Liquid Web Dedicated Servers for Web Scraping: When to Use Them
Dedicated servers make sense for web scraping when you need predictable performance, multiple dedicated IPs, or high sustained bandwidth. Liquid Web offers dedicated hardware with 24/7 support. For most teams, a VPS is enough.
If you scrape at moderate volume (hundreds of thousands of pages per day), a well-sized VPS or Apify will be cheaper and simpler than a dedicated box.
VPS vs Dedicated: Quick Decision
| Factor | VPS | Dedicated |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $5–$90/mo | $169+/mo |
| Use case | Most scrapers, Playwright, Crawlee | High concurrency, multi-IP, strict SLAs |
| Noise neighbors | Possible CPU/RAM contention | None |
| IP reputation | Shared pool risk | Your own IPs |
| Setup | Faster provisioning | Longer setup, more ops |
Rule of thumb: Start with VPS. Consider dedicated when you run 10+ concurrent browser instances, need 5+ dedicated IPs, or hit persistent CPU/RAM limits.
When Dedicated Servers Win
- Multi-IP rotation — Dedicated IPs per scraper or target. Liquid Web can provision additional IPs on dedicated servers.
- IP reputation — No shared neighbor traffic. Your IPs stay clean for targets that track reputation.
- High CPU/RAM — Sustained 8+ vCPU, 32+ GB RAM without noisy neighbors.
- Compliance — Some policies require dedicated hardware and isolated networks.
- Bandwidth — Dedicated plans often include 10–20 TB+ outbound; VPS usually 1–7 TB.
Liquid Web Dedicated Server Plans (2026)
Liquid Web dedicated servers start around $169/mo and scale with CPU, RAM, and storage. Exact plans are on Liquid Web’s dedicated hosting page. Typical entry tier:
| Tier | CPU | RAM | Storage | Bandwidth | Est. price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 4-core | 16 GB | 2× 500 GB | 5 TB | ~$169/mo |
| Mid | 6–8-core | 32 GB | 2× 1 TB | 10 TB | ~$249+/mo |
| High | 12+ core | 64+ GB | NVMe options | 15+ TB | $400+/mo |
Compare to VPS: Liquid Web’s 16 GB VPS (~$45/mo promo) handles many scraping workloads. Only move up when VPS limits become a bottleneck.
Use Cases That Justify Dedicated
Multi-target crawler — 20+ concurrent Playwright instances, each with its own IP. A dedicated server with multiple IPs can support this.
Large Crawlee deployment — Hundreds of thousands of URLs per day, stored locally. Dedicated CPU and storage help avoid contention.
Strict latency — Scraping time-sensitive data (prices, inventory). Dedicated avoids CPU spikes from other tenants.
IP reputation management — Targets that block datacenter IP ranges. Dedicated IPs with gradual warming can improve success rates.
When VPS or Cloud Is Better
- Early stage — VPS from $5–25/mo is enough for prototypes and moderate volume.
- Managed scraping — Apify handles scaling, proxies, and anti-bot; no server to run.
- Spiky traffic — Cloud auto-scaling fits better than fixed dedicated capacity.
- Budget — Hetzner, Vultr, and DigitalOcean undercut dedicated pricing for similar specs in many cases.
See best VPS for web scraping for provider comparison.
Setup Overview for Dedicated Scraping
- Provision — Order a dedicated server from Liquid Web; choose a region near your targets.
- OS — Ubuntu 22.04 or similar. Same tooling as VPS (Docker, Node.js, Python).
- IPs — Request additional IPs if needed; Liquid Web can assign multiple IPs per server.
- Scraper stack — Same as VPS: Docker, Playwright/Crawlee, Redis/PostgreSQL as needed.
- Monitoring — Use existing tools (Prometheus, Grafana, or cloud monitoring).
The main difference from VPS is capacity and IP isolation, not architecture.
Use a Liquid Web VPS first. Scale to dedicated only when metrics show you’ve outgrown shared resources.
When you need multiple dedicated IPs, sustained high CPU/RAM, or strict isolation. Most scrapers run fine on a 4–8 GB VPS.
Depends on RAM per instance. ~2 GB per Playwright instance. A 32 GB server can run ~10–12 concurrent browsers with headroom.
Simple HTTP: 1–5 TB/mo is usually enough. High-volume browser scraping: 5–15 TB+. Dedicated plans typically include 10+ TB.