The Best Bare Metal Cloud Hosting Providers

Would you like a reliable server with powerful, customizable hardware — and a more compliant hosting solution that protects data privacy? If yes, it’s time to choose a bare metal cloud provider.

Unlike traditional cloud hosting solutions, bare metal servers offer 100% dedicated hardware and software resources, which makes them more personalized, consistent, and secure. With this in mind, many business owners are switching to bare metal, with the global market expected to reach $56.6 billion by 2031.

Not all bare metal server providers are built the same, though. This guide will explain what bare metal hosting is and when it’s useful. Then, you’ll discover the best bare metal server providers to choose from.

Hosting providers rent out physical servers for clients who are, effectively, tenants. Some tenants have digital neighbors — that’s called shared hosting. 

For example, traditional cloud servers are shared spaces where each tenant has their own storage and bandwidth allotted. This is good for cost savings but comes with drawbacks from the server’s resources shared between digital neighbors.

But with a bare metal hosting provider, you get your own physical server where you don’t share computing resources with anyone. Furthermore, bare metal cloud servers don’t have a pre-installed virtualization layer (also known as a hypervisor). In other types of servers, these layers are used to create separate digital spaces for clients to use a fraction of the server’s resources — kind of like how an apartment is divided into rental units.

Since bare metal cloud servers are free from pre-installed virtualization layers, you get complete control of the underlying hardware. That’s a handy perk many other server types can’t claim.

Bare metal servers aren’t shared, so you choose the software, operating system, and security tools you want for your business. Instead of conforming to whatever software your service provider offers, you can custom-build bare metal servers based on what’s best for your business.

In a shared server ecosystem, any tenant can hog the server resources, affecting the performance of their neighbors. 

This noisy neighbor problem doesn’t exist in bare metal servers because they’re single-tenant and have no pre-existing virtualization — there is no resource sharing in the bare metal cloud. 

Hence, a bare metal cloud server is entirely available for you to harness the server’s full power.

Bare metal servers are more secure than shared servers and dedicated servers. 

Although shared hosting does come with security measures, there are inherent risks. For example, if one of the tenants gets infected by malicious activity, the server’s entire IP address could get blocklisted, affecting all the other tenants.

Data stored in shared hosting is more prone to security risks such as DDoS attacks, which involve targeting weak systems in a network. Even if your website has robust security measures, hackers can still access your server through a client with weaker security. 

Cyberattacks are increasing in frequency — Radware reported a 150% increase in DDoS attacks in 2022, compared to the previous year. And since one shared server houses multiple clients, hackers take advantage of the opportunity for a larger-scale cyberattack.

Your business can avoid these security risks by using bare metal cloud servers. Your data will be isolated, and your IP address will be assigned solely to your organization. 

Bare metal cloud providers also give you direct access to hardware firewalls. You can add additional security layers right to the core of your server.

Bare metal servers offer greater customizability compared to other server types. For example, shared servers are created by dividing software layers, and users never get complete control of the underlying infrastructure. But with bare metal, you have control of the software and the physical server. This allows you to customize any aspect according to your needs. 

Bare metal servers are also scalable on short notice since you can contact the data center to allocate new hardware. For instance, let’s say your business relies on processing big data for analytics. With this in mind, you can modify the number of CPU cores and storage capacity to accommodate with a bare metal server. And if a project draws more computing power than expected, you can call your provider for adjustments that deploy the same day.

A shared server can have thousands of other tenants on it. Consequently, the processing power available to you is subject to resource allocation limits, determining the amount of power other tenants are pulling. But there’s no way for you to monitor or predict these settings.  A tenant can assign a higher workload at any given moment, affecting your performance if appropriate limits aren’t set and maintained. 

A bare metal server eliminates this uncontrollable factor, which is important if your business relies on consistent, low-latency results. You initially determine the required capacity, and you will always get 100% dedicated resource allocation.

Bare metal cloud providers have servers that can handle enterprise-level workloads. You can get servers with anywhere from 50 to a million gigabytes of storage capacity and CPU performance of several gigahertz. 

The servers are also available in different bandwidths and CPU core numbers — you can choose the exact parameters needed to handle intensive workloads. 

Moreover, as there is no pre-existing virtualization layer, you can make maximum use of these hardware resources. 

Many organizations are under data protection laws, especially in the health and finance industry. These laws, such as HIPAA, are strict about who can access an organization’s customers’ private data. 

With bare metal cloud servers, your data is isolated. Legal compliance is easier when you control access to your data and have the power to ensure your customers’ information remains private.

In conclusion, bare metal servers have several advantages over other types of servers. To make the most out of your choice to switch, find a bare metal cloud provider that’s in tune with your requirements. Use the following section to discover the best options.

Pick the provider that offers features tailored to your business circumstances. Here’s a detailed rundown of the top bare metal hosting providers to make your choice easier:

If you’re looking for a powerful and reliable bare metal cloud server, Liquid Web is the best overall option. Intel Xeon powers Liquid Web’s servers. They come with 5 TB of bandwidth and 16 GB of RAM, which you can increase if needed.

Since you get root-level access to server infrastructure, Liquid Web’s bare-metal servers deliver unmatched performance, even for intensive workloads. 

With regular backups, 24/7/365 support, and a focus on security, this cloud provider has one of the highest NPS scores in the industry — its customers are loyal and outspoken.

The best part about Liquid Web is they offer both high-performance and standard servers to suit a variety of workloads. You can create custom servers according to your requirements and choose add-ons like the cloud load balancer and PCI compliance scanner.

• Monitor website traffic with DDoS protection.
• Enjoy a unique IP address and 100% server allotment.
• Experience the 100% uptime guarantee.
• Control server features with easy system panels.

Price: Standard servers start at $149 monthly for both Windows and Linux. Premium servers start at $199 monthly.

Cherry Servers is another bare metal hosting provider that offers a wide range of servers for light, moderate, and heavy workloads. 

Its basic servers have four CPU cores with 3.5 GHz processing power and 32 GB of memory. You can use these prebuilt servers as they come or add more storage capacity and CPU cores if needed.

If you’re looking for something completely custom-made, you can alter most features and specs, including the platform, RAM, storage, and hardware.

While Cherry Servers offers control, it’s missing some security features — you won’t find web application protection or server protection for Windows and Linux — that you’d find with Liquid Web. 

• Complete automation to manage server resources.
• Scalable storage with free backups.
• Respectable one to three Gbps bandwidth with DDoS protection.

Price:Lightweight server plans start at $104 monthly.