Bare Metal Servers for CPU and Single-Tenant Workloads, Compared: Per-Core Licensing, Isolation, and Bandwidth (2026)
Liutauras Morkaitis
Two bare metal servers can carry the same processor, the same memory count, and the same storage, and still cost a business wildly different amounts to run. The hardware line item is rarely where the money goes. What actually separates one single-tenant server from another is who else touches the silicon, how the software stacked on top is licensed, and what a terabyte of outbound traffic costs once the workload is live. A server chosen on sticker price alone routinely turns out to be the expensive option three months later.
This guide compares nine providers that rent genuinely single-tenant bare metal: one physical machine allocated to one customer. The focus is CPU-bound and isolation-driven workloads, including relational databases, customer-managed virtualization hosts, core-licensed enterprise software, continuous integration runners, and game servers. Dedicated hardware can reduce co-tenant risk and may simplify the scope of some compliance assessments, but PCI DSS and HIPAA do not generally require a dedicated physical server, and single tenancy does not establish compliance by itself [21][22]. GPU infrastructure for AI training and inference is a separate category and is outside this comparison.
The providers are grouped by procurement model and buyer fit. Hostline, which publishes this comparison, is one of the nine evaluated hosts; the ordering rationale, evaluation dimensions, limitations, and conflict-of-interest disclosure appear in the methodology and editorial note.
The short version
Among the offers reviewed, Hetzner has one of the lowest published entry prices and bundles unlimited traffic on its standard one-gigabit port, making it attractive to cost-focused teams that operate their own servers. Hostline offers dedicated Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC systems in Lithuania with ECC memory and out-of-band management; buyers should confirm the precise operating-system and application-management scope as well as transfer limits before ordering. OVHcloud has the broadest catalog and selected confidential-computing options; Leaseweb offers high-bandwidth and unmetered plans; IONOS combines unlimited traffic with an established EU operator. Vultr, Latitude.sh, and phoenixNAP provide API-driven, hourly bare-metal cloud, while Scaleway Dedibox is another French EU dedicated option. Equinix Metal is no longer available.
Methodology
Pricing, plan specifications, and operational policies were checked in August 2026 against provider documentation. Entry prices are directional rather than normalized benchmarks: the offers differ by currency, tax treatment, region, commitment period, setup fee, hardware generation, and availability. Licensing information is drawn from Microsoft, Oracle, and Broadcom documentation [14][15][16][17]. Provider claims for uptime, IOPS, throughput, support, certification, and provisioning are treated as vendor statements unless an independent source is cited. Every figure should be checked again in the relevant configurator and contract before purchase.
Providers are grouped by procurement model and common buyer priorities, not by an independently benchmarked quality score. Comparative phrases in the article describe editorial fit for a stated scenario, not a universal ranking. Hostline appears second as the publisher’s support-led EU dedicated option; its support scope, bandwidth terms, pricing, older hardware generations, and smaller footprint are disclosed alongside its strengths. The same comparison fields are used for every provider.
What single-tenant bare metal actually means, and the two ways you buy it
A single-tenant bare metal server is one physical machine allocated to one customer, normally with administrative control of the operating system and direct access to the server’s hardware. BIOS or BMC access is commonly available, but the provider may restrict firmware flashing or particular platform settings. Dedicated CPU, memory, and local I/O remove competition from co-tenants on the same host; upstream networks, facilities, support systems, and provider control planes may still be shared. Hypervisor overhead also varies by workload and can be small on modern platforms, so the clearest benefit is predictable access to the server’s local resources rather than a guaranteed percentage gain.
Bare metal also lets the customer choose and operate the first-level hypervisor and can expose hardware features more directly. That distinction should not be overstated: many full virtual machines support custom kernels, kernel modules, exposed CPU instruction sets, and, on selected products, nested virtualization. The practical difference is the customer’s control over the physical host and the absence of an infrastructure-provider hypervisor beneath the workload.
The decision that trips up many buyers is not simply bare metal versus cloud; it is which bare metal procurement model fits the workload. Traditional dedicated servers are usually rented monthly or annually and often provide the lowest steady-state infrastructure cost. Bare-metal cloud adds API-driven provisioning and hourly billing at a higher effective rate. A continuously running workload may favor monthly dedicated hardware, while batch or temporary capacity may justify hourly pricing. The break-even point depends on the exact configuration, setup fee, commitment, bandwidth, and operational support, so it should be modeled rather than assumed.
The per-core software licensing economics
For workloads that run licensed enterprise software, the software bill can exceed the hardware bill. Many products use core-based metrics and minimum counts, but the licensing scope is not uniform: some products can be licensed by physical core, others by virtual machine or subscription entitlement, and mobility, high-availability, disaster-recovery, and partitioning rights can change the result.
