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How to choose a game server host
Most "best game server host" lists are affiliate pages. The order follows the commission, and the specs are copied off marketing pages that nobody re-checked.
Updated
This is the opposite: the checklist we use when we look at hardware ourselves, plus the things that actually generate tickets once a server is live and full of people. We run a host, so read this as interested rather than neutral. Two rules we've set for this page. We don't quote another host's price, spec or policy, because we can't verify them and they change most weeks, so where we describe the market we describe patterns you can go and look for yourself.
And every item below tells you how to check it on any host, including this one. Where Puranode is the wrong answer, that's written down at the bottom rather than left out. Ten minutes with this list before you pay will save you an evening of migrating a world and handing your players a new IP later. If a host won't answer the renewal-price question, the file-access question and the cancellation question in writing before you spend anything, you already have enough information.
The checklist
12 things worth checking on any host
Including ours. Every item below is something you can verify yourself before paying anyone.
The renewal price, not the signup price
The number that matters is the one leaving your account in month 13. A discounted first term is a loan against your future self, and by the time it repays itself you have a world, a plugin set and players who know your IP, which is exactly when moving costs the most.
How to check: Put the server in the basket and read the order summary line by line before paying. It should state the recurring amount and the renewal date, not just today's total. Then search the terms page for "renew", "promotional" and "first term". If the recurring price isn't in writing before payment, treat the headline number as introductory.
Puranode: One price per game, billed every 30 days, and the signup price is the renewal price. Terraria €5.99; Minecraft, Counter-Strike 2, Valheim, Garry's Mod and Project Zomboid €10.99; 7 Days to Die, Satisfactory and Enshrouded €16.99; Rust and Palworld €21.99; ARK: Survival Ascended €32.99. No promotional term, no setup fee.
Whether tax is inside the price
In the EU the advertised price and the amount actually charged are often different numbers, and the gap is roughly a fifth of the bill. It also makes any comparison between hosts meaningless until you normalise it, because you may be comparing a net price against a gross one.
How to check: Walk to the payment step without paying and compare the total against the advertised price. Look for "excl. VAT", "+ tax", or a tax line that only appears once you enter your country. If you're buying as a business, ask in advance how they handle VAT on the invoice and whether your VAT number can go on it.
Puranode: Prices are in EUR and include VAT. €10.99 on the page is €10.99 on the card. The operator is MB VARIANTAI, a Lithuanian company, VAT LT100016340412, so you get a proper EU invoice with a real company on it.
RAM, and what the RAM is bolted to
RAM is the headline number because it's the easiest thing to sell. What decides whether the server stutters when ten players load chunks at once is single-thread CPU speed and disk latency. 8 GB on a crowded node with slow storage feels worse than 4 GB on a fast core with NVMe, and no pricing table will tell you which one you're buying.
How to check: Ask two direct questions before you buy: which CPU the nodes run, and whether storage is NVMe. A host that runs its own machines answers in one line. "Enterprise-grade hardware" as an answer usually means shared, oversold or resold. Then ask what happens when you need more RAM later, and how long that change takes.
Puranode: AMD EPYC CPUs with NVMe storage, in Lauterbourg, France (EU-West). One plan per game today: 2 GB for Terraria, 4 GB for Minecraft, CS2, Valheim, Garry's Mod and Project Zomboid, 6 GB for 7 Days to Die, Satisfactory and Enshrouded, 8 GB for Rust and Palworld, 12 GB for ARK: Survival Ascended. ARK: Ascended and Counter-Strike 2 are set up on request. More RAM is a same-day manual resize on request, not a self-serve button.
Location, measured in milliseconds rather than country names
Latency is the one thing you cannot fix later with settings. On a shooter or on Rust, the difference between 30 ms and 130 ms is the difference between a server people come back to and one they quietly stop joining. A "global network" claim often means one datacentre and a CDN for the website.
How to check: Ask for the node's hostname or IP and run a ping and a traceroute from the machine you actually play on, then get two of your regular players to do the same and send you the numbers. Under 40 ms is comfortable, above roughly 90 ms is noticeable in PvP. Never accept a country name as an answer to a latency question.
