Dedicated hosting is what you need when it’s time to level up your site and get a server all to yourself, and our in-depth research points to Bluehost as the best overall dedicated hosting provider. It’s not only the best value for money, but it has fantastic RAM and CPU while also being WordPress’s #1 choice. You really can’t go wrong!
Dedicated hosting features the fastest load times, the best support – and the most expensive price tags. While we recommend Bluehost, there are other great options, such as IONOS, which has the best site speed and performance of all the hosting providers. Another good choice would be HostGator, which like Bluehost is one of the larger hosting providers. Its help and support are second to none. This article will compare and contrast the top six dedicated hosting providers, and help you choose the one that best suits your website.
At Website Builder Expert, we receive many thousands of visits every week from people just like you. Once you’ve decided you’re ready to make the leap to dedicated server hosting, it’s on to the next question – which provider should you choose?
Best Dedicated Server Hosting Providers
We’ve carried out extensive hosting research to find the top six dedicated server hosting providers. We painstakingly cross-reference uptime stats, CPU cores, bandwidth, RAM, prices, and help and support to find the very best in the hosting business.
The results are in, and these are the best dedicated servers:
- Bluehost – Best overall dedicated hosting provider
- IONOS – Best for affordability
- HostGator – Best for bigger sites
- InMotion – Best for range of features
- A2 Hosting – Best for storage
- Dreamhost – Free plugin for WordPress
At the top of our list is Bluehost. It’s the best all-around hosting provider and the best choice for dedicated hosting – its overall score of 4.7 out of 5 speaks for itself! IONOS is an excellent second option, boasting the most affordable plans out of the bunch. HostGator shines as the best for creating extra infrastructure.
Bluehost came out on top in our research. It’s a great all-around hosting provider that excels in many different areas, such as value for money and features.
It is a safe pair of hands for any website, but other providers still have plenty to offer in their chosen niches, such as IONOS for those wanting the best-performing website.
This is how they compare like-for-like:
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Server locations London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Spain, Nevada, New Jersey |
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Important Note
Just bear in mind that, except for DreamHost, these are all promotional prices for new customers. Hosting providers are fairly generous so you can often keep prices this low for a year or more.
Our Research Process
This list of our top dedicated hosting provider recommendations was carefully compiled based on our thorough research and testing process. This is to ensure we’re providing you with the most accurate and useful information on the criteria for hosting products that are important to you.
Every web host on the list has been tested and analyzed on the following criteria to calculate our ratings:
- Help and Support – For example, the host’s knowledge base, and what other support options are available
- Features – Includes migration, backups, security, domains, control panel, and green hosting
- Pricing – Includes price range, number of plans, money back guarantee, and billing cycle
- Disk Space – Includes storage space, bandwidth, cores, threads, and RAM
- Uptime – This looks at the percentage of your site that will be live as well as server response times
We’ve focused on the categories most prevalent to dedicated hosting that we’ve found to be the most popular and practical for you.
With this in-depth testing, we can fairly rate and compare the best hosting providers to help you feel equipped and ready to make an informed decision.
We can see that Bluehost has the least expensive price range, while A2 Hosting offers the most server locations. The table also shows variety in bandwidth between hosting providers and, while the low end of most CPU scores is similar, the high end ranges a lot depending on the provider.
Okay, that’s great, but RAM, bandwidth, CPU cores, what does it all actually mean for you?
CPU Cores – CPU stands for Central Processing Unit. They’re like the brains behind the physical server your site is hosted on. They are in charge of processing information, and the more there are, the better.
Think of it like trying to check out of a supermarket – the requests have to queue, and the CPUs are the cashiers. The more cashiers (CPUs), the faster the queue (requests) moves.
RAM – RAM stands for Random Access Memory and is your server’s main memory store. As you’d expect, it’s important there’s enough of this to go around!
Bandwidth – Bandwidth basically refers to the amount of data transfer your site can cope with – or, in other words, how much traffic it can accommodate. Don’t undersell the amount you need here – the last thing you need is your site crashing after a big marketing campaign sends customers flocking to your site.
Server locations – This is where the physical servers hosting your site are based. The closer they are to your users, the better. They’ll get a faster connection, and your site will rank better in return. Win-win.
Now the ground rules are out of the way, let’s begin with the list!