Windows Server 2025 can be licensed by physical core, with minimums of eight cores per processor and sixteen per server; with qualifying subscription licences or Software Assurance, Microsoft also permits licensing by virtual machine, generally with an eight-core minimum per VM. A fully licensed Windows Server Standard host grants rights for two operating-system environments, while Datacenter grants unlimited operating-system environments on that host [14]. SQL Server can be licensed across all physical cores or per virtual machine, with a four-core minimum per VM under the core model [15].
Oracle Database Enterprise Edition uses a processor metric that applies Oracle’s published core factor on eligible physical systems. Oracle’s current table assigns a 0.5 factor to the listed modern AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon x86 processors. In Oracle’s authorised cloud environments – AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud – the counting rules use vCPUs rather than the on-premises core-factor calculation [16]. Broadcom’s current VMware guidance applies a minimum of sixteen licensed physical cores per processor for VCF and VVF; product bundles and commercial order terms must be checked separately [17].
Dedicated hardware can make the relevant physical configuration easier to identify, but it does not make licensing automatic. Microsoft offers physical-host and qualifying VM-based models; Oracle’s policy distinguishes soft partitioning from approved hard-partitioning methods; and each customer’s contract, cluster design, failover rights, and workload mobility still matter [14][15][16]. A lower-core, higher-clock server can reduce a core-based licence requirement if benchmarks show that it meets the workload target, but this should be demonstrated with a scenario-specific capacity and licensing model.
Bandwidth and egress: included traffic versus metered
The second hidden cost is outbound traffic. Large public-cloud platforms commonly meter internet transfer, while many dedicated plans bundle an allowance or an unmetered port. At a simple rate of about USD 0.09 per GB, 10 TB is roughly USD 900 before free tiers, regional differences, and volume tiers [18]. Hetzner includes unlimited traffic on its standard one-gigabit port, while its optional ten-gigabit uplink includes 20 TB [4]. OVHcloud offers large or unmetered allowances on many dedicated ranges [7]. Leaseweb publishes metered, unmetered flat-fee, and 95th-percentile burstable billing. Metered plans run from 30 TB to 250 TB per month; unmetered ports are published at 100 Mbit/s, 1, 10, and 25 Gbit/s. Higher port speeds of 40 and 100 Gbit/s appear on its ultra-high-bandwidth line as connection speeds, not as published unmetered tiers [8]. IONOS advertises unlimited traffic on a one-gigabit connection [9].
Bare-metal cloud allowances are also plan-specific. Vultr pools eligible instance allowances and charges USD 0.01 per GB beyond the allowance [10]. Latitude.sh publishes a 20 TB allocation per server, pooled by project and country [11]. phoenixNAP currently describes 15 TB with the first deployment in most locations, shared within the relevant account and location, and 5 TB in Singapore [12]. These terms can materially affect total cost, but single tenancy itself does not guarantee bundled or unlimited egress; the exact plan controls the result.
Processors, ECC memory, and out-of-band management for non-AI workloads
Choosing a processor for CPU-bound work comes down to workload shape, software support, and licensed-core economics. AMD EPYC offers high core counts and memory bandwidth for consolidation, databases, and parallel builds. AMD Ryzen emphasizes clock speed and per-core performance, though full system ECC support must be verified on each platform. Intel Xeon offers a mature enterprise ecosystem and selected instruction-set and confidential-computing features. For Oracle licensing, current listed AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon x86 processors generally share the same 0.5 core factor, so any AMD licensing advantage must come from measured performance per licensed core, not from a more favorable factor [16].
Two hardware details matter on any server that holds state. ECC memory, which detects and corrects single-bit errors in flight, is standard on server-grade EPYC and Xeon platforms and is important for databases and any long-running process where silent corruption is unacceptable; on budget lines built from desktop parts it should be verified rather than assumed. Out-of-band management, exposed as IPMI, iDRAC, or iLO depending on the hardware vendor, is the remote equivalent of standing at the server with a keyboard and monitor: it lets you reinstall the operating system, change firmware settings, and recover an unbootable machine without the provider’s intervention. On a remote single-tenant box that is not a luxury, it is the difference between a five-minute fix and a support ticket, and whether it is included as standard or sold as an add-on is worth checking before ordering. Storage type, NVMe for latency-sensitive random I/O or SATA SSD and HDD for capacity, is a specification to match to the workload rather than a reason to choose one provider over another, and most hosts in this comparison offer a range.
Single-tenancy, compliance, and EU data sovereignty
For regulated workloads, dedicated hardware can remove co-tenants from the same physical server and may simplify scoping or evidence in a particular architecture. It does not remove shared networks, facilities, provider control planes, or operational responsibilities, and neither PCI DSS nor HIPAA generally requires single physical tenancy [21][22]. Compliance depends on the complete service design, controls, contracts, risk assessment, and division of responsibilities.
