Dedicated = the hardware isn’t shared with anyone else
A genuinely dedicated server means the physical computer — its CPU, RAM and disk — is entirely yours. No other customer’s game server is running on that same machine at the same time. Whatever performance that hardware has, you get all of it.
This sits at one end of a spectrum. Most game hosting, including plenty of hosts that describe themselves as “dedicated,” is actually running your server as one of several virtual slices on a shared physical machine — which is fine, and usually performs well, but isn’t the same thing in the strict sense.
Dedicated vs shared vs VPS, side by side
| Type | What you get | Performance consistency | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated (bare metal) | An entire physical machine, yours alone | Highest — nothing else competes for resources | Highest |
| Managed game server (shared hardware) | A slice of a shared machine, sized to your plan | Good, if the provider doesn’t oversell the machine | Moderate — most game hosting sits here |
| VPS | A virtual machine with guaranteed resources, but you manage the software yourself | Good — resources are reserved, not just “up to” | Often cheapest per resource unit |
See our VPS hosting guide for more on that third option specifically, including when the extra manual setup is worth it.
“Dedicated” is often marketing shorthand
Plenty of providers use “dedicated server” to mean “a server dedicated to running your game” — which is true in the sense that no one else is playing on it — rather than “hardware dedicated entirely to you with nothing else sharing the physical machine.” Both are reasonable uses of the word, but they describe genuinely different things. If it matters to you specifically, ask the provider directly whether your plan runs on shared or fully dedicated hardware — a straightforward question that a good provider will answer plainly.
When to care, and when not to
For most small-to-medium communities, a well-run shared-hardware plan from a reputable provider performs perfectly well — the practical difference only shows up in specific situations:
- You’re running a large, busy server (50+ concurrent players) where consistent performance under load genuinely matters
- You’ve noticed unexplained lag spikes that might be caused by a provider overselling shared hardware to too many customers
- You need guaranteed, predictable performance for something like a competitive or tournament server
- You’re comfortable paying more specifically to remove any possibility of “noisy neighbour” performance issues
If none of that describes your situation, a good shared-hardware plan is very likely the more sensible choice — you’ll pay less for performance that’s genuinely comparable for a typical community server. See our hardware requirements guide for how to judge whether a specific plan’s specs are actually enough for your game.
