How to choose a dedicated server in Germany
Germany is one of the most popular places in the world to rent bare metal. Power is reliable, the network sits at the crossroads of European traffic, and server prices are among the lowest anywhere. The hard part is choosing which machine to rent. This guide walks through the decisions in the order that matters.
Start with the workload, not the spec sheet
Write down what the server will actually run. A game server, a PostgreSQL database and a Proxmox host need very different things, even when they cost the same.
- Single-thread bound: game servers, many PHP applications, older Windows software. Look for high boost clocks.
- Thread bound: video transcoding, CI builds, virtualisation hosts. Look for more cores.
- Memory bound: databases, caches, in-memory analytics. Look for capacity and ECC.
- Storage bound: logging, search indexes, write-heavy databases. Look for datacenter-grade NVMe.
CPU: generation beats core count
A modern 8-core Zen 4 CPU will outrun an older 12-core chip for most web workloads, because each core does far more work per clock. Compare the architecture first, then the cores. In our line-up the Ryzen 7 PRO 8700GE is the cheapest Zen 4 option, and the Core i5-13500 gives you the most threads per dollar.
Memory: when ECC is worth paying for
Error-correcting memory detects and fixes single-bit errors before they corrupt data. On a development box that doesn't matter much. On a database or a virtualisation host running other people's workloads, it does. Our rule of thumb: if losing the data would cost you more than a month of server rent, choose an ECC plan.
Storage: consumer NVMe vs datacenter NVMe
All our servers use NVMe drives in RAID 1, so a single drive failure never takes you offline. The larger plans use datacenter-grade drives with power-loss protection and much higher write endurance. If your workload writes continuously, such as a busy database or a logging pipeline, those drives last longer and keep latency flat under load.
Network: what "unmetered" really means
Unmetered means there is no monthly traffic quota on the 1 Gbit/s port. You can use the full line rate all month. What it doesn't mean is a guaranteed 1 Gbit/s to every destination on the internet, because routes outside the datacenter are shared. For most sites, APIs and game servers, 1 Gbit/s is far more than you will use.
Location: Falkenstein vs Nuremberg
Both are in Germany, roughly 200 km apart, and latency to the rest of Europe is nearly identical. Pick whichever has the configuration you want in stock. If you plan to run two servers for redundancy, putting them in different locations protects you against a site-wide outage.
A quick decision table
| If you need | Start with |
|---|---|
| Cheapest possible bare metal | Ryzen 5 3600 |
| Game servers or many threads on a budget | Core i5-13500 |
| Production apps with ECC | Ryzen 7 PRO 8700GE |
| A fast database server | Ryzen 9 7950X3D |
| A large virtualisation host | EPYC 9454P |
Still unsure? Tell us what you're running and we'll recommend a plan.