Jurisdiction and data sovereignty also require a case-specific assessment. A US-headquartered provider can receive a valid US legal demand for data within its possession, custody, or control, including data stored abroad, but access is not automatic and conflicts with EU law can require additional legal analysis [23]. EU ownership may reduce some exposure, yet it does not by itself guarantee EU-only processing: the contracting entity, data-center country, subprocessors, remote support, transfers, encryption and key control, and local law all matter. Treat corporate ownership and physical location as two inputs to a documented legal and technical review, not as a binary GDPR answer.
How the providers compare
The comparison tables summarize published entry offers and capabilities as checked in August 2026. They are split into technical and commercial views for readability. Prices are not normalized across currency, VAT, commitment, setup fees, region, stock, or hardware generation and therefore should not be treated as a benchmark ranking. Confirm the current configurator, transfer policy, service-level terms, and contract before ordering.
Table 1A. Technical and network comparison
| Provider | Model | Processor examples | Memory / ECC | Storage | Network / transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner | Monthly, self-managed | Ryzen, EPYC, Xeon | ECC on EPYC/Xeon; verify Ryzen | NVMe / SSD | 1 Gbit/s unlimited; 10 Gbit/s includes 20 TB |
| Hostline | Monthly, support-led | Dual Xeon E5/Gold; EPYC 7402 | DDR4 ECC | SATA SSD, NVMe, HDD | 1 Gbit/s; transfer policy not published |
| OVHcloud | Monthly, self-service | Ryzen, EPYC, Xeon | Full ECC on server ranges; on-die ECC on some DDR5 offers | NVMe / SSD | DCV, RDP, Anyware |
| Leaseweb | Monthly, self-service | Xeon, EPYC | ECC by configuration | NVMe / SSD | Large or unmetered allowances by range |
| IONOS | Monthly, self-service | EPYC, Ryzen Pro, Xeon | ECC by platform | NVMe / RAID | Metered 30–250 TB; unmetered ports to 25 Gbit/s; 40/100 Gbit/s ports on ultra-high-bandwidth line |
| Vultr | Hourly/monthly, API | Xeon, EPYC | ECC by plan | NVMe / SSD | Pooled allowances; USD 0.01/GB overage |
| Latitude.sh | Hourly/monthly, API | EPYC | DDR4/DDR5 ECC | NVMe | 20 TB/server, pooled by project and country |
| phoenixNAP | Hourly/reserved, API | Legacy E3 entry; current Xeon 6700-series | DDR4/DDR5 ECC | NVMe | First deployment: 15 TB shared; 5 TB Singapore |
| Scaleway | Monthly, self-service | Xeon, AMD | ECC by plan | NVMe / SSD | Unlimited traffic; port speed varies by range |
Published capabilities vary by plan and location. ECC descriptions distinguish full system ECC from DDR5 on-die ECC where relevant.
Table 1B. Commercial terms, location, and fit
| Provider | Published entry | Provisioning | Locations / parent | Good fit | Confirm before order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner | From EUR 57.30/mo; limited stock; IPv4 extra | Minutes to hours | Germany/Finland; German parent | Low-cost steady-state use | Stock, setup fee, hardware equivalence |
| Hostline | From EUR 113/mo | Within 24 hours | Vilnius; Lithuanian parent | Lithuanian dedicated hosting with support access | Management scope, transfer, SLA, DDoS |
| OVHcloud | Rise from about EUR 64.99 ex VAT + setup; recheck | Minutes to hours | Global; French parent | Broad catalog and networking | Current price, setup, ECC type, local law |
| Leaseweb | MVaries by market and configuration | Hours | Global; Dutch parent | High-bandwidth deployments | Port, transfer, setup, private-network charge |
| IONOS | Promotional price and term vary | Hours | EU/US/UK; German parent | NVUnlimited-traffic EU-parent option | Term, SLA, OS/hypervisor restrictions |
| Vultr | About USD 120/mo on selected plans | Fast; location dependent | 33 cloud regions; US parent | API-driven temporary capacity | Bare-metal location; stopped instances still bill |
| Latitude.sh | Gen3 from ~USD 0.26/hr; Gen4 ~USD 0.37/hr | Seconds to minutes | DDR4/DDR25 locations; Australian parent | Developer-focused automation | Hardware generation, EU vs UK location |
| phoenixNAP | From ~USD 0.08/hr on legacy E3 | Minutes | Global; US parent | NVInfrastructure-as-code and hybrid | Hardware generation, bandwidth pool |
| Scaleway | Varies daily; setup fee equals one month | ~2 minutes if in stock | Paris/Amsterdam; French parent | French/EU dedicated hosting | Daily price, stock, exact port and support |
Entry figures are directional and not normalized for VAT, currency, setup fees, term, region, hardware generation, or availability. Verify the configurator and contract.
