AleForge
Best Value Per GB
Game server hosting launched 2018. Three hardware tiers from $1.00/GB, Ryzen 5950X and 7950X, 40+ games, custom Blacksmith’s Portal panel with Game Swap and offsite backups. 139 Trustpilot reviews at 4.9/5.
AleForge is the best value-per-GB provider on this list. At $1.50/GB on Standard plans (Ryzen 5950X) and $1.99/GB on Premium (Ryzen 7950X), they undercut most competitors on price while still running capable hardware. The Blacksmith’s Portal — their heavily modified version of Pterodactyl — includes Game Swap, offsite nightly backups, real-time monitoring and Thunderstore mod integration out of the box. The 4.9/5 Trustpilot score across 139 reviews is the highest rating of any provider on this list. The main limitations are a smaller location network than Apex (9 vs 18) and no UK/London data centre. A strong choice for UK and European players comfortable routing through Germany.
Who are AleForge?
AleForge launched in March 2018, starting with Minecraft hosting and steadily expanding to support over 40 games. The company grew out of frustration with the hosting industry’s standard of overselling shared hardware — AleForge’s founding principle is dedicated resources per customer, with public server statistics so you can see exactly what you are getting. They have never moved away from that transparency-first approach, publishing real-time performance metrics and avoiding the fine-print slot and storage limitations common among budget hosts.
Over the first few years they expanded their locations progressively in response to customer requests: Virginia, Oregon, Germany and beyond. Their 2024 infrastructure update brought enterprise-grade DDoS protection to every server on every plan — previously an upgrade-only feature at many hosts. Today they serve over 10,000 customers with a 4.9/5 Trustpilot score across 139 reviews — the highest satisfaction rating of any provider we have reviewed.
The name is intentional — the whole brand leans into a dwarven forge theme, including their control panel being named the “Blacksmith’s Portal” and their support team referred to as “support dwarves.” It is a bit of fun, but more importantly the personality reflects a team that plays the games they host.
Three tiers — Budget, Standard and Premium
AleForge separates their hardware into three tiers with genuinely different specs, not just name badges on identical hardware. Budget uses shared resources at a low price point. Standard and Premium use dedicated resources — no noisy neighbours — on progressively stronger CPUs. The key difference between Standard and Premium is the CPU: Ryzen 5950X vs 7950X, and 10 Gigabit networking on Premium servers.
- Ryzen CPU (shared resources)
- NVMe SSD storage
- Gigabit networking
- ⚠ Server suspends when empty
- ⚠ No modpack/plugin installer
- ⚠ No Game Swap
Best for: casual play, testing. Not recommended for community servers.
- AMD Ryzen 5950X · up to 16 vCPU cores
- 2–128 GB dedicated RAM
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Gigabit networking
- Full modpack + plugin installer
- Game Swap included
- 2 cloud backups
Best for: most servers — friend groups to active communities.
- AMD Ryzen 7950X
- Up to 16 vCPU cores
- 2–128 GB dedicated RAM
- Unlimited SSD storage
- 10 Gigabit networking
- Full modpack + plugin installer
- Game Swap included
- 2–6 cloud backups
Best for: large communities, competitive servers, heavy modpacks.
Plans and costs
AleForge prices by RAM per GB. You pick the tier and the amount of RAM you need — no fixed plan sizes. Below are example prices at common RAM sizes. All Standard and Premium plans include unlimited slots, unlimited storage, DDoS protection and offsite backups.
Standard tier (Ryzen 5950X) — example prices
| RAM | Price/mo | Best for | vCPU cores |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 GB | $3.00 | Small Minecraft / Valheim group | 2 |
| 4 GB | $6.00 | Modded Minecraft / most games | 2–4 |
| 6 GB | $9.00 | Growing community | 4 |
| 8 GB | $12.00 | ARK / DayZ / heavy modpacks | 4 |
| 12 GB | $18.00 | Large public servers | 6–8 |
| 16 GB | $24.00 | Very large communities | 8–12 |
Premium tier (Ryzen 7950X) — example prices
| RAM | Price/mo | Best for | Networking |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 GB | $3.98 | Small server, best hardware | 10Gbps |
| 4 GB | $7.96 | Minecraft / Terraria with mods | 10Gbps |
| 8 GB | $15.92 | ARK / DayZ competitive | 10Gbps |
| 16 GB | $31.84 | Large modded communities | 10Gbps |
Per-game entry prices (Standard tier)
| Game | Entry price | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Minecraft | from $3.00/mo (2GB Std) | Java & Bedrock, unlimited slots |
| Terraria | from $2.99/mo | tModLoader + tShock support |
| Valheim | $7.99/mo | Thunderstore + BepInEx integration |
| Rust | from $18.00/mo | 30+ players |
| ARK: Survival Evolved | from $12.00/mo (8GB Std) | Mod support, full panel access |
| DayZ | from $12.00/mo (8GB Std) | Steam Workshop integration |
The Blacksmith’s Portal
AleForge built their control panel — the Blacksmith’s Portal — on top of the open-source Pterodactyl framework, then heavily modified it over years of in-house development. The result is one of the more feature-complete panels on this list. Real-time CPU, memory and network monitoring is built into the dashboard so you can spot issues as they happen, not after players complain about lag.
