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IT professionals reveal top use cases for dedicated servers in 2025
Cloud computing, where organizations rent shared, on-demand computing resources over the internet, dominates the conversation around modern infrastructure.
But many IT professionals are doubling down on dedicated servers, which are physical machines reserved entirely for one organization. To understand this trend, Liquid Web surveyed more than 1,000 experts across industries and company sizes.
The findings reveal why dedicated infrastructure remains a cornerstone of enterprise architecture.
From compliance and cost control to performance and reliability, IT leaders are making strategic choices about where and how they host their most critical workloads.
Key findings
- 86% of IT professionals report that their organizations currently use dedicated servers, with government (93%), information technology (91%), and finance (90%) being the most likely industries to do so.
- Dedicated servers aren’t only for large businesses: 68% of micro companies report using them.
- In the past 12 months, 42% of IT pros have migrated workloads from public cloud (where third-party providers deliver shared computing resources to multiple customers over the internet) back to dedicated servers (physical machines reserved for a single organization).
- 55% of IT professionals cited full customization as their top reason for choosing dedicated infrastructure over cloud.
- 47% of IT professionals say they’ve faced unexpected costs, with most losses falling between $5,000 and $25,000.
- 32% of IT professionals believe their current cloud spend is wasted on features or capacity they don’t fully use.
- 53% of IT professionals still view dedicated servers as essential, and nearly half (45%) expect their role to grow by 2030.
Who’s using dedicated servers today
Adoption of dedicated servers remains widespread, particularly in industries where uptime, security, and compliance are non-negotiable.
A strong majority of IT professionals (86%) said their organizations actively use dedicated servers.
Adoption was highest in the public sector and heavily regulated industries, with government agencies (93%), IT companies (91%), finance (90%), and education (90%) leading the way. Manufacturing organizations followed closely at 85%.
Dedicated infrastructure isn’t just holding steady. It’s growing.
More than one-third of respondents (34%) said their organizations increased spending on dedicated servers in 2024, which is more than any previous year for respondents. Fewer IT professionals reported increased spending in 2023 (24%) and 2022 (26%).
According to IDC, spending on non-cloud infrastructure rose to $71.6 billion in 2024, a 25.8% increase from 2023. This upward trend in 2024 spending reflects a broader shift back to dedicated environments, with 42% of IT professionals saying they migrated workloads away from the public cloud in the past 12 months.
Dedicated servers: performance, control, and compliance
Dedicated servers remain popular because they offer advantages the cloud can’t always replicate, especially when customization and regulatory demands are in play.
Over half of IT professionals (55%) cited full control/customization as their primary reason for choosing dedicated infrastructure over cloud. They also decided on dedicated servers for their network performance, physical security, predictable pricing, and custom hardware configs.
Unfortunately, some faced communication challenges within their organizations. Nearly one-third (31%) said they don’t feel confident explaining infrastructure choices to nontechnical leadership. That disconnect can lead to strategic missteps.
In fact, 70% of IT professionals believe that executive leadership underestimates the role dedicated servers play in a modern tech stack, and 32% believe dedicated servers are misunderstood.
Here’s what they believe are the biggest misconceptions:
“One of the biggest misconceptions nontechnical colleagues have is that servers just work without intervention. They don’t understand the level of monitoring, maintenance, and planning required to keep things running smoothly and securely.”
Millennial survey respondent, male, Information Technology
“They think everything is in ‘the cloud’ now and don’t realize that cloud often is someone else’s dedicated server. There’s a huge misunderstanding about where data physically lives and who manages the security and uptime.”
Gen Z survey respondent, female, Information Technology
“The assumption is that server infrastructure is ‘plug-and-play.’ In reality, it requires a full understanding of performance tuning, redundancy planning, and disaster recovery. There’s a false sense of simplicity around it.”
Gen X survey respondent, male, Information Technology
“People outside of tech often think servers are outdated or only for legacy systems. But dedicated infrastructure still plays a critical role in compliance-heavy industries, and sometimes outperforms cloud for specific workloads.”
Millennial survey respondent, female, Marketing and Advertising
“The biggest misconception is that we don’t need them anymore because of cloud adoption. But dedicated servers still handle our most critical operations due to reliability, control, and predictable costs.”
Millennial survey respondent, male, Information Technology
Unexpected costs were another common concern. Almost half of IT professionals (47%) reported facing surprise expenses related to their infrastructure, most commonly in the $5,000 to $25,000 range.
Much of this appears tied to inefficiencies in cloud environments. About a third (32%) believe their organization wastes cloud spending on unused features or excess capacity, suggesting that a lack of control in virtual environments can translate into budgetary strain.
“IT professionals migrating workloads back from public cloud to dedicated environments underscores a deliberate strategy to reclaim control, customization, and predictable costs.”
Ryan MacDonald
Chief Technology Officer at Liquid Web
What’s next for dedicated infrastructure?
Looking ahead, dedicated servers appear poised to play an even bigger role in enterprise infrastructure strategies.
More than half of IT professionals (53%) still consider dedicated servers essential, and nearly as many (45%) believe their importance will grow even more by 2030.
However, there’s still room for improvement. When asked what they’d most like to enhance, 25% of respondents pointed to easier scaling. Other priorities included access to modern developer tools (15%) and sustainable energy use (14%).
Harnessing dedicated servers with the right provider for scalable, future-ready infrastructure
Despite predictions of cloud dominance, dedicated servers remain a foundational component of enterprise infrastructure, especially in industries where performance, control, and compliance are critical.
IT professionals continue to rely on them not out of nostalgia, but because they deliver predictable, customizable environments that serve mission-critical needs. As organizations rethink their infrastructure strategies, dedicated servers aren’t vanishing – they’re evolving.
The smartest move forward may not be following the cloud crowd, but choosing a partner who can grow with you. With the right provider, dedicated servers can deliver the flexibility and performance today’s businesses need to grow.
“Dedicated servers provide the control, performance, and security that IT leaders need to build future-proof architectures. To fully realize these benefits, they should choose a hosting partner with the technical expertise and innovation roadmap to meet evolving requirements.”
Ryan MacDonald
Chief Technology Officer at Liquid Web
Fair use statement
This content is based on proprietary research conducted by Liquid Web and is shared here under fair use for educational and informational purposes. If you reference any part of this article, please provide proper attribution with a link back to the study so your readers can see the findings in their entirety.
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