is a machine that is busy all the time — and if yours is busy all the time, you should be able to point at a graph that says so.
Check what is actually slow first
Most servers that feel too small are short of memory or waiting on the disk, not out of CPU. Both are far cheaper to fix than buying a physical machine. Diagnose before you escalate. Which resource is your bottleneck →
Compliance means the policy, not the feeling
“We handle sensitive data” is not by itself a dedicated-hardware requirement — a great deal of sensitive data runs on virtual infrastructure. The dedicated case is a written obligation that forbids shared hardware. If you have one, it will be in a document you can quote.
VPS vs Dedicated Server Questions
The same root access, for a fraction of the price.
16 plans from $4.95, up to 8 Cores and 16 GB Dedicated RAM — deployed in about 60 seconds, with a 7-day money-back guarantee on a first order.