Best Value for Dedicated Server Hosting
- Best price
- Great help and support
- Free backups
Paid Plans: $1.99 – $119.99 / month
Bluehost is our overall dedicated hosting king, and it’s easy to see why. Its dedicated hosting plans are among the cheapest of all nine providers, but this doesn’t mean it has compromised on quality.
In fact, Bluehost offers some of the best help and support of any provider we tested. When it comes to features, it even offers free backups, which is rare.
Help and Support Performance
Bluehost excelled in our customer service research, exceeding our expectations more than any other provider we tested.
- Bluehost’s live chat exceeded our expectations by 3%
- Bluehost’s knowledge base exceeded our expectations by 15%
Speedy live chat responses and informational knowledge base articles put Bluehost well ahead of the pack.
The downside of Bluehost? Fewer CPU cores than most providers, and a cap of bandwidth at 15TB. If you’re a large website with an international audience, Bluehost might not be for you. Otherwise, it could be just what you’re looking for.
Bluehost: Pros and Cons
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Bluehost Dedicated Hosting Prices
Bluehost offers three dedicated server plans: Standard, Enhanced and Premium, and they all come with a money-back guarantee, 24/7 support, and four CPU cores.
New customers can get dedicated hosting from $99.99/month with Bluehost (normally $149.99)
So what do you get for $99.99/month?
- Free website domain for one year
- Free SSL certificate
- 4 CPU cores & 4GB of RAM
- 5TB of bandwidth & 500GB of storage
- 24/7 support via phone & live chat
All of Bluehost’s dedicated hosting plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you’re not completely happy with the service you receive, you’ll get a full refund.
The Enhanced plan is the best value because it offers the same storage as the pricier Premium plan.
The pricier the plan, the more storage, RAM, and bandwidth there is. The Enhanced plan is the best value, as it offers the same storage as the Premium plan. Check out our Bluehost Pricing Review for a detailed breakdown.
If all this is looking a bit much, then perhaps one of Bluehost’s VPS hosting plans would be better. Instead of getting your dedicated server, VPS hosting gives you a private room. Think of it like the penthouse suite in a hotel. And Bluehost’s penthouse is the nicest on the market. We gave it a 4.6 out of 5 in our research, the best we tested
Best for Affordability
- Best site speed
- Affordable plans
- Hidden fees
Paid Plans: $0.5 – $35 / month
1&1 IONOS is our silver medal stunner with a respectable overall score of 4.5 out of 5 for its dedicated hosting service. It has great scores across all our evaluation metrics for dedicated hosting and has the fastest site speed and server response time of all the hosting providers we looked at. It is also the most affordable provider on this list, with annual plans starting at $65/month.
If you need more power, then there are eight different plans for you to choose from, giving you a lot of room to pick the support your site needs. It also doubles up as a website builder, meaning you can build your site with them as well.
However, IONOS isn’t all gold. It has a nasty habit of sticking you with additional fees at checkout and makes you pay more if you use Windows. There’s also poor help and support, with no email or live chat support across all plans.
1&1 IONOS: Pros and Cons
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1&1 IONOS Dedicated Hosting Prices
IONOS offers eight plans, split between SSD (solid state drives) and HDD (hard disk drives). SSDs are more powerful and offer faster loading times for your site, but they come at a higher cost. While the SSD prices range from $65/month to $160/month, the HDDs range from $47/month** to $140/month. You will be dealing with an outdated form of data drive but at a cheaper price, so it’s best to make your choice before you jump in.
All of these plans come with unlimited bandwidth, daily backups, and free domains. IONOS also has the most server locations, with servers based in London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Spain, Nevada, and New Jersey.
IONOS splits its plans between SSD and HDD. SSD performs better, but it is more expensive; whereas HDD is cheaper, but is an outdated drive system.
Best for Bigger Sites
- Best help and support
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Generous promotions
Paid Plans: $3.95 – $159.99 / month
Pros
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Plenty of ways to get help and support - Unlimited bandwidth across all plans
- Promotional prices are very generous
Cons
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Servers both located in the US
Read Review
HostGator’s pleasant mascot charms many, and they are our number one choice for shared hosting providers. In terms of dedicated hosting, they are in third place.
While not excelling in performance, HostGator dominates in the help and support category with a 4.9 out of 5 in our research. With an array of help and support options (including 24/7 phone and live chat), we think it’s the best for bigger sites, giving you the necessary support for when your site may be getting a little too big for just one person to manage.
