Shockbyte Review – Best Affordable Minecraft Server Hosting For a Starter Owners

If you're looking for a Minecraft server hosting company that makes it easy to run your games and host your Minecraft community, then you've probably come across the hosting service provider known as Shockbyte. While they obviously offer a variety of services that make setting up and managing your host a breeze, when it comes to spending your money on a server, you need to know you're spending it in the right place, and that is what this Shockbyte Review is to help you with.

BizOfGames Overall Rating For Shockbyte - 4/5

In this article, we'll explore why Shockbyte gets a 4/5 rating, and why we knocked that star off from the perfect 5 (it might not be that much of an issue for you), along with everything that goes into the Minecraft Shockbyte server, including details on their hosting plans, features, and why they may, or may not, be the provider for you. Let's get into it.

Shockbyte Plans & Pricing

Let's start with the basics.

Shockbyte's hosting plans are broken down into nine main packages. In the true Minecraft style, they are named after blocks you'll find in the game (which I think is a very nice touch for a dedicated Minecraft server provider.)

On a bit of a tangent, even the staff have been transformed into Minecraft-styled characters on their team page, which I think shows just how dedicated they are to Minecraft. I love this kind of attention to detail.

Dirt - The Most Affordable

Plans range from Dirt to Obsidian and come at different price points and specifications. Starting at Dirt, you'll have access to a 1GB RAM server that's suitable for eight players, clocking in at a tiny $2.50 per month.

This is ridiculously affordable, and easily one of the most affordable plans out there, especially being able to host up to eight players comfortably. Sure, if you have a large Minecraft world, are running lots of mods, build a lot of complex block or Redstone-heavy designs, or simply have a lot going on, you're going to experience some lag.

However, if you're looking for a small hosting package that you and a couple of friends can play on (even if this means building a spawn and getting up a world that you'll use on a larger server later on), then this package works so well.

Obsidian - The Biggest Plan

On the other hand, if you're looking for what you could call a 'hardcore' server, which can support hundreds of players being online at the same time, players dotted thousands of blocks apart from each other, and even complex farms and builds, Shockbyte can provide.

I've used their Obsidian package in the past (which clocks in at 9GB RAM and 90+ player slots for just $22.50 a month) and it works incredibly.

My server had around 50+ concurrent players (around totally registered) and I experienced a performance issue once when a player logged in and couldn't load in. But I'm led to believe that was a connection issue on their part.

For $22.50 a month, these Minecraft packages are a steal, especially when you consider the features that come with every package.

Whether you opt for a Dirt, Obsidian server, or a package in between, you'll get access to features including;

All Plans Include

• 100% Uptime guaranteed
• Full DDOS Protection
• Instant Setup of your Minecraft Server
• Access to a 24/7 Support Team
• A free sub-domain you can customise as you please

Shockbyte Dedicated Server Hosting Plans

But, that's not all. The above servers are the shared hosting plans, but if you're looking for something a little more professional, Shockbyte has your back. There are three dedicated hosting options; Spartan, Zeus, and Titan, that offer a really state-of-the-art host experience.

Basically, your Shockbyte experience can be customized however you want, ensuring you get access to a server that fits your requirements, and your budget. This makes them a fantastic provider to start off with because you can simply start small and scale up your hosting package as your Minecraft community grows.

You can really easily (literally with about three clicks) upgrade or downgrade your server package within seconds, meaning you'll always have the host specs you need to run your gameplay smoothly, thus giving your players an optimal experience with no hassle.

Just to let you know, here are the other Minecraft host features you'll have access to on every offered host package.

BizOfGames Price Rating - 5/5

For the packages available at Shockbyte, my score is top marks. There are few providers that offer a variety of packages like they do, and it’s easy to see why it’s one of the best in the Minecraft business. With a variety of tiers suitable for any budget, and scalably to any level, Shockbyte has you covered.

Ease of Use

When you look at the shot above, it's easy to get scared by all the features and services that Shockbyte has to offer, but I'm going to remind you that most of this stuff happens in the background of your server.

On the front-end, the experience is one of the easiest I've ever used. After all, it's a service designed for all kinds of hosting owners, from players wanting a place to hang out with their friends, to community leaders who want to run a hundred-player strong world.

In the setup phase of the server, everything happens automatically. You just pay the first monthly premium, click which version of Minecraft you want your world to be, and then Shockbyte installs everything automatically.

Once loaded, you'll be able to control your server from the dashboard. Shockbyte uses an adapted version of the standard Multicraft dashboard, which is what you'll find most reputable host providers using just because it makes life so easy for you.

Even on the home screen of the dashboard (see screenshot), you can see everything is easily laid out. You can change your server name, your player slot limit, your world name, type, and upgrade or downgrade your hosting plan.

