Dedicated vs cloud vs VPS vs auction servers

The short answer

For steady, always-on workloads a dedicated server is usually several times cheaper per core, per GB of RAM and per TB of storage than a cloud instance — and you get the whole machine, its disks and its network port.

Cloud instances win when you need minutes-level elasticity, managed add-ons or many small machines; you pay a premium per unit for that flexibility.

Server classes on this site

Every offer is tagged with one class so that prices are only compared like with like:

• Dedicated — a physical machine billed monthly; may have setup fees and minimum contract terms.
• Auction / used — second-hand dedicated hardware from a provider auction; often no setup fee, prices can drop over time.
• Cloud — virtual instances billed hourly (we show hourly × 730 when no monthly cap is published).
• VPS / root server — virtual machines with fixed monthly pricing; resources may be shared.

Compare on unit prices

Raw monthly prices hide what you get. Use the unit metrics — price per core, per GB RAM, per TB NVMe, per Gbps — and the market percentile on each offer page to see whether a price is actually good for its class.

Always look at the effective monthly price: monthly + setup fee spread over 12 months. A cheap server with a large setup fee is not cheap if you only need it for a few months.