Compare the Top 6 Providers

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:

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Forget The Blues With Bluehost

Bluehost is our overall dedicated hosting choice. Why? It has a great assortment of features, and it doesn’t break the bank. You can support both your site and your budget.

Best for Affordability

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

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.

Feel The Power With 1&1 IONOS

IONOS has the best site speed of any provider and is our choice as the best affordable option. What more could you ask for?

Best for Bigger Sites

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

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

See You Later, Alligator?

HostGator offers the best help and support of any provider on this list. If you have your own business, or if you’re new to hosting, any help is appreciated. To be in such good hands will be a huge relief.

Best for Range of Features

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

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.

The InMotion Of The Ocean

If you need the power, then InMotion should be your provider. While it’s definitely on the pricier side, if your needs demand it, then we’d rather you be prepared than struggling.

Best for Storage

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

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.

Is A2 Your Number 1 Choice?

A2 Hosting has a great variety of plans with the most storage. If you really need that extra space and don’t mind the price, then give A2 a try today!

Free Plugin for WordPress

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

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.

Do You Dream Of DreamHost?

DreamHost offers 100% uptime and a 97-day money-back guarantee, which, according to our professional opinion, is very tempting. Why not try it out today?