ARM dedicated servers. Eight cores, or sixty-four.

An ARM server is a computer whose processor uses the ARM instruction set, not x86. Dedicated means one customer rents the whole machine. At Primcast it is one of two: a cartridge with 8 X-Gene cores from 2014, or a rack server with 64 Ampere Altra cores. Both run 64-bit ARM Linux, which is called arm64 or aarch64, and nobody else’s workload runs on either.

The cartridge is $28.59 a month for X-Gene Octa-Core ARM v8 64-bit · 32 GB DDR3 · 1 × SATA-SSD 120 GB · 500 Mbps. The Altra is $288.58 a month for Ampere Altra Q64-22 2.2GHz 64 Core · 32 GB DDR4 · 1 × SATA-SSD 240 GB · 1 Gbps. A racked cartridge taken as it stands has no one-time charge; anything built to order, which the Altra always is, adds $29 once. The price at every memory size is in the sizer, and the price of a larger drive or a faster port is on the build to order page.

The cartridge, at $28.59 a month. The catch is its age. The processor went on sale in 2014, the only systems we install are Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, there is no remote console, and it has one drive and one IPv4 address. If the job is building arm64 code, trying software out or running a small service that only has to stay up, none of that matters much. If it faces the public and you will not maintain an old Ubuntu release, it does.

For some work, yes. Eight slow cores compile and test arm64 code natively, which is still quicker than emulating ARM on an x86 machine, and they run a VPN endpoint, a DNS server, a monitoring probe or a bot without strain. It is the wrong machine for anything that waits on one fast thread, for a busy database, and for software that needs a current system release. HPE has retired the cartridge, so treat it as inexpensive working hardware, not as a platform anyone is developing.

On the cartridge, Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 and nothing else. Canonical ended standard support for 16.04 in April 2021 and for 18.04 in May 2023; security updates for 18.04 continue to 2028 through Ubuntu Pro, which Canonical gives free for up to five machines. On the Altra the configurator offers Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, 26.04, all of which their makers publish for arm64. Every Altra we have delivered so far was ordered with Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04 or 26.04.

Not from us. The installer holds Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 for this cartridge and nothing else: no Debian, no AlmaLinux, no image of your own. You have root, so upgrading in place to a newer release is yours to try, but if it fails there is no console to rescue it with and the fix is a reinstall. If you need a current system on ARM, that is the Altra, or a newer machine on the marketplace.

Not directly. A program compiled for x86 does not start on an ARM processor, and a container image published only for linux/amd64 does not either. Linux can emulate x86 through QEMU, but it is slow and not something to run a service on. Most open-source software and most public images are also published for arm64, so the usual fix is to pull or build the arm64 version. The table on this page says what each vendor ships.

No Windows and no VMware. Microsoft’s requirements for Windows Server name an x64 processor, and VMware’s released hypervisor is x86 only, so if the configurator offers either for an ARM machine, do not pick it. Proxmox published its first arm64 release in August 2026 and calls hardware like the Altra best effort; we do not install it on ARM. For virtual machines on the Altra, install Linux and use KVM. For Windows or VMware, rent Intel or AMD.

Their makers say cPanel & WHM and MediaCP do not run on arm64, and Wowza Streaming Engine does. For Plesk, Nimble Streamer and Flussonic Media Server it depends on the version or the edition, so read the line in the table. Each line of the software table links to the vendor’s own page. Check it before you add optional software to an ARM machine in the configurator.

Per core, these two are not. PassMark’s entry for a 64-core Neoverse N1 at 2,200 MHz, which is what the Altra Q64-22 is, scores 20,592 with all cores and 923 on one thread (13 samples). For scale, two x86 machines we rent: Intel Atom C2750 2,787 and 693, Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 9,186 and 1,626. For the cartridge’s processor PassMark holds a single sample, 1,091 and 394, which is too thin to call a measurement but points the same way. So the Altra wins when the work uses many cores at once, and x86 wins when one thread decides it. Figures are PassMark’s, read on 3 October 2026.

On the Altra, yes. It is bare metal, so Linux KVM runs virtual machines on it directly and nothing has to be nested. The guests must be arm64 as well. VMware does not run on it and we do not install Proxmox on ARM. On the cartridge we have not tested KVM, so do not plan around it.

Android is built for ARM, so its containers and virtual machines run on these processors without translating instructions, and that is why two of the Altras we have delivered were ordered. Canonical’s Anbox Cloud and the redroid project both list arm64 hosts (see the table). We have not tested either ourselves, so treat the first month as your test.

No. Billing is by the month and there is no hourly or weekly rate. The inexpensive way to try ARM here is one month of the cartridge at $28.59, and a cartridge that was racked when you ordered can be refunded within three calendar days.

Only if the game’s server software is published for arm64, and most commercial game servers are x86 only. A Java server such as Minecraft’s runs wherever Java does, but it leans on one thread, and one thread is where these machines are slowest. For game servers, x86 is the better rental.

A Raspberry Pi at home is fine until you need a fixed address, a real uplink and somebody else to keep the power on. An ARM VPS gives you those, on cores you share with other customers. The cartridge gives you 8 cores and 32 GB of memory that are yours alone, in a data center, for $28.59 a month, on older hardware than either. We do not sell an ARM VPS: every ARM machine here is rented whole.

Not in these two machines: neither takes a graphics card. The NVIDIA DGX Spark has twenty Arm cores beside an NVIDIA GPU and is on its own page with its own price and term. Owners also list ARM machines, some with a GPU, on the marketplace. For a graphics card in an x86 server, see GPU servers.

On the Altra, yes: it is a rack server with a management controller. On the cartridge, no. HPE gave ARM cartridges a serial console through the chassis and no screen, and what we expose from the dashboard is power control and a reinstall. A firewall mistake on a cartridge is fixed by reinstalling it or by asking us.

Yes to both. The port on the access switch serves your machine alone and is sold by its speed. Traffic through it is not counted, so there is no monthly quota and no bill for going over. The cartridge includes 500 Mbps and the Altra 1 Gbps. The configurator has the faster ports, and unmetered servers has the whole ladder.

A cartridge that is racked when you order takes around 30 minutes from payment approval to login. The Altra is assembled after you order, and that takes 1 to 2 weeks. If you write to us within three calendar days of the day it was activated, a machine that was already racked is refunded for the time you did not use, less a 15% administration fee. A machine built to order is not refundable, and neither is a payment in cryptocurrency. The refund policy has the exact wording.

This page describes the two machines we sell and does not change with what is racked. For what is racked and free today, look at instant servers. The Altra is never on a shelf: we assemble it when you order.

The cartridge is offered in New York, San Francisco, Bucharest. The Altra is built to order in New York, Bucharest, in 1 to 2 weeks, and you choose the city when you configure it. If you need a city that is not listed, ask us.