The Game Swap feature is a genuine differentiator: you can switch your server to a different supported game without buying a new plan. For communities that rotate between Valheim seasons, Minecraft modpacks and other games, this avoids paying for separate servers. The offsite nightly backup system retains 7 days of backups automatically — protection against world corruption without any manual setup.
Switch between 40+ supported games on the same plan. No new subscription needed.
Automated daily backups retained for 7 days. Stored offsite for disaster recovery.
CurseForge, Modrinth, FTB, Technic and Voidswrath. Thunderstore integration for Valheim.
CPU, memory and network performance stats live on the dashboard.
Per-server firewall rules configurable from the panel to block malicious actors.
Edit server settings via a graphical interface — no direct config file editing needed for common options.
Note on Budget tier: Budget plans are missing key panel features — no modpack installer, no plugin installer, no Game Swap and no version manager. For anything beyond a basic vanilla server, Standard is the right tier.
Customer support
AleForge offers 24/7 live chat, ticket support and a Discord community. Their 4.9/5 Trustpilot score across 139 reviews is the highest of any provider we have reviewed, and the recurring theme in customer feedback is fast response times combined with staff who understand the games — reviewers describe agents who stayed in chat until their Terraria server was fully configured, and others who resolved complex modpack conflicts the same day.
Support quality at scale is always harder to maintain than at a smaller operation, and AleForge’s review count (139) sits between Aim2Game (7) and the larger providers like Apex (8,054) and Host Havoc (1,515). The score is genuinely excellent — though the relatively smaller sample should be noted when comparing against providers with thousands of verified reviews.
9 global data centre locations
AleForge operates 9 locations across the US, Europe, Oceania and Asia. Their built-in real-time ping test on the order page lets you check your actual latency to every location before committing. Locations were added progressively based on customer requests — Virginia, Oregon and Germany were all community-driven additions.
- California
- Texas (Dallas)
- Virginia
- Oregon
- Germany
No UK location — UK players route through Germany. Typical latency: 15–25ms from southern England.
- Australia
- Singapore
The Germany location covers UK and European players well — latency from the UK to Frankfurt/Germany is typically 15–25ms, which is within acceptable range for most game genres. Players needing a dedicated London server should consider Host Havoc or Apex instead.
Pros and cons
- ✓ Lowest price per GB on this list — from $1.50/GB Standard
- ✓ 4.9/5 Trustpilot — highest satisfaction score on the list
- ✓ Ryzen 7950X on Premium tier
- ✓ Game Swap — change game without new subscription
- ✓ Offsite nightly backups retained 7 days, included
- ✓ No overselling — dedicated resources guaranteed
- ✓ Thunderstore integration for Valheim
- ✓ 48-hour full refund, no questions
- ✓ Real-time server stats public and visible
- ✓ Pay for exactly what you need — no fixed plan sizes
- ✗ No UK/London location — Germany is closest for UK players
- ✗ Only 9 locations vs 18 at Apex
- ✗ Budget tier suspends server when empty
- ✗ Budget tier missing modpacks, plugins, Game Swap
- ✗ Launched 2018 — shorter track record than LOW.MS, Host Havoc
- ✗ 139 Trustpilot reviews — good score, smaller sample than top providers
Find the best hosting for your game
AleForge supports 40+ games. Click any game below to see how AleForge compares to every other provider in a full side-by-side.
AleForge also supports Rust, Conan Exiles, Factorio, Space Engineers, Icarus, Soulmask, Eco, Abiotic Factor, Vintage Story and 20+ more. See the full list at aleforge.net/gameservers ↗
AleForge frequently asked questions
AleForge — from $1.50/GB Standard
Ryzen 5950X / 7950X · 9 locations · 4.9/5 Trustpilot · Game Swap · 48hr refund
Valheim from $7.99/mo · Minecraft from $3.00/mo · Terraria from $2.99/mo
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