If you want to add plugins, you can simply use the built-in 'Files' option on the left-hand menu to drag, drop, and upload your plugins. Using the console tab, you can easily see everything that's happening in your server and have a clean space to run console commands when you need to.

1. If you need to mod a player,
2. ban or time someone out,
3. find their location in the world,
4. or manage their host profile in any way,
5. you'll find everything you need under the Player's tab.

All the features you could ever need are simply a click away, again making Shockbyte a very attractive provider for many owners.

BizOfGAmes Ease Of Use Rating - 5/5

In terms of being easy to use, Shockbyte excels. The use of the Minecraft Multicraft panel makes managing your server incredibly simple and all the necessary features are literally two or three clicks away at all times. Whether you’re a new server owner or an experienced one, Shockbyte ensures your management remains effortless, giving you more time to focus on all the more important aspects of your community.

Speed and Experience

Continuing on, everything looks pretty good so far for Shockbyte, and that's because it is, but none of these stats really matter if you're not able to offer your player's a positive Minecraft experience. At the end of the day, that's what really matters more than anything.

If your players are having a bad experience because of your server, they won't come back and your business will die. You need to ensure this doesn't happen.

Tech-wise, Shockbyte has a pretty good setup. Their servers use NVMe SSD devices, which means that they run around six times faster than standard Solid-State Drives, and 12x faster than traditional HDDs. So yeah, the actual servers run very fast.

Shockbyte Server Locations

Of course, your players connecting to your server will need to have a stable connection to receive these benefits.

NOTE: I do recommend opting for a server in your regional area where your players will be coming from since if you're based in Asia and you have players connecting from the UK, the chances are they're going to run a high ping and lag.

That will happen and there's not really anything you can do about it, but that's okay. That's an internet connection that's out of your control. For the players who can join, they ensure the experience is smooth.

What's more, Shockbyte offers servers in North America, Europe, Australia, and Singapore, so you can quite easily find a host that's best suited for you.

If you want to test your connection and what kind of experience you can have, you can log into the Shockbyte Minecraft test servers here;

Companies like TechRadar have already taken the time to specially test the server equipment for speed using services like GTmetrix, which rated them around the 94% mark.

I ran my own tests using the DeepFocus.io ping checker, where you can monitor the ping of the server to your geographical location in real-time.

After running the test for about ten minutes on Shockbyte’s Singapore test server, the ping was incredibly stable, averaging between 49-59ms, which is just perfect for pretty much all Minecraft players.

There were a few peaks and drops here and there, but nothing sustainable, and certainly nothing that would be noticeable to your average player, nor disruptive to gameplay in any way.

Uptime Guarantee

Shockbyte claims to offer a 100% no-downtime policy, guaranteed. Of course, 100% uptime is a bold claim for a service provider to offer, so is it true?

Well, not entirely. For many servers who offer this claim, there’s always going to be some kind of downtime. Every kind of host service has it since they need to go down for maintenance and so on.

However, online tests show that this is actually pretty on the mark.

We tested the Shockbyte website for a week to monitor its uptime and, lo and behold, no downtime. It was up 100% of the time, meaning Shockbyte surely has a system in place to make this work.

According to the website, Shockbyte uses a large network of servers all over the world and a ton of hardware to make their connections. Since Minecraft servers relatively use a small amount of physical data, very rarely peaking the 2-3GB mark (unless it’s heavily modded), then moving these files would be not time-consuming at all.

If your hardware needed to go offline for any reason, then it wouldn’t take too much trouble to copy everything to another server, run it from there, and then put it back, all without any disruption to the gameplay. Thus, Shockbyte can offer 100% uptime.

However, if you do experience downtime, then Shockbyte will reimburse you for every five minutes of downtime your server experiences, meaning the guarantee is well and truly in place, and you can confidently offer your players a smooth and uninterrupted experience. Perfect for when they're AFKing the Wither farm they spent 100 hours building.

BizOfGames Speed and Experience Rating - 5/5

In terms of the player experience that Shockbyte offers, you’re going to be more than happy. With 100% uptime of your server guaranteed, fast hardware, low latency speeds, and a solid setup, you know that no matter what kind of Minecraft experience you’re offering your players, it’s going to be a good one.

Support

Now, while everything has been beautiful for Shockbyte Hosting and there haven't really been any negative points whatsoever, but of course, there is no yin without yang. This is when we get to the support section for Shockbyte. Of course, I don't mean to make that sound dramatic, it's just the fact of the matter.

Shockbyte is renowned for its less-than-average level of customer service. While the service is set up to practically minimize the chance of you running into any problems, that doesn't mean that problems won't come up, nor will you have any questions along the way.

This is a well-documented issue with the service, and you can read any reviews or talk to any Shockbyte customer and they'll say the same thing. Even in my own experiences, Shockbyte's support lines have been sub-par, frustratingly so since the rest of the service is relatively just so good.