Puranode: One EU location: Lauterbourg, France. Best for players in western and central Europe. If your group is elsewhere, run the ping test on any game page first: it times the server itself, and a high number means a host closer to your players will serve you better.
Full file access, and whether you can walk away with your data
A game server is a directory of files. Any host that gives you only a curated settings screen is holding your world by design, and you will discover this at the exact moment you want to leave. Portability is also the cheapest insurance you can get against the host itself failing.
How to check: Ask whether you get SFTP to the whole server directory rather than a restricted subset, and whether there is a file editor in the browser for quick config edits. Then, in week one, actually connect over SFTP and download the world folder to your own machine. If SFTP is a paid addon, or the mod folder isn't writable, you have your answer.
Puranode: Full SFTP plus a web file editor on every server, with the whole server directory exposed. The panel is Pterodactyl (through PteroCA at client.puranode.com), so it's the standard open-source layout, nothing about your files is proprietary, and sub-user permissions let you give an admin console access without giving them billing.
Mods, plugins and who controls the version
Most support tickets in this industry are, underneath, "I installed something built for a different version". A one-click installer is genuinely useful, but only if you can also override it, and only if a game update can't be pushed onto a modded world at the worst possible time.
How to check: Check for both: a one-click installer and the ability to upload your own jar, pak or zip over SFTP. Then ask whether you choose the game and loader version yourself in the panel, and whether updates are ever applied automatically. Ask what happens to your install if the game ships an update mid-wipe.
Puranode: Each game comes with one install ready to run, such as Paper on Minecraft and tShock on Terraria, plus full SFTP and a web file manager to upload mods, plugins or a server pack. Some games have a panel setting for it: Rust's modding framework, Garry's Mod's Workshop collection, ARK's mod IDs. Want a different loader? Email us and we set it up with you. There's no artificial cap on what you upload, and existing worlds can be dropped straight in.
Backups: how often, how many, and can you take them off the platform
You need backups for a corrupted world file, a plugin that ate the economy, and an admin having a bad week. Backups that live only on the same platform as the server cover the first two well and the platform's own failure not at all. Restoring is also a skill, and the time to learn it is before it matters.
How to check: Ask three things: how often backups run, how many are kept, and whether you can download one off the platform. Check whether backups are included or an addon, and whether restoring is self-serve or a ticket. Then deliberately restore one in your first week, while there is nothing to lose.
Puranode: Backups are included on every server at no extra cost: one slot in the panel on game and bot plans, and one, three or five on the website plans. You start one with a click or set a schedule, restore it yourself and download it whenever you like. They hold server files, so export any database separately. Full SFTP means you can always pull your own copy down and keep it somewhere we don't control, which is what we'd advise regardless of who hosts you.
DDoS protection that sits in front of the game port
Booters are a normal fact of life on Rust, CS2 and any Minecraft server that gets popular enough to annoy someone. The failure mode that hurts most isn't the attack, it's a host that null-routes your IP for a few hours to protect their network, which looks identical to being offline from your players' side.
How to check: Ask where the filtering happens (network edge or on the machine), whether it is always on or only enabled after an attack is detected, and specifically whether sustained attack traffic can get your IP null-routed. Ask what they did the last time a customer was attacked. Vague reassurance here is a real signal.
Puranode: DDoS protection sits in front of the server and is included in the price rather than sold as an addon. Treat any host that claims a specific attack size it can absorb, us included, as making a claim you cannot verify.
Support: the channel, the hours, and the written promise
You learn what support is worth on a Friday night with the server down and forty people in a voice channel. A "24/7" badge on a pricing page is usually a claim that a ticket queue exists around the clock, not that a person replies. A modest promise a host actually keeps beats an ambitious one they don't.
How to check: Send a pre-sales question before you spend anything and time the reply, because that is the fastest they will ever be. Ask for the target first-response time in writing. Prefer a stated window over a blanket 24/7 claim. If the only route is a community chat server, remember other customers are not staff and are not accountable to you.
