Hosting your own video game server is pretty straightforward and can be lucrative. In addition to hosting game servers, you can also make some money on the side by testing video games.
All you’ll need to do to host your own game server is find a suitable web hosting plan, choose a game or several games that you want to create servers for, and advertise your server to players. The most important part of the whole game server creation process is choosing the right web hosting.
If you don’t choose suitable web hosting, your server might lag, and the Internet connection will be slow. And with a slow Internet connection comes a high ping. No one wants to play on high ping, so you’ll need to do everything you can to avoid it. Even though the ping doesn’t only depend on you, your servers can be the cause of it nonetheless.
In order to help you create and host a reliable and fast game server, we will show you which web hosting is the best for video game servers. But first, let’s look at some of the most popular types of web hosting you can choose from. Then, we’ll see which one of those is the best solution for you.
Types of Web Hosting
There are quite a few web hosting options you can use to host a website, game server, apps, etc. The most common types include the following:
- Shared Hosting – shared hosting is the most affordable web hosting service you can get. It offers the least amount of features and resources, and it requires its users to share a server with hundreds of other users. You can find shared hosting plans for as low as $1/month online.
- Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting – VPS hosting is a level-up from shared hosting. It is more powerful and offers better features, more bandwidth, speed, and storage than shared hosting plans. Of course, they are more expensive than shared hosting plans, but they are still pretty affordable and budget-friendly.
- Cloud Hosting – cloud hosting works a little differently than shared and VPS hosting. Namely, it hosts your site or server on a network of virtual servers instead of only one server. It is excellent for scalability because it allows you to increase your resources, like bandwidth, storage, RAM, etc., whenever you need and then decrease them if you don’t need that many resources anymore.
- Dedicated Hosting – dedicated hosting is the most powerful web hosting service. With a dedicated hosting plan, you’ll get a whole server to yourself. So, you won’t share with other users, and you’ll have the freedom to customize the server as much as you want and add all the features you need.
- Reseller Hosting – reseller hosting provides you with an opportunity to earn money easily. Namely, if you get a reseller hosting plan, the provider you get it from will give you a link or code that you can promote to other people. Then, if someone uses your link or code to buy a hosting plan, you’ll get a percentage of the revenue. You can check out everything that reseller hosting plans offer here.
Best Game Server Hosting
If you want to run a reliable game server with low ping, little to no lags, and no downtime, it would be best to get a VPS hosting plan. VPS hosting plans offer the privacy and security you need to host a game server and enough resources to keep it running smoothly. So, it is best if you skipped shared hosting and went straight to VPS.
With a VPS hosting plan, you’ll get your own virtual server which will exist as a separate entity on your server. You’ll still share a physical server with other users, but you’ll have your own resources, and your game server won’t be affected by them. On the other hand, with shared hosting, your game server will suffer every time someone uses more resources than they should or gets hacked.
If you want to host more than one server for different games, you should go for dedicated hosting. It is the most expensive option, but it will allow you to run multiple servers for multiple games smoothly.
Lastly, some web hosting providers also offer specialized hosting plans for games such as Minecraft, Rust, ARK, CS: GO, and more. So, if a provider offers a specialized server for the game you want to host, you should go for that.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know which web hosting service is the best for game servers, you only need to decide which game or games you want to offer. Here, you can see what mainstream games are becoming less popular and avoid them.
That way, you won’t waste money on creating servers for games that no one plays, and you can choose games that are more popular, and that will bring you more money. And if you don’t plan on renting the server and want to use it for you and your friends to play, then you can get a VPS plan and host whichever game you want.
