# Differences Between Beacon Hosting Premium and Budget Servers

> Learn the key differences between Beacon Hosting's Premium and Budget server options to choose the best service for your game server hosting needs.

Source: https://www.beaconhosting.org/knowledgebase/differences-between-beacon-hosting-premium-and-budget-servers
Category: Minecraft
Last updated: 2026-09-11

# Premium vs Budget Server Hosting

Beacon Hosting game servers are sold by **hardware tier**, not as two different control panels. Budget and Premium plans all use the same Beacon panel — Console, Files, Backups, Package Manager, and support tickets. The difference is the **nodes** your server is placed on.

You pick the hardware tier on the store configurator together with RAM size, location, and (for Minecraft) Java or Bedrock. A larger Budget plan can have more RAM than a smaller Premium plan. Hardware tier and RAM are separate choices.

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## Budget

**Best for:** smaller communities, vanilla or light plugin servers, and keeping monthly cost down.

Budget plans run on value-focused hardware. They are still full game servers with allocated RAM, CPU, and disk — not a limited “shared hosting” panel.

The in-panel upgrade flow describes Budget as great-value plans optimized for affordability.

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## Premium

**Best for:** busier servers, more plugins, or when you want stronger CPU headroom.

Premium plans deploy to premium nodes. The store comparison table shows the current CPU, memory type, storage, and bandwidth for that tier (these specs are set per product and can change).

For plugin-heavy or modded Minecraft, Beacon’s own RAM helper recommends Premium because the faster hardware helps prevent lag at higher player counts.

The Minecraft free trial is provisioned on **Minecraft Premium**.


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## What is the same on every tier

- The Beacon control panel (after login: **Your Servers**)
- Package Manager / plugin and jar installs
- Backups, files, console, and sub-users
- Support through **Tickets** — there is no separate “priority vs standard” queue in the panel
- DDoS-aware network marketing applies to hosting in general; the panel does not split “basic” vs “advanced” DDoS by plan

> **[INFO]** Do not choose Premium only because you need more RAM. Raise the RAM slider (or upgrade the plan size) on the tier you already want. Choose Premium when you need faster hardware for the same RAM.

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## How to pick a plan

1. Open the [store](https://www.beaconhosting.org/store)
2. For Minecraft, choose [Java](https://www.beaconhosting.org/store/Minecraft/java) or [Bedrock](https://www.beaconhosting.org/store/Minecraft/bedrock)
3. Select **Budget** and **Premium** on the hardware comparison
4. Choose RAM, location, and billing cycle, then check out

After purchase, log in at [www.beaconhosting.org/auth/login](https://www.beaconhosting.org/auth/login) and open **Your Servers** to manage the server.

If you outgrow Budget, use **Upgrade Service** from billing to move to a higher hardware tier without changing how you use the panel.