HostGator’s prices aren’t the cheapest, but you certainly get a lot of help for your buck. The downside? Both servers are located in the US, so this might not be the best option for sites with a large international audience
Hostgator: Pros and Cons
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HostGator Dedicated Hosting Prices
With HostGator, you have three dedicated plan options: Value Server, Power Server, and Enterprise Server. All come with unmetered bandwidth, which is a huge plus. The Power Server plan is the middle option and is the one HostGator recommends.
For annual payments, the prices are:
- Value Server – $109.98/month
- Power Server – $139.99/month
- Enterprise Server – $159.99/month
HostGator’s prices give you a lot of help for your buck.
Best for Range of Features
- Most CPU cores
- Best features
- Worst value for money
Paid Plans: $3.49 – $539.99 / month
Pros
- Huge number of CPUs (24) available
- Good help and support
Cons
- Plans are more expensive than average
Read Review
InMotion’s dedicated hosting plans have a lot to offer across the board, but its standout feature is the number of CPU cores on offer. With the most expensive of the InMotion dedicated hosting plans – and at $539.99 per month, it is pricey, but you get 24 CPUs!
What does this mean for you? Well, if you have a tech-heavy website, it’ll help keep site speed down, and stop users from bouncing away from your site. What’s more, it’ll encourage Google to rank your site higher. Not something to be sneezed at!
In our research, we gave it 4.8 out of 5 for features, the highest of any provider we tested. It also scores a shocking 2 out of 5 for value for money – the lowest among the brands we tested. Its plans are an investment, but they reflect the quality InMotion brings to the table.
InMotion: Pros and Cons
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InMotion Dedicated Hosting Prices
InMotion offers six different dedicated hosting plans. The Essential plan is cheapest at $139.99/month when billed annually, while the CC-2000 plan comes in at a whopping $539.99/month. There’s a pretty even spread of prices in-between, so if CPUs are a priority for you, or you have a tech-heavy website, then chances are you’ll find an InMotion plan at a relatively reasonable price.
InMotion’s hosting plans look pretty average across the board, except for when it comes to the number of CPU cores on offer.
Best for Storage
- 2 x 1TB Storage
- No free backups
- Expensive plans
Paid Plans: $6.59 – $529.99 / month
Pros
- Good storage
Cons
- No free backups offered
- Poor help and support
- Relatively low uptime of 99.95%
Read Review
A2 Hosting scores quite high in disk space, coming second with a 4.3 out of 5 in our research. Even on the lowest plan, you get 2x1TB storage, which is more than any other provider offers.
However, its plans are quite expensive – the lowest plan begins at $159.99/month! Aside from that, there’s nothing A2 Hosting really fails at, but there’s also nothing it particularly succeeds in either
A2 Hosting: Pros and Cons
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A2 Hosting Dedicated Hosting Prices
A2 Hosting offers seven managed dedicated server hosting packages. They start at $159.99/month and go all the way up to $529.99/month. At that price, you’re getting a lot more storage, but, unless you really need all the disk space, it still doesn’t justify the price. That said, with free transfers and a money-back guarantee on offer, you’ve got nothing to lose by giving them a go.
A2 Hosting offers seven plans in both managed and unmanaged. Unmanaged is cheaper, but you don’t get the same support.
Free Plugin for WordPress
- 100% uptime
- Good site speed
- No phone support
Paid Plans: $2.95 – $379 / month
DreamHost is a decent provider – it boasts 100% uptime and a money-back guarantee if it doesn’t hit this mark. There are also nine different plans and the second-highest site speed.
But we’re going to have to yuck your yum on DreamHost a bit. The help and support are lacking, with no phone facilities. This, combined with a relatively low performance across our research for features, disk space, and high costs, doesn’t inspire much positivity, finding DreamHost at the bottom of our list.
DreamHost: Pros and Cons
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DreamHost Dedicated Hosting Prices
What’s odd about DreamHost’s plans online is that they separate them by Standard and Enhanced, which you can then customize how much RAM and storage you need. There’s also the free plugin to WordPress, which is super useful for all budding website builders. The lowest price starts at $149/month, and the most expensive is $379/month.
DreamHost prices start at $149, with no promotional offers.
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