VPS or dedicated server?
Updated 2026-07-29
Choosing between a VPS and a dedicated server comes down to a trade-off between flexibility and raw power. Both give you full administrator access and the freedom to install anything you want; the difference lies in the nature of the resources and their cost. Here are the real gaps, minus the marketing.
The real differences
Performance
On a dedicated server, all of the CPU, all of the memory and all of the disk are yours, all the time. No neighbour can weigh on performance. On a VPS, your resources are reserved, but they come from a shared physical machine: the available power remains very comfortable for most workloads, without matching an entire server.
Isolation
A VPS is walled off by virtualisation: your data and processes are invisible to other tenants. A dedicated server takes isolation further, since the hardware is shared with no one. For strict compliance requirements or highly sensitive workloads, that hardware isolation can matter.
Price
This is the starkest gap. A VPS rents for a few euros a month; a dedicated server is a significantly larger budget, because you are paying for a complete physical machine. A VPS also lets you adjust the size over time, whereas a dedicated server has to be sized upfront.
Decision table
| Criterion | VPS | Dedicated server |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly budget | Low | High |
| Raw power | Good | Maximum |
| Isolation | Software | Hardware |
| Scalability | Simple, in steps | Sized upfront |
| Heavy continuous workloads | Adequate | Ideal |
| Starting out, testing, typical sites | Ideal | Overkill |
When to choose which
Go for a VPS if you are starting out, if you host websites, applications or self-hosted services, if your load is moderate or variable, or if you want to adjust your configuration with no commitment.
Move to a dedicated server when you regularly saturate a large VPS, when you run intensive continuous workloads (large databases, computation, heavy virtualisation), or when hardware isolation is a requirement.
Our VPS and dedicated servers are hosted in the European Union (Germany and Finland, Hetzner infrastructure), with no commitment, and the advertised price is the renewal price.
To compare sizes and order, see our VPS plans and our dedicated servers.