Hetzner
source: hetzner.com
Category: low-cost EU-parent dedicated hosting, self-managed. Operator: Hetzner Online GmbH, Germany. Jurisdiction: German parent; German and Finnish facilities.
Hetzner’s dedicated range spans AMD Ryzen and EPYC and Intel Xeon machines, sold as standard configurations and through the Server Auction, a marketplace of in-place refurbished servers with no setup fee and Dutch-auction pricing. Standard configurations can carry a one-time setup fee and may exclude IPv4. The supply-limited AX41-1-Ltd and EX44-1-Ltd were listed at EUR 57.30 per month without a setup fee when checked [5]. The wider range includes high-clock Ryzen systems and high-core EPYC configurations, with ECC memory on EPYC and Xeon platforms and remote-console options [4][6]. Compare current stock, setup fees, IPv4, hardware age, and benchmarks before treating the lowest entry price as the lowest total cost.
Hetzner adjusted prices and setup fees multiple times in 2026, so current quotations and stock should be checked at order time [5]. The Server Auction remains outside the standardized portfolio and carries no setup fee, while the supply-limited -Ltd tier provides low published entry prices when available. Among the offers reviewed, Hetzner has one of the lowest published monthly entry points. That does not by itself prove the best price-performance for every workload; the comparison still requires equivalent hardware, commitment, setup cost, bandwidth, and application benchmarks.
Strengths: one of the lowest published entry prices in this comparison; Server Auction and supply-limited -Ltd options; unlimited traffic on the standard one-gigabit port; high-clock Ryzen and high-core EPYC configurations; ECC on server platforms; German and Finnish locations under an EU parent; no setup fee on Auction servers.
Limitations: pricing and stock can change; the cheapest configurations may be supply-limited or auction inventory; servers are self-managed; provisioning is measured in minutes to hours rather than seconds; and there is no general hourly billing. Best suited to cost-focused teams that can operate their own infrastructure and verify that the selected hardware meets the workload.
Hostline
source: hostline.io
Category: support-led EU dedicated servers; facility built to Tier III standards. Operator: HOSTLINE UAB, Lithuania. Jurisdiction: EU parent; Lithuanian facility.
Hostline publishes single-tenant Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC dedicated servers in Lithuania [1][2]. The SATA SSD range begins with the P0 at EUR 113 per month, using dual Xeon E5-2640 v4 processors, 64 GB of ECC memory, hardware RAID, two SSDs, iLO4 Advanced, and a one-gigabit port. The NVMe range runs from the P1 at EUR 157 to the P7 at EUR 389 and uses operating-system software RAID. Storage-focused tiers offer larger HDD arrays. The published EPYC option is EUR 310 per month for a 24-core EPYC 7402 with 128 GB of ECC memory, a flash-backed RAID controller, four SSDs, and iDRAC9 Enterprise; higher-core systems are quoted on request.
Across the published tiers, Hostline lists ECC memory, out-of-band management through iLO or iDRAC, redundant power inputs, UPS and generators, and a multi-carrier network [1][2][3]. Hardware RAID is listed on the SSD, storage, and EPYC lines; NVMe tiers use operating-system software RAID. Provisioning is stated as within 24 hours, with billing in EUR, USD, and GBP.
The public catalog does not define a full managed-service scope or publish a monthly transfer cap and overage rate for the one-gigabit port. Firewalls, DDoS protection, and encryption are listed as options. Buyers should obtain written confirmation of the operating-system and application-management responsibilities, service levels, traffic policy, and security options rather than inferring them from access to support or out-of-band management.
Strengths: dedicated Xeon and EPYC hardware in Lithuania; ECC memory and out-of-band management listed across the published tiers; hardware RAID on the SSD, storage, and EPYC lines; monthly billing in EUR, USD, and GBP; published provisioning within 24 hours; fixed server configurations that can simplify capacity and licensing analysis.
Limitations: the EUR 113 entry price is above Hetzner’s lowest published offers; the footprint is smaller than OVHcloud’s or Leaseweb’s; there is no hourly or per-second billing or instant provisioning; many published systems use older Intel Broadwell, Skylake, Cascade Lake, or AMD Zen 2 hardware; uptime and performance figures are vendor-stated; the standard connection is one gigabit; and the catalog does not publish a monthly transfer allowance or overage rate. Confirm the precise operating-system and application-management scope, DDoS protection, service levels, and traffic terms before ordering.
How Hostline fits the market: Hostline costs more than the lowest self-service and auction offers and operates a smaller footprint than the largest EU hosts. Its differentiators are the published Lithuanian location, ECC-equipped dedicated configurations, out-of-band management, and access to a human support team. Those features should be evaluated against a written support scope rather than described as full management by default.