Puranode: Email, hello@puranode.com, replying within 1 business day. That is the whole promise. No phone line, no live chat, and there is no Discord server today. Send a question before you buy and hold the reply time against that promise.
Uptime: a target, or an SLA with credits
These are two different products sold with almost identical wording. A target is a statement of intent. An SLA is a contract clause that defines what you get back when it's missed, usually as service credit, and how to claim it. Nearly all consumer game hosting is the first, written to read like the second.
How to check: Open the terms page and search for "credit" and "service level". If there's no clause defining compensation and a claim process, you have a target, whatever percentage is on the homepage. That's often fine for a community server, but price it accordingly and don't run anything you're being paid for on it.
Puranode: 99.9% is a target we run to, not an SLA with service credits. There is no compensation clause in our terms and we'd rather say that here than let the number on the homepage imply otherwise.
How you leave: term, cancellation and refunds
Exit terms tell you how confident a host is in the product. Minimum terms, notice periods and non-refundable credit all exist to hold money that has stopped earning it. A host that makes leaving easy is betting you won't want to.
How to check: Before paying, get written answers to four questions: is there a minimum term, is there a cancellation fee, is cancelling self-serve or does it need a ticket, and what happens to unused credit. Check specifically whether cancellation requires notice a set number of days before the renewal date, which is where most people get charged one more month.
Puranode: Billed every 30 days from a prepaid wallet you top up by card. No minimum term, no setup fee, no cancellation fee, and unused wallet credit is refundable to the original card on request. Cancelling costs you nothing but the notice you give your players.
Who you are actually buying from
If something goes wrong, the entity behind the brand is your counterparty. A brand name and a contact form is not a company. For EU buyers this also determines your consumer rights, your invoice, and who is accountable for your data under GDPR.
How to check: Look for a registered company name, registration number and address on the site, normally on a legal or imprint page, and then look that number up in the national business register. Check the invoice you receive names the same entity. Also check where the servers are, which is often a different country from the company.
Puranode: Operated by MB VARIANTAI, registered in Lithuania, EU. Company code 306133252, VAT LT100016340412. Servers are in France. Both facts are checkable without asking us, which is the point.
Pricing patterns
9 patterns worth recognising
None of these are dishonest on their own, but they change what you actually pay, and they are easy to miss on a pricing page.
A very low "from" price sitting next to screenshots of a game that needs several gigabytes of RAM
The floor price is almost always the smallest tier of the cheapest title, a per-gigabyte rate, or a slot-based plan too small to run what's pictured. It's a real price for something, just not for the thing that caught your eye. Configure what you would actually run, then compare the totals.
A large first-term discount, with the standard rate stated in smaller type or only in the terms
This is an acquisition model, not a price. The advertised figure is what the host is willing to spend to get you, and it assumes switching costs will keep you once it expires. Multiply twelve or twenty-four months at the renewal rate before comparing anything.
Prices shown to EU consumers with tax added at the final step
Roughly a fifth appears between the page and the card. It isn't dishonest by itself, but it makes a net price look competitive against a gross one. Always compare tax-inclusive totals, and check the tax line by entering your country before you pay.
"Unlimited slots" as a headline feature
Slots are not a resource. RAM, CPU time and disk throughput are, and they are what runs out. Unlimited slots on a small plan means the server accepts everyone and then falls over. The claim is only meaningful next to a stated RAM and CPU allocation.
A boost clock or CPU model quoted with nothing said about how many customers share it
"Up to 5.x GHz" describes one core under ideal conditions on an idle machine. Without a statement about how densely nodes are packed, assume shared and assume busy at peak. The useful question isn't the CPU model, it's how many servers sit on it.
A very high uptime percentage with no service-credit clause anywhere in the terms
A target presented in the visual language of a guarantee. The word to search for is "credit". If a percentage carries no defined remedy and no claim process, it commits the host to nothing, and adding another nine to it costs them nothing either.
"24/7 support" where the only channels are a ticket form and a community chat server
The queue is open around the clock. Staff usually aren't, and community members answering at 3am are volunteers with no obligation to you. A specific first-response target during stated hours is worth more than a 24/7 badge with no number attached.
