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Best Dedicated Server Hosting Providers Of 2022

Opting for a dedicated server means that you get an entire server to yourself, opting for the best dedicated server hosting means picking a top quality solution for your online needs.

With a dedicated server, there's no sharing of CPU time, RAM or bandwidth, which means your website stays responsive at all times.

Shared web hosting can be a great value with many feature-packed products for a few pounds per month. However, the reality is often quite different and they are not always the bargains they appear to be.

Cheap web hosting probably mean the web hosting provider is cramming more customers onto each server, for instance. Performance will be poor as there aren't enough resources to go around, and the extra load could mean more server problems and downtime.

Dedicated hosting gives you more control over the server's configuration. You can add or remove software, update the server, or modify any settings to make it more efficient for your specific needs.

Dedicated hosting contracts often offer fast and knowledgeable support. The best providers will also monitor your server for potential issues such as failed services and fix them before you even realize there is a problem.

This kind of power comes at a high price. Even though there are some great signup deals, you can easily spend $50-$140 per month or more on a basic package.

It is important to make the right investment with such a large amount of money. We'll be highlighting five top dedicated hosting companies that you might want to look into first.

The best dedicated server hosting of 2022

1. Inmotion Hosting dedicated hosting

InMotion Hosting (opens in new tab) offers a range of dedicated server hosting options, divided between managed and unmanaged server hosting ranges.

All servers come with SSD storage to speed up load times and smart routing technology to ensure 99.999% uptime. All servers are Tier-1 and come with multi-layer security protection. They also have the option of rebootless upgrades if necessary.

Managed server pricing is very affordable, with the most basic costing $139.99 a month, yet delivers a power suite of hardware specs such as Intel Xeon processor, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD hardrive, and 15TB of data transfer.

There are six options for managed servers, but you can also request customized solutions. All servers can be configured to run WHM/Cpanel for easy backend administration.

The bare-metal server range has the exact same specifications as managed servers, but is much less expensive at just $99.99 per month for the model in the lowest range. As with managed servers, you can also configure your own bare metal server according to your own needs.

InMotion hosting provides a powerful platform for dedicated hosting at extremely affordable prices.

Read our InMotion hosting review. Click here to sign up for InMotion dedicated web hosting (opens new tab).

Inmotion hosting offers shared hosting, a WordPress and BoldGrid-based graphical Website Creator, managed WordPress, managed and cloud VPS, reseller plans, managed and bare metal dedicated servers, high-end enterprise products, and the list goes on. Full root access is available on the Essential Quadcore Xeon server at $99.99 per month (opens new tab).

2. Hostwinds dedicated server hosting

Hostwinds (opens in new tab) is a capable hosting provider which crams a huge range of features into all its products, from the most basic shared hosting plans to its enterprise-level cloud-based range.

The dedicated server range can be purchased starting at $106 per month (PS76), but these products also include premium extras.

All systems have 1Gbps ports, for instance (some providers start at 100Mbps). Every server is fully managed, ensuring you're not wasting time running operating system updates or other basic maintenance tasks. Hostwinds monitors the server and detects problems immediately. Nightly backups are automatic, so you can quickly recover from any disaster.

Storage is also very configurable. There are four drive bays on some servers, which can be fitted with any combination of 1TB to 3TB SATA drives or 120GB to oneTB SSDs. That's considerably more flexible than providers like IONOS, where you can only use SSD drives on some products, and even then they're often available in fixed configurations only (1TB SATA or 800GB SSD, for instance).

There's more to the choice of OS. Linux fans can choose CentOS or Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu or Fedora. Windows users can also choose Windows 2008 Server, 2012 or 2016 Server starting at $25. We've seen other charges up to $50.

Put it all together and the Hostwinds dedicated range is refreshingly honest. Servers don't have to be low-spec to meet a price point. However, final costs are low and most updates are very reasonably priced. This is a great option for anyone looking for a reliable, well-specified server at an affordable price.

- See our Hostwinds reviews

Hostwinds Dedicated server hosting subscription options:1 month plan - $106 per month ($106 total cost) (opens in new tab)

3. IONOS dedicated server hosting

German-based IONOS opens in new tab is well-known as a budget hosting provider. However, the company doesn't just offer value if you are a newbie to web design: its dedicated server range starts from $45 per month for six months, and then goes up to $65.

