Dedicated SAMP hosting explained

When it comes to game server hosting, there are a lot of different plans and confusing terminology. As well as the dozens of different hosts, you have to trawl through different specs, slots, and server types. Three terms that can be thrown around a lot, are "dedicated SAMP hosting", "shared SAMP hosting". In this article, we're going to explain both, and which circumstances they're best suited to.

What is a dedicated SAMP server

A dedicated SAMP server grants you a single, private server that is used to host your game server and nothing else. This makes them incredibly powerful, but also very expensive to rent.

How expensive? A commercial dedicated server can easily cost a server host thousands of dollars to set up. To make back their investment, they have to pass that cost onto the consumer, resulting in potentially hundreds of dollars per month in rental costs.

What is shared SAMP hosting?

Shared SAMP hosting is essentially the opposite of dedicated hosting. You share your server's resources with sometimes dozens others. Resources will be routed to different people's SAMP servers as they need it.

This allows SAMP hosters to offer game servers at very low prices – up to a few bucks a month. It sounds, then, like an excellent compromise. But like all things in life, you get what you pay for. A server only has so many resources, and if one or more SAMP servers start to need a lot of them (ie. due to a high player count) your server could experience significant slowdowns.

What is virtual private hosting?

Virtual private servers are something of a blend between private and shared hosting. Each of you has dedicated hardware, including CPU, RAM, and storage, but technically it's hosted on the same overarching server.

This middle ground allows server host likes us to provide you with a dedicated, predictable performance at almost the same value as a shared hosting plan. And though the cost is a little higher, your value for money is much greater.

As well as better performance over shared hosting, a virtual private server is contained in its own virtual machine. This means that if somebody else gets a virus, it's unlikely to affect your server. With shared hosting, that isn't always the case.

Which type of server hosting is best for you?

If you're running a SAMP server for one or two people, shared hosting will probably do you just fine. Your load will be so small that it shouldn't be hard for the server to keep up with your requirement.

The fun in SAMP, however, is usually had with a larger community. In this case, what's best for you? If you have an exceptionally large server a dedicated server could make sense. It's worth noting, however, that a virtual private server can still scale quite high and provide a lot of horsepower.

For those in-between, a virtual private server typically holds the best value. You get the stability and predictability of a dedicated server without the price tag of fully dedicated hosting. At the same time, you gain advantages over shared hosting when it comes to security, and often additional security options, such as anti-DDoS protection.

If you'd like to see if a private SAMP server is right for you hosting needs, you can sign up for SAMP hosting here.