Backups, DDoS protection, SFTP access or a database listed as paid addons
The headline price isn't the running price. Rebuild the comparison with every addon you would realistically switch on, because most of these are things you only discover you need on a bad day, and by then you're paying for them anyway.
The best rate available only on annual prepay, with cancellation by ticket and a notice period
Three separate mechanisms for holding money: the discount locks the term, the ticket adds friction, and the notice period catches the month you meant to stop. The effective monthly rate is only real if you stay the full term and remember to cancel on time.
Being straight with you
When Puranode is not your best option
- We publish no multi-year uptime history, review trail or customer count rather than invent them. If a long public track record is your first criterion, weigh that before you buy: the checks above work on any host, this one included.
- There is one plan per game. No tier ladder, no sliders. RAM changes are a manual resize we do the same day you ask, during business hours, not an instant self-serve upgrade you can click at 2am mid-event.
- One location, in France, with no failover to a second site. That's the right side of the map for European players. If your group is mostly in North America, South America, Asia or Oceania, run the ping test first and let the number decide.
- Support is email only, hello@puranode.com, replying within one business day. No phone line, no live chat, and no Discord community server exists today. If you want a human answering at 3am on a Sunday during a wipe, that is not what we sell.
- 99.9% is an uptime target, not an SLA with service credits. Our terms contain no compensation clause. If you need contractual money back for downtime, you need a different class of provider and a different budget.
- There is no free trial. The wallet is prepaid, so you top up by card before anything runs. Unused credit is refundable to the original card on request, but you do have to put money in first to see the inside of the panel.
- 10 games can be ordered from the store and install automatically today: Minecraft, Rust, Palworld, Valheim, Garry's Mod, Terraria, 7 Days to Die, Project Zomboid, Satisfactory and Enshrouded. ARK: Ascended and Counter-Strike 2 are set up for you on request, usually the same day. If yours isn't on either list, ask us: we add titles on request.
If one of those is a dealbreaker, we would rather you knew now than found out after paying.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask about Puranode
Is Puranode a legitimate company?
Yes. Puranode is a brand of MB VARIANTAI, registered in Lithuania, European Union, company code 306133252, VAT number LT100016340412, registered address Dailidžių k. 7, Rūdiškių sen., Trakų r., LT-21177, Lithuania. You can look up the company code in the Lithuanian Register of Legal Entities (Registrų centras) and validate the VAT number in the European Commission's VIES checker before you pay anything.
Is Puranode good for players outside Europe?
Puranode is built for players in western and central Europe, because everything runs in one location: Lauterbourg, France (EU-West). Players further away can still join, with higher ping. Run the ping test on any game page to see your own number before you order.
How are backups handled?
Every server gets a nightly backup set up for you, which you can change or switch off in the panel. Game and bot plans have one backup slot, so you always hold the latest night; Starter, Business and Pro website plans have one, three or five. You can also start one with a click and download the file whenever you like. Panel backups hold your server's files, so export any MySQL database separately. Full SFTP access also lets you keep your own copy of everything.
When do I get a support reply?
We reply within 1 business day. Email hello@puranode.com or open a ticket in the client panel, and a real person answers, in English.
Does Puranode offer a free trial?
No. The wallet is prepaid, so you top up by card before anything runs. There is no minimum term and unused credit is refundable to the original card on request, so the cheapest way to test us is one server for one month.
Stripe handles the card
Payments run through Stripe. Puranode never sees or stores your card number.
VAT included
The price you see is the price you pay. No tax added at the last step.
No minimum term
Billed every 30 days. Cancel from the panel any time, no cancellation fee.
48-hour refund on your first order
Change your mind within 48 hours and we refund your first server's first 30 days in full. Unused wallet credit is refundable too.
MB VARIANTAI · company code 306133252 · VAT LT100016340412 · Lithuania, European Union. Refunds & cancellation
Run the checklist on us
Games from €5.99/30 days, VAT included, no minimum term. The cheapest way to test a host is one server for one billing period.