The recommended way to get in contact with the support team is via the website's live chat, which basically allows you to write a message that is then either replied to within the chat or is given to you via email (your address you put in the initial from reaching out).

In my first tests, the reply came within around half an hour, and the follow-up response to my next question was about half an hour after that. That's not truly bad in itself, but it's not ideal, especially when compared to other services that can provide seemingly real-time support.

The window is also a little small which makes it hard to get all the information quickly, but you can get an email copy of the transcription sent to you if needed.

When it comes to some generic questions, such as asking what hardware the company uses, or what prices they have, you’ll receive some automated responses.

However, here’s why the longer response times can be an issue. Picture this.

Your players are in the middle of a build contest or another Minecraft event (think something monumental like slaying the dragon as a community). It's a big moment for you as a server owner and your community. It's a defining milestone. Suddenly, the server crashes.

You check the console and try restarting. Easy enough with the dashboard, but the log gets filled with error codes. You're not sure what's happening or how to fix it, so you contact the support team. You file the ticket and wait.

And wait.
And wait.

Your Discord server is being filled with messages from players asking what's going on. You have no reply but to say they need to wait. Half an hour passes and the Shockbyte support team asks for more information to verify your account ownership. The response takes another half an hour.

This is exactly what happened to me when we were running a server war. I was relatively new to Minecraft hosting ownership and had a little technical experience when this occurred. Players had been building up to this moment for several weeks, collecting their gear and gathering information, only for the gameplay to go down right there and then as the battle got underway.

The issue was resolved in just under two hours, but the mood was never really the same since. Yes, these problems can happen, and the chances the server would go down right there and then was one in a million. If it had happened any other normal time, it perhaps wouldn't have been so bad, but it did happen, the slow level of support led to the player experiencing suffering.

There were certainly players who didn't come back after it happened. While it's not bound to happen all the time, this is certainly something worth thinking about.

In addition to the live chat, you can submit any questions, requests, or issues to the support team via the ticket system the website, or you can check out the website's knowledge base, which is home to over 200 articles that may hold the answers you're looking for, but of course, you'll need to search through manually to find what you need.

While Shockbyte does lack in the support area, especially compared with a competitive provider like Apex Hosting, Shockbyte does have a very large community of Minecraft users, which means even though the company may not be able to help you quickly, other servers owner might.

If you ever have a problem or question you need answered, you can always search for the answer online where you’ll find a ton of forums, YouTube channels, and blog posts that aim to help you know what you’re doing.

BizOfGames Support Rating - 3/5

There’s definitely room for improvement when it comes to the degree of customer support that Shockbyte has to offer, but this doesn’t really take much away from it being one of the best providers. With a solid service, it’s a low chance you’ll need to reach anyway, it’s just a shame if you do.

However, there’s no doubt that Shockbyte will aim to update this area of their business in the near future. Watch this space, as you can see below the updated reviews for their customer support coming in.

Competition

So, as you know, Shockbyte isn't the only Minecraft provider out there, so how does it compare to the other on-par services, and how does it stand out from the crowd? Well, Shockbyte is definitely up there as one of the best hosting providers but is perhaps most comparable with Apex Hosting.

Who wins in the Shockbyte vs apex battle?

Both are fantastic service providers with very little negative to say about each of them. Thus, these two providers are fairly interchangeable. Both have great features, great connectivity, server locations around the world, and an easy experience for both you and your players.

However, while Apex succeeds in offering a much better experience when it comes to owner support and customer service for you as a server owner, Shockbyte outclasses Apex with their NVMe SSDs that offer a lightning-fast experience, especially in comparison to Apex's standard SSDs.

Pros & Cons

To finalize and summarize everything I've covered in this guide, here's a list of the pros and cons you can expect when working with Shockbyte.

Pros

• Genuine 100% uptime guaranteed
• Ultra-fast NVMe SSD technology for lightning-fast servers
• A broad variety of pricing tiers to suit all budgets
• A super-simple user experience you can learn easily
• Instant setup with every package

Cons

• A faster support service would be ideal

Our Final Verdict For This Shockbyte Review

All in all, the conclusion about Shockbyte Minecraft server hosting is nothing short of outstanding and is regarded by many as the de facto standard when it comes to Minecraft hosting. Whether you choose to start your Minecraft server with Shockbyte, or you're moving from another provider, Shockbyte will fulfil your expectations and give you what you need.

In my own experiences, I've used Shockbyte for several years. I tend to use it on the lower price point, hosting a game for eight people, building a world, creating the spawn and testing plugins, etc., and then scaling up to a higher tier or another provider (team preference), but have run servers full-time on Shockbyte and it's been 99% perfection.

Budget-friendly, easy to use, powerful, and providing you with access to a ton of state-of-the-art features, Shockbyte is always a winner to server owners around the world.

Start a hosting server today, while there is no Shockbyte promo code, you will get the best with 25% off the first months price by clicking the button below:

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