since 2015
74 companies
84 games
904 reviews
800k+ happy gamers
since 2015
74 companies
84 games
904 reviews
800k+ happy gamers
When it comes to game server hosting companies you are spoilt for choice. Almost every day we at CompareGameHosting are approached by a new company that has been formed by an enthusiastic tech person looking for their share of the market.
Our job is to make it easier for you as a game server shopper to make the right choice when picking a provider. This guide has been put together for the hugely popular craft-and-survive title Ark: Survival Evolved but the information could be used to help pick a game server provider for any game.
The first thing you will want to do is decide what it is you need from your Ark game server. Are you going to need a server that can handle large volumes of players coming and going or is it only for you and a few friends? Do you know where you want it to be based? Are you somebody who likes to mod your Ark: Survival Evolved game?
This should be a fairly easy question to answer and a good place to start. Try and think of how many people you are expecting to play with and then add 20% to that number just in case.
Now when you compare prices on our Ark: Survival Evolved page or visit a game hosting company look for an option to choose how many “slots” you need. The term “slots” refers to the maximum number of players that you can have on your server, you typically pay more for a higher number due to to the increase in resource use.
The second biggest decision is the geographical location of your Ark game server. You need to take into consideration your location as well as where the other players are going to be based. Choosing a region close to yourself and the other people you will want to play with can cut down on game ruining lag (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag).
Most game hosting companies on CompareGameHosting cover key locations within USA and Europe. Some companies listed on our site cover Asian and African territories with quite a few covering Australasia (several companies specialise in Australia and New Zealand due to the time differences). On the Ark server hosting provider page you will find a drop-down option to filter by region on the left hand side (titled as “Location”), choose the appropriate option and click “Update Results”.
If you are a fan of modding your Ark: Survival Evolved game then you may want to look for server providers that can help you with that. Looking for a game hosting company that provides “Mod Support” as standard could save you buckets of time. If you come across problems to do with 3rd party code not working (in the form of server mods/plugins) then you may not be able to sort it yourself (and your host probably won’t cover this as standard). “Mod Support” from your provider could cut out hours of painful trial and error and maybe help with issues that you as a customer couldn’t even fix anyway.
Another much sought after feature is DDOS protection. In the gaming world you will find a lot of shady characters who can easily bear a grudge (a good example is this guy who shut down a load of UK schools with bomb threats due to a disagreement with a Minecraft server https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43457548). DDOS Protection creates a barrier between your Ark: Survival Evolved server and the outside world that tries to limit the amount of damage a hacker could do. Getting this feature set up during the creation of your server (rather than adding it later when you are being attacked) is important if you don’t want to experience potentially long periods of down-time.
De-Branding is another important feature talked about during game server shopping. Some game hosts automatically add their own company name into your server name as a free form of advertising. This has been going on for years and a lot of providers charge extra for them to remove this, some include it with the price.
Its easy to just go ahead and choose the cheapest ark server hosting provider expecting the best value for money. Its also easy to go with the most expensive provider if you aren’t bothered so much about money.
The smart way to shop for the best Ark: Survival Evolved server hosting would be to balance the price against:
The best way to compare all of these features (we believe) is the Ark: Survival Evolved server hosting page we created here. We have brought together all of this information in an easy to use price table with adjustable parameters and sorting methods. If you can find a better way to shop then we want to hear about it!
