Bare-Metal vs Dedicated Hosting: What’s the Difference

Bare metal and dedicated hosting are often used interchangeably, but they are not quite the same thing, and the distinction matters when you read a service catalog.

Dedicated hosting is the broader category of renting a physical server, while bare metal specifically emphasizes the absence of a hypervisor and full hardware access. One is the umbrella, the other a specific style.

• All bare-metal servers are dedicated, not all dedicated are bare metal
• Some dedicated plans still run a hypervisor layer
• Bare metal implies direct, unvirtualized hardware access
• Check the fine print on whether a hypervisor is present