A Hetzner Server Auction machine may undercut the Hostline P0 on monthly price, while Hostline publishes hardware RAID, iLO or iDRAC management, redundant power and networking, and billing in EUR, USD, or GBP. Which is better depends on the required support response, location, hardware generation, bandwidth terms, and total software-licensing model. Dedicated hardware may support an isolation requirement, but it does not by itself establish PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, or another compliance outcome.
OVHcloud
source: ovhcloud.com
Category: large-scale EU-parent dedicated hosting, self-service. Operator: OVH Groupe SAS, France. Jurisdiction: EU parent; data-center location and local law vary.
OVHcloud carries the broadest dedicated catalog in this comparison, from Kimsufi and So you Start through Rise, Advance, Scale, and High Grade. The range includes AMD Ryzen and EPYC as well as Intel Xeon systems, with networking features such as vRack, anti-DDoS protection, and selected Intel SGX or AMD SEV confidential-computing options [7]. Memory terminology must be checked per configuration: some Rise, Game, and Advance systems advertise DDR5 on-die ECC, which is not equivalent to full end-to-end system ECC, while server-oriented ranges include conventional system ECC.
OVHcloud pricing and setup fees vary by country, range, hardware generation, and order date. Kimsufi, So you Start, and Rise remain entry routes into the catalog. OVHcloud prices are subject to change and should be taken from the configurator on the day of quotation. European deployments sit under an EU-headquartered parent, while Canadian and other non-EU facilities also remain subject to the law of their physical location. Corporate parentage should not be described as placing every facility solely under EU jurisdiction.
Strengths: the deepest catalog in this comparison; vRack private networking and included anti-DDoS protection; selected confidential-computing features; large or unmetered bandwidth options; and an EU-headquartered parent for European deployments.
Limitations: self-service operations with no included full-management layer; thinner support on budget brands; complex configuration and ordering; changing prices and setup fees; and consumer-derived platforms where on-die ECC should not be presented as full system ECC. Best for teams that need broad hardware choice and can manage the server and verify the exact configuration.
Leaseweb
source: leaseweb.com
Category: large-scale EU-parent dedicated hosting, self-service. Operator: Leaseweb Global B.V., Netherlands. Jurisdiction: Dutch parent; global facilities remain subject to local law.
Leaseweb’s distinguishing feature is its range of bandwidth options. It publishes four network billing models: metered transfer from 30 TB to 250 TB per month, unmetered flat-fee ports, 95th-percentile burstable billing, and traffic aggregation across services. Unmetered ports are published at 100 Mbit/s, 1, 10, and 25 Gbit/s. Its ultra-high-bandwidth servers are separately offered with 25, 40, and 100 Gbit/s connections; those are port speeds, so the billing model needs confirming per configuration. Aggregation is excluded on high-bandwidth servers and cannot be combined with other discounts [8]. Hardware and entry pricing vary substantially by location and stock, so a single USD 70-120 range is not a normalized global entry price. Leaseweb also publishes separate pricing for its Private Network service; private networking should therefore not be described as universally free. Its Dutch parent is relevant to European procurement, but deployments outside the EU remain subject to local law.
Strengths: flexible metered and unmetered bandwidth options, including selected offers up to 100 Gbit/s; a large international footprint; customizable Xeon and EPYC configurations; private-network products; and a Dutch corporate parent.
Limitations: pricing and included services vary by market; private networking may carry a separate charge; provisioning is not an instant bare-metal-cloud tier; operations are primarily self-service; and the most attractive bandwidth economics require a suitable higher-tier plan. Best for bandwidth-heavy deployments after confirming the exact location, port, transfer, setup, and support terms.
IONOS
source: ionos.de
Category: EU-parent dedicated hosting, self-service. Operator: IONOS SE, Germany. Jurisdiction: EU parent; locations include EU and non-EU markets.
IONOS offers dedicated AMD and Intel configurations with NVMe storage, RAID options, ECC on applicable platforms, and unlimited traffic on a one-gigabit connection [9]. Prices and discounts depend on country, configuration, and commitment and should be taken from the current configurator rather than presented as one universal USD 48 entry. IONOS currently advertises server availability above 99.995 percent; the contractual SLA and remedy should be checked separately. Its licensing terms prohibit Hyper-V on the relevant dedicated offer, so Microsoft virtualization plans require special attention.
Strengths: an established German operator; unlimited traffic on a one-gigabit connection; multiple AMD and Intel configurations; NVMe and RAID options; and published server availability above 99.995 percent.
Limitations: price depends on market and commitment; Hyper-V is prohibited on the relevant offer; operations are self-service; and the contractual SLA should be read separately from the marketing availability figure. Best for buyers who want an established EU operator and can use a supported operating system and hypervisor.
