Why do streams need bare metal?
Every viewer who presses play opens a sustained outbound connection at your stream's full bitrate, for the entire session. A thousand 1080p viewers is ~4 Gbps of continuous egress, hour after hour. That's a job for a dedicated port on real hardware, not shared infrastructure.
What makes a good streaming server?
Three things, in this order: a bandwidth plan sized to your peak audience, a network that sustains that rate at prime time, and enough CPU for your ingest and renditions. Get the bandwidth wrong and nothing else matters, because buffering is the end of a stream.
How Much Bandwidth Does Your Stream Need?
The sizing rule is simple: stream bitrate × (concurrent viewers + incoming streams) = the sustained bandwidth you need. Here is roughly how many concurrent viewers each dedicated port sustains when your server delivers streams directly to the audience.
| Stream Quality | 1 Gbps Port | 5 Gbps Port | 10 Gbps Port | 20 Gbps Port |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 720p @ ~2.5 Mbps | ~400 viewers | ~2,000 viewers | ~4,000 viewers | ~8,000 viewers |
| 1080p @ ~4 Mbps | ~250 viewers | ~1,250 viewers | ~2,500 viewers | ~5,000 viewers |
| 4K @ ~10 Mbps | ~100 viewers | ~500 viewers | ~1,000 viewers | ~2,000 viewers |
Theoretical ceilings at the listed bitrate, so plan some headroom for protocol overhead and audience spikes. Your physical port is provisioned above your bandwidth plan, and short peaks burst freely under 95th-percentile billing — no per-GB fees or overage bills; our cloud egress cost calculator shows what the same traffic would cost as pay-as-you-go cloud egress. Need more than 20 Gbps? We build custom configurations up to 40 Gbps with bandwidth pooling.
Don't forget the CPU
Bandwidth serves the stream; the CPU keeps it smooth. As a rule of thumb we size roughly 3–4 PassMark points per concurrent connection for ingest and delivery, and considerably more if your server transcodes renditions itself instead of passing through pre-encoded streams. The recommendation wizard runs both calculations for you and emails you the result.
Dedicated Servers We Recommend for Streaming
Any Maple server can be ordered with a dedicated True-Unmetered port from 100 Mbps to 20 Gbps; you pick the port in the cart. These three are the configurations our streaming clients deploy most, from first broadcast to platform scale.
Dual Intel E5-2650
16 Cores, 32 Threads, 2.00 GHz- 12,870 PassMark CPU score
- 64 GB memory (Max 192 GB)
- 2 x 240 GB SSD default storage
- Ideal with a 1–5 Gbps port
Sixteen cores and a PassMark score that comfortably handles a few thousand concurrent connections. Pair it with a 1–5 Gbps port for HD streaming to a growing audience.
Configure & order Full specs & detailsDual Intel E5-2678v3
24 Cores, 48 Threads, 2.50 GHz- 24,262 PassMark CPU score
- 128 GB memory (Max 256 GB)
- 2 x 1 TB SSD default storage
- Ideal with a 5–10 Gbps port
24 cores / 48 threads with generous memory for ingest, packaging, and light transcoding, sized for roughly 7,000 concurrent connections. The pick for serious HD platforms.
Configure & order Full specs & details1 x AMD EPYC 7313
16 Cores, 32 Threads, 3.00 GHz- 39,091 PassMark CPU score
- 32 GB memory (Max 256 GB)
- 2 x 240 GB SSD default storage
- Ideal with a 10–20 Gbps port
Our highest PassMark score. Modern EPYC cores chew through multi-rendition transcodes and five-figure connection counts. Built for 10–20 Gbps ports and 4K delivery.
Configure & order Full specs & detailsNot sure which fits your audience? Let the wizard size it for you · or see the full lineup with live pricing.
Run Any Streaming Software
Full root access means your server runs whatever your workflow needs: nginx-rtmp, SRS, MediaMTX, Wowza, custom packagers, or your own platform. And if you'd rather skip setup, two streaming engines install themselves at checkout.
Ant Media Server
Ultra-low-latency streaming engine (WebRTC, CMAF, HLS, RTMP), pre-installed at checkout. Maple clients get a 15% recurring discount on Ant Media Enterprise.
Learn about one-click Ant Media ›Owncast
The open-source, self-hosted live streaming + chat server. Your own independent broadcast platform, installed for you at checkout.
Learn about one-click Owncast ›A Network That Keeps Streams Smooth
A big port on a congested network still buffers. Your stream rides 5.5 Tbps of aggregate capacity out of a Tier-3 Amsterdam data center: a blend of Tier-1 carriers with direct peering to major networks, and intelligent routing that steers around congestion before your viewers notice.
Headroom for Your Biggest Nights
Your physical port is provisioned above your bandwidth plan, and billing is 95th-percentile, so premieres and viewer spikes burst freely instead of buffering.
100% Uptime SLA
Your broadcast can't wait for "scheduled maintenance windows." Our uptime guarantee is in writing, backed by a Tier-3 facility and redundant carriers.
Free KVM/IPMI + 24/7 Humans
Console access even if the OS is down, and engineers who answer around the clock. Streams break at midnight, not during office hours.
Video Streaming Hosting FAQ
No. Content streaming is only permitted on servers with a True-Unmetered bandwidth plan. Streaming pushes sustained traffic for hours at a time; unmetered ports are engineered (and priced) for exactly that, while metered plans are designed for burstier workloads. This policy is also what keeps the network fast for every client. If you're streaming, start from a True-Unmetered configuration and you'll never hit a wall.
Multiply your stream bitrate by your peak concurrent connections (viewers plus incoming streams). Example: 1,500 viewers watching 1080p at 4 Mbps ≈ 6 Gbps sustained, so a True-Unmetered 5–10 Gbps plan fits. Our recommendation wizard does this math for you, including the CPU sizing, and emails you the result.
Anything. You get full root access on your own hardware, so nginx-rtmp, SRS, MediaMTX, Wowza, Ant Media, Owncast, or a fully custom stack all work, and no ports are blocked on our side. If you want a head start, Ant Media Server and Owncast are available as one-click installs at checkout, and Maple clients receive a 15% recurring discount on Ant Media Enterprise licenses.
A single well-sized origin on a premium network delivers smooth streams to thousands of direct viewers, especially for audiences in Europe and nearby regions. Amsterdam is one of the world's best-connected internet hubs. For very large or globally spread audiences, you can layer a CDN in front of your origin, or build your own edge with multiple Maple servers, bandwidth pooling, and a private LAN between them.
Our standard lineup is CPU-based, and for most streaming setups that's the right tool: pass-through delivery of pre-encoded renditions is bandwidth-bound, not CPU-bound, and modern multi-core CPUs handle moderate transcoding well (we size ~3–4 PassMark points per connection). If your workload genuinely needs GPU encoding, talk to us about a custom configuration.
Yes. Your physical port is provisioned above your plan, and billing is 95th-percentile: traffic is sampled every five minutes, and the top 5% of samples each month are discarded. A premiere, a raid, or a viral clip rides the headroom for free. You only move up a tier when your sustained usage genuinely grows.
Ready to stream without bandwidth anxiety?
Configure your dedicated server online, or talk it through with one of our engineers first.