As you might imagine, IONOS has had to cut a few corners to hit that price point. The cheapest plans are relatively basic, with limited hardware, although network bandwidth got an upgrade with 1Gbit/s. Additional features such as SSD drives and server management (IONOS updates monitors and manages your server for you) are available at an additional cost. There is a $50 setup fee for entry level plans.

There are other benefits, such as unlimited bandwidth and Symantec SSL certificates. Plesk Onyx also comes with a free control panel. Even the smallest IONOS dedicated servers plan has enough power for many tasks. You also get a personal advisor for no extra charge.

Demanding users have plenty of paid upgrades to explore, including a faster CPU, more RAM and storage, a bundled backup service and more. Some of these add-ons include more than you might expect, too. IONOS manages your server administration for $14 per month. But that's not all. You also get a website builder and simple analytics, as well as automatic backup and restore of WordPress sites. This sounds like a great deal to us.

- Check out our IONOS review

Get 1&1 Ionos US discounts by signing up here (opens new tab).

Sign up for 1&1 Ionos UK deals here (opens in new tab).

4. A2 Hosting dedicated server hosting

While dedicated hosting is faster than shared hosting, there's still room for improvement. A2 Hosting (opens in new tab)'s managed server plans blend multiple tricks and technologies to try and ensure you see the best possible performance.

This starts with a powerful set of server components: OPcache and APC may speed up PHP processing by 50%. Mod_pagespeed makes site content optimizations by using multiple tricks. Memcached saves key MySQL data to RAM for faster retrieval. SPDY and HTTP/2 increase page load speeds even further. Additionally, support for technologies like edgeside includes and websockets enables fine-tuned optimizations of the site.

Cloudflare offers a free CDN and Railgun Optimizer with A2 Hosting plans. These "compress previously uncacheable Web objects up to 99.6%" which can lead to an average 200% improvement in performance. You might not see the same boost as that, and it will depend on your site. However, it is still a valuable technology.

Performance-boosting add-ons are available elsewhere. These include RAID 1 SSD storage that can store up to 2 x 1TB. Turbo Boost can be added to higher tiers at $279.99 per monthly. The Turbo Boost feature replaces Apache with the LiteSpeed server, apparently bringing up to 20x faster page loads, and another add-on can cache the HTML contents of a page, then speedily reload it later without needing to run PHP. We were pleased to see cPanel included (it is often an extra charge with other hosts).

- See our A2 Hosting review

A2 Dedicated server hosting subscription options:12 month plan - $99.59 per month ($1,195.08 total cost) (opens in new tab)

5. Liquid Web dedicated server hosting

The reasons to buy

There are reasons to avoid

Liquid Web (opens in new tab) is a popular provider of high-end business hosting products ranging from managed WordPress and WooComerce plans, to cloud VPS, dedicated servers and private clouds.

Although the company's dedicated offerings are more expensive than some of its budget competitors, they come at a lower price (starting at $199 per month; can be reduced to $169 per month if you choose annual billing), and are also better specified than many of their budget competitors.

For example, even the most basic dedicated server comes with two fast 240GB SSD drives. There's also a 1TB SATA backup drive provided, making it easy and convenient to run regular backups.

The plan includes a dedicated IP. Cloudflare CDN support should improve website speed. Your server can also be hosted in one or more of three data centers (Arizona/Michigan, or the Netherlands).

Most importantly, all dedicated servers are managed by Liquid Web's professional support team. They monitor the system and respond to any notifications. If you have any problems, support is available 24/7/365. A 59 second response time is guaranteed via chat or phone. A 30 minute response time via ticket or email is also possible.

Add to that the large range of optional add ons - load balancers. firewalls. VPN - and you will find the power needed for almost every purpose. Although Liquid Web may be more expensive than others, you are still getting the best hardware and support.

- Read our Liquid Web review Liquid Web Dedicated server hosting subscription options:1 month plan - $79 per month ($79 total cost) (opens in new tab)

Dedicated server hosting FAQ

How to choose the best dedicated server hosting for you

There's a number of things for you to consider when choosing the best dedicated server hosting for your online needs. It is important to note that different features may be available for different users depending on what you are looking at.

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.

It is also wise to be aware of possible downtime. Your website should run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in an ideal world. Scalability is also an important factor 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.

How we test each dedicated server hosting service

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 compare pricing, customer support, 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 setting up process, should you need it.
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