Best game server hosts: quick menu
The best game server hosting providers have changed hosting your own game server from being unwieldy, expensive, and simply unattractive to being super easy, cost-effective, and painless. Whether you’re looking to create a simple Minecraft server for you and your mates, or you want an advanced Rust server for the online community you’ve cultivated on Twitch right down to voice servers and all, there’s a solution for you here.
To an extent, the best dedicated servers can help on this front, but we’ve narrowed things down specifically to game server hosting.
Through extensive research and hands-on time, we’ve focused on a handful of game server hosting providers, all of which offer exactly what you need. That includes budget options but also premium choices that are ripe for a long-term plan of yours.
If you’ve previously sought out the best Minecraft server hosting or the best Palworld server hosting, some of these names will sound familiar. However, we’ve made sure that all the game server hosts listed below work with many games with it often very simple to switch between them.
Consider these the Swiss Army knife of game server hosts. While checking them out, we considered factors like price, RAM, bandwidth, storage, ease of use, and general performance. We wanted to make sure you get the best bang for your buck at all costs.
Best game server hosting services 2024 in full
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Best for beginner
ShockByte is one of our favorite game server hosting providers. It’s very simple to use and keeps up with modern trends like ensuring it offered Palworld servers early on into the launch of the game. All plans offer DDoS protection, unlimited bandwidth, NVMe storage, and 100% network uptime. There’s also 24/7 support although I have found in my time with it that support tickets can take a little while to be responded to. Fortunately, a comprehensive FAQ section and many tutorials ensure you don’t need assistance often.
Seemingly every game you can think of is supported here although you’ll need to commit to which game rather than switch around as you wish. One of the more popular options is Minecraft and as expected, it’s simple to pick from a drop-down menu to find the server type with a separate section for installing plugins and mods.
The interface is a little dark, presumably to match a gamer aesthetic but at the time of writing, a clearer and more welcoming control panel is on its way. The open beta seems promising and should make an already good service even better. As it stands though, ShockByte is still simple to use. Creating a server takes moments and you can easily access the server from any location. Having used it for months, the uptime promise is accurate too. I’ve never had a problem which is high praise indeed.
Depending on the game, plans can be very cheap with Minecraft proving cheapest. Shockbyte is also good at suggesting which plan works best for which situation so it’s perfect if you’re not sure of what you need. If you need to go high-end, options are fairly comprehensive here too.
Best value game server hosting
If you’re starting out, dabbling with game server hosting, or simply don’t need much, Scalacube could be the ideal route for you. It offers a free Minecraft server which promises to be free forever. Granted, it only allows two players on it but if you’re new to server hosting and just want to see what’s involved, it’s a perfect entry point.
Overall, Scalacube is a pretty good entry point. It skims past the technical details of your server focusing on the information that actually matters to you like player slots. Once set up, the control panel easily brings up all the servers you own with a free one easily upgradeable when you need to do more with it. It’s simple to pick your location with many areas around the country included, with the focus clearly on appreciating that you might know games but not necessarily server hosting.
A clearly laid out panel means it’s simple to see how CPU usage is going, and how much storage you have spare. More importantly, you can easily install relevant plugins and mods, along with setting up tasks. Crucially, it’s all laid out in a very easy to figure out way. While some services might be a little complicated in their layout, Scalacube makes it accessible.
Granted, over time, Scalacube can get expensive. Some of its most premium packages are, well, premium in price. Also, adding on extras such as being able to create your own Minecraft launcher or a dedicated IP all soon add up. Despite that though, I found Scalacube to be the better value proposition here. It’s simple to use and a good entry point for those who are testing the water. Appropriately, it’s highly scaleable.
Best premium Minecraft game server host
If you’re serious about your game server hosting and looking for something fairly high-end, you need Scalahosting. Or at least Minecraft players need it. Its plans are fairly expensive but that’s because you get an awful lot for your cash. There’s a dedicated IP address included with each plan along with a free domain. More importantly though, there are dedicated system resources, daily backups, an automatic world check and repair, along with custom plugin ports. You’ll need to pay a little extra for 24/7 monitoring but otherwise, this is pretty extensive stuff.
Scalahosting promises to keep all machines under 70% capacity so there’s enough backup resources for the busiest of days on your server, while AWS integration means there’s unlimited scaleability. Once the VPS is set up, you can also use it to host a website on the server, create email accounts, and do everything you’d expect from regular web hosting alongside your game server hosting.
Potentially, you could even branch out and create multiple hosting accounts on a single VPS, before giving them away or selling them to people you know. It’s pretty clear then why Scalahosting isn’t cheap. It’s potentially a solution to far more than your game server hosting needs. Not everyone will need or want so much, but if you’re a high-end user willing to invest in something built to last rather than just a server to enjoy with your mates -- this is it.