4 min read - May 26, 2025
Is the cloud always the best option? This guide compares dedicated servers and cloud platforms like AWS and GCP with honest pros, cons, and real-world use cases.
The cloud changed everything, and not always for the better.
Platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure offer flexibility, scalability, and powerful managed services. But they also introduce cost complexity, shared hardware, and unpredictable performance.
In 2025, dedicated servers are making a quiet comeback, especially among developers, hosting providers, and infrastructure-heavy startups who want more control at a lower price point.
Here's how bare metal stacks up against cloud, and when it might actually be the better fit.
A dedicated server is a physical machine rented or colocated for your exclusive use. You get full control over the hardware, CPU, memory, disk, and network, without virtualization or noisy neighbors.
Compare that to cloud platforms, where you're typically renting slices of shared infrastructure (VMs, containers, functions) with varying levels of abstraction.
Dedicated servers offer consistent, raw performance without noisy neighbors or hypervisor overhead. Perfect for:
Cloud VMs can throttle or burst unpredictably depending on demand in the availability zone.
With providers like FDC Servers, you get unmetered 10Gbps or 100Gbps ports at flat monthly prices. No egress surprises.
Cloud platforms often charge per GB transferred, and the costs can skyrocket with content-heavy apps or global usage.
Cloud platforms charge for convenience, elasticity, and branding. On raw specs, especially for CPU, RAM, or storage-heavy workloads, dedicated servers almost always win.
For example, a $200/month dedicated box might outperform a $500/month EC2 setup if tuned properly.
Need to run a custom kernel? Specific GPU drivers? ZFS with native tuning? Dedicated hardware gives you that flexibility.
Cloud providers limit kernel access, and nested virtualization or PCI passthrough is either unsupported or expensive.
If your workload is steady (e.g., hosting, video encoding, LLM inference), bare metal pricing tends to be simpler and more cost-effective over time.
Cloud excels for short-term spikes, but you pay heavily to keep things running 24/7.
You can deploy services in dozens of regions with the click of a button. Great for startups or fast-growing platforms that need auto-scaling and global CDN integration.
Database as a service, serverless functions, built-in security policies, snapshots, IAM roles — the ecosystem is unmatched.
If your team is small or you need to move fast, these managed features save massive amounts of time.
Cloud platforms make it trivial (albeit expensive) to replicate your infrastructure across zones and regions. This can be harder to implement manually on bare metal unless you're colocating across facilities.
Performance:
Cost (steady load):
Flexibility:
Scaling:
Ecosystem:
Networking:
Setup speed:
Title: Why You Should Leave the Cloud – David Heinemeier Hansson
Channel: Alfie Whattam
Cloud platforms are powerful, but not always economical or necessary. For performance-focused, steady-state workloads, bare metal gives you full control and better ROI.
Dedicated servers are far from obsolete. In fact, for many workloads, they're faster, cheaper, and simpler to operate than the cloud, especially when paired with a provider like FDC Servers, where bandwidth, specs, and support are built for real infrastructure users.
If you're starting to feel the weight of cloud bills or performance ceilings, it might be time to explore what bare metal can do for you.
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Flexible options
Global reach
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Flexible options
Global reach
Instant deployment