Vultr Bare Metal
source: vultr.com
Category: bare-metal cloud, hourly and API-driven. Operator: The Constant Company LLC, United States. Jurisdiction: US parent; location-specific law also applies.
Vultr combines single-tenant hardware with hourly and monthly billing, API and command-line management, and Terraform support [10]. Vultr now advertises 33 global cloud regions, but bare-metal plan availability varies by location and should be checked in the plan API or console. Entry bare metal is about USD 120 per month for selected configurations. Eligible bandwidth allowances are pooled, with overage published at USD 0.01 per GB. Stopped bare-metal instances continue to incur charges until they are destroyed, which matters for elastic cost models.
Strengths: hourly single-tenant capacity; API, command-line, and Terraform automation; a broad 33-region cloud footprint; pooled eligible bandwidth allowances; and USD 0.01 per GB published overage.
Limitations: US corporate jurisdiction; bare-metal availability is not guaranteed in every cloud region; stopped instances continue billing; hourly convenience can cost more than long-term dedicated hosting; and traffic is metered beyond the allowance. Best for automated deployments that verify location and plan availability and do not require an EU-only legal structure.
Latitude.sh
source: latitude.sh
Category: bare-metal cloud, hourly and API-driven. Operator: Latitude.sh, a Megaport company. Jurisdiction: Australian parent; location-specific law also applies.
Latitude.sh provides API-first bare metal with hourly and monthly billing, Terraform support, private networking, and European locations including Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and London [11]. Its overall entry price is currently about USD 0.26 per hour for a legacy Gen3 c3.small configuration; current Gen4 configurations begin around USD 0.37 per hour. The published bandwidth allocation is 20 TB per server, pooled by project and country. London is a European location but is outside the EU. Megaport, an Australian company, is the parent, so customers should assess the contracting entity, support access, and location rather than treating all European points of presence as EU jurisdiction.
Strengths: API-first deployment; hourly and committed billing; European locations including Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and London; a published 20 TB per-server allocation pooled by project and country; and Terraform automation.
Limitations: an Australian parent; London is not in the EU; the lowest entry price uses older Gen3 hardware; bare-metal-cloud pricing can exceed long-term dedicated hosting; and the catalog is narrower than the largest traditional hosts. Best for API-driven deployments after confirming generation, location, commitment, and legal requirements.
phoenixNAP
source: phoenixnap.com
Category: bare-metal cloud, hourly and reserved. Operator: phoenixNAP LLC, United States. Jurisdiction: US parent; location-specific law also applies.
phoenixNAP’s Bare Metal Cloud supports hourly use and reservations, with Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, and Chef tooling [12]. The lowest published entry near USD 0.08 per hour uses a legacy four-core Xeon E3-1240 v3 and should not be compared directly with current-generation systems. The wider catalog includes current Intel Xeon 6700-series configurations, NVMe storage, and higher-speed networking. phoenixNAP describes 15 TB of included transfer with the first deployment in most locations, shared within the relevant account and location, and 5 TB in Singapore; this should not be presented as 15 TB attached to every server.
Strengths: broad infrastructure-as-code tooling; hourly and reservation options; current Xeon configurations alongside lower-cost legacy hardware; high-speed networking options; and a published shared transfer allowance for the first deployment.
Limitations: US corporate jurisdiction; the lowest advertised price is based on old hardware; included transfer is account/location-specific rather than a universal per-server allowance; the footprint is smaller than Vultr’s; and the lowest effective rates require reservations. Best for infrastructure-as-code deployments after comparing equivalent hardware generations.
Scaleway Dedibox
source: scaleway.com
Category: French EU-parent dedicated hosting. Operator: Scaleway SAS, France. Jurisdiction: French parent; Dedibox servers are hosted in Paris and Amsterdam, both in the EU.
Scaleway’s Dedibox line offers single-tenant Intel Xeon and AMD systems with ECC memory, NVMe and SSD options, and unlimited public and private network traffic. Scaleway’s Dedibox pages place Dedibox servers and associated services in its Paris and Amsterdam data centres; it also operates a Warsaw data centre, but that belongs to the cloud footprint rather than the Dedibox range [13]. Scaleway recalculates prices daily based on demand, stock, component, and energy costs, while guaranteeing the order price for the first twelve months. An installation fee equal to one month’s rental applies. The French parent and EU locations can be relevant to procurement, but customers should still verify the contracting entity, support access, subprocessors, and data flows. In-stock configurations are advertised as provisioning in about two minutes on average, although availability and exact port speed vary by plan.
Strengths: an established French dedicated-server brand; listed EU locations in France and the Netherlands; Xeon and AMD configurations with ECC and NVMe options; bundled traffic; a twelve-month price guarantee for the ordered configuration; and fast provisioning when the selected server is in stock.
Limitations: a narrower catalog and smaller footprint than OVHcloud or Leaseweb; less automation depth than the bare-metal cloud providers; pricing and availability vary by configuration and need direct confirmation; no included managed support layer. Best for European teams that specifically want a French EU operator for single-tenant workloads.
Common mistakes that cost real money
The most expensive mistake is choosing hardware on sticker price without modeling the software licence. A 32-core server can require four times as many core licences as an eight-core server under a simple physical-core model, but it may also deliver more throughput. Benchmark the actual workload, account for product-specific physical and VM licensing options, and choose the lowest licensed-core configuration that still meets capacity and resilience requirements.
A second mistake is assuming that a virtual machine always limits licensing to its assigned vCPUs. SQL Server offers a per-VM model, while Oracle generally does not accept soft partitioning as a way to limit processor licences; approved hard-partitioning methods and the customer’s contract may change the scope [15][16]. Dedicated hardware can make the physical boundary clearer, but it does not remove licensing obligations, failover rights, or architectural questions in one step.
A third mistake is forgetting egress. Metered transfer can add hundreds or thousands of dollars, while some dedicated plans include a large allowance or an unmetered port. ‘Unlimited’ and ‘unmetered’ still depend on the plan’s fair-use, port-speed, geography, and acceptable-use terms. Check the allowance, pooling rules, overage, and contractual limits before migration.
A fourth mistake is treating residency and sovereignty as a binary ownership test. The server location and the provider’s corporate structure both matter, but so do the contracting entity, subprocessors, support access, international transfers, encryption and key control, and applicable local laws [23]. Document the actual legal and technical requirements instead of assuming that an EU location or an EU parent resolves them automatically.
A fifth mistake is buying onto a platform that is being retired. Equinix Metal stopped sales and ended service on 30 June 2026; provisioned resources were removed and became inaccessible after shutdown [20]. Verify a platform’s lifecycle and migration terms before committing a production workload.
The sixth mistake is matching the wrong procurement model to the workload’s lifecycle. Paying a bare-metal cloud’s hourly premium for a database that runs continuously every hour of the month wastes money that a monthly dedicated server would have saved, while locking a bursty, occasional workload into an annual dedicated contract wastes the capacity it does not use. Match the billing model to how the workload actually runs.
Matching workloads to providers
For a cost-focused, steady-state workload where the team runs its own operations, Hetzner is a strong candidate because of its Auction and supply-limited -Ltd entry points and unlimited traffic on the standard port. IONOS is another EU-parent option with unlimited traffic. The comparison should still use equivalent hardware, commitment, support, setup fees, and location rather than entry price alone.
For an EU business considering Hostline, the relevant published features are dedicated Xeon and EPYC hardware in Lithuania, ECC memory, out-of-band management, and access to a human support team. Confirm the written support scope, transfer policy, DDoS protection, service levels, and accepted billing currency. OVHcloud and Leaseweb provide broader catalogs and footprints, while Leaseweb offers higher-bandwidth options.
For core-licensed software, model the product’s actual licensing route before selecting hardware. Compare physical-host and qualifying VM-based options where available, include virtualization and failover rights, and benchmark the smallest core count that meets throughput and resilience targets. A high-clock system can be economical, but only if the measured workload supports that conclusion.
For elastic or automated fleets, Vultr, Latitude.sh, and phoenixNAP are relevant API-driven candidates. Latitude.sh emphasizes developer workflows and European locations, Vultr has a broad 33-region cloud footprint with plan-dependent bare-metal availability, and phoenixNAP offers extensive infrastructure-as-code integrations. Jurisdiction, generation, stop-versus-destroy billing, and location-specific inventory must still be checked.
For bandwidth-heavy deployments, compare Leaseweb’s selected unmetered options up to 100 Gbit/s, Hetzner’s unlimited one-gigabit port, and the exact allowance and overage terms of every candidate. The economical choice depends on sustained throughput, transfer volume, geography, port commitment, and acceptable-use conditions.
Three Findings
First, sticker price is only one component of total cost. Core-based software licensing and outbound traffic can exceed the hardware charge, but they are controlled by separate choices: licensing follows the product rights and architecture, while egress follows the provider plan. Dedicated hardware can make the physical boundary clearer and often bundles traffic, yet neither benefit is automatic.
Second, single tenancy is an architecture choice before it is a performance claim. It removes co-tenants from the same physical server and can simplify some risk and audit discussions, but networks, facilities, control planes, and operational processes may remain shared. EU ownership and EU hosting are relevant to sovereignty analysis but are not sufficient on their own.
Third, traditional monthly dedicated hosting and hourly bare-metal cloud serve different operating patterns. Hetzner, Hostline, OVHcloud, Leaseweb, IONOS, and Scaleway emphasize longer-running dedicated capacity; Vultr, Latitude.sh, and phoenixNAP emphasize automation and hourly use. The right choice follows workload duration, support needs, location, licensing, bandwidth, and legal requirements rather than a universal ranking.
FAQ
When is single-tenant bare metal worth it over a VPS or cloud?
It can be worthwhile when the workload needs control of the physical host, predictable access to local CPU and memory, customer-managed first-level virtualization, a clearly defined physical boundary for a licensing or security design, or sustained utilization that makes a monthly server economical. It is not automatically required for PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, custom kernels, or core-licensed software. A well-specified virtual or public-cloud instance may be preferable for bursty workloads, fast scaling, managed services, or qualifying per-VM licensing.
How can single-tenant bare metal affect software licensing costs?
It makes the installed physical-core count visible and controllable, which can help under a physical-core licensing model. However, Microsoft also offers qualifying VM-based licensing routes, Oracle partitioning and authorised-cloud rules are product-specific, and Broadcom’s core minimums apply by product. Model the precise licence, virtualization, cluster, mobility, failover, and contract terms; do not assume that one dedicated machine means every product is licensed only once.
Which bare metal provider is the cheapest?
Among the published entry offers reviewed, Hetzner generally has one of the lowest monthly prices through its Auction and supply-limited -Ltd line. That is not an apples-to-apples performance conclusion: hardware age, setup fees, IPv4, stock, traffic, support, commitment, VAT, and region can change the result. OVHcloud and IONOS also publish low entry offers in selected markets and terms.
Is an EU-owned host automatically better for GDPR and data sovereignty?
How fast can a bare metal server be provisioned?
Is Equinix Metal still available?
References
1. HOSTLINE, SSD dedicated servers, hostline.io/dedicated-servers/ssd-servers/, accessed August 2026.
2. HOSTLINE, AMD EPYC dedicated servers, hostline.io/dedicated-servers/amd-epyc-servers/, accessed August 2026.
3. HOSTLINE, dedicated server features and data center locations, hostline.io, accessed August 2026.
4. Hetzner Online, Dedicated Root Servers and Server Auction, hetzner.com, accessed August 2026.
5. Hetzner Online, price adjustment 15 June 2026, docs.hetzner.com/general/infrastructure-and-availability/price-adjustment/, accessed August 2026.
6. Hetzner Online, dedicated server hardware specifications, hetzner.com, accessed August 2026.
7. OVHcloud, dedicated server (bare metal) ranges and prices, ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal/prices/, accessed August 2026.
8. Leaseweb, dedicated servers and bandwidth options, leaseweb.com, accessed August 2026.
9. IONOS, dedicated servers, ionos.com, accessed August 2026.
10. Vultr, Bare Metal single-tenant servers, vultr.com/products/bare-metal/, accessed August 2026.
11. Latitude.sh, bare-metal cloud pricing and locations, latitude.sh, accessed August 2026.
12. phoenixNAP, Bare Metal Cloud, phoenixnap.com, accessed August 2026.
13. Scaleway, Dedibox dedicated servers, scaleway.com, accessed August 2026.
14. Microsoft, Windows Server 2025 licensing datasheet (per-core licensing and minimums), microsoft.com, accessed August 2026.
15. Microsoft, SQL Server 2022 licensing guide (per-core licensing and minimums), microsoft.com, accessed August 2026.
16. Oracle, Database licensing and the Processor Core Factor Table, oracle.com, accessed August 2026.
17. Broadcom, “Counting Cores for VMware Cloud Foundation and vSphere Foundation,” knowledge.broadcom.com, accessed August 2026.
18. Amazon Web Services, EC2 on-demand data transfer pricing, aws.amazon.com, accessed August 2026.
20. Equinix, Metal end-of-service documentation, docs.equinix.com/metal/eos-faq/, accessed August 2026.
Editorial Note
This comparison is published by HOSTLINE UAB, which operates hostline.io and is one of the nine providers evaluated here, which creates an inherent conflict of interest. To address it, the providers are grouped by procurement model and buyer priority rather than ranked by quality, Hostline is placed at the second position inside that ordering as the representative of managed-leaning EU single-tenancy rather than first, and the Hostline section documents seven specific limitations alongside six strengths. The same evaluation criteria apply to every provider, and where a competitor is the better choice on price, scale, bandwidth, or elasticity the article says so. Pricing and specifications were checked in August 2026 against the linked sources and should be re-verified at order time. Vendor-published availability, performance, certification, support, and provisioning claims have not been independently replicated. This article is infrastructure guidance, not legal, licensing, tax, or compliance advice; licensing and sovereignty conclusions depend on each customer’s architecture, contract, and legal requirements.