Buy premium on serveme.tf - get server and support the community at the same time

Personally, I rented mine through nfoservers and I'd say I'm happy with it. It seems to get ~5-10 ping less than serveme servers in the same location, it's crashed twice over the past three months during play, and it's had slight issues with map changes unexecing configs and forcing everyone to retry to get back into the server, but those are fairly infrequent occurrences. I haven't tried any other services however so it would be nice to see experiences from people using tragicservers or other server hosters.

Our Dallas and Chicago servers marked with (Anti-DDoS) are at NFOservers, so those should ping identically to something you rent yourself. In both Dallas and Chicago we also have non-NFO servers, which might ping better or worse depending on routing.

tony, since you're from Mexico, I suggest trying NFOservers in Dallas. You can try one for free at https://na.serveme.tf (they're called serveme.tf NFO Dallas #1-8 (Anti-DDoS)), that way you know what kind of ping to expect if you rent one yourself at NFOservers.

I third NFO. I've had very few issues with them, a good enough UI to work with, automatic updates, and generally just peace of mind that it is set up properly.

I think the price reflects this, but if you really do want a good server than NFO is where it's at. You probably could get a discount if you look enough too.

Anyone know of a server provider that has more central US locations than NFO/Tragic? I know that sounds silly because they have Chicago and Dallas, but I live in LA and typically get 75-80 ping to Chicago which gets into the territory of being annoying to play with, especially on projectile classes. And I typically hear players in Canada or the north east complain about Dallas servers.

IMO the Kansas servers on serveme are pretty much the best neutral location for everyone but haven't been able to find a provider that offers rentals in that location. I'll keep using serveme premium for now but would love to get my own private server in that location.

One of my teammate's servers we use for every scrim/match possible is a swiftnode. I am unsure as to what other bonuses he purchased to his server, but for most Chicago servers I get around 75-85 constant. For his, i get around 55-65. Unsure if he just has a beast Server or if the provider is goated.

I've had Tragic Servers, serveme premium, and NFO.

NFO
- My server used to crash on a nightly basis but that was the fault of one of the plugins which I installed
- I somehow had better routing to my NFO server then to any serveme Chicago servers
- If money isn't an issue you can get Higher CPU priority, this will probably improve performance during scrim/match times

Tragic Servers
- Used to be great support (you could just add tragic and he would help you out) however now they're owned by NFO I believe

serveme (what I currently use)
- Good way to help the community
- Less customization
- Might not be able to get a server that you specifically want if it's already booked
- Cheapest option which is nice

If you chose to rent a server and have access to plugins, I recommend you keep it simple (logs/dm). If you want the best possible game play I'd recommend paying the extra $5-10/month for the extra resources.

For the nerdier DIY folks, (and tony knows this so this is more for anyone else stumbling upon this thread), vultr is a great option if you want to minimize costs while getting great performance. You can set up a server for 3-6 cents an hour and only pay for the hours you need it by using a docker image and simple startup script.

Lots of locations too if you want something other than CHI/DAL and don't mind upsetting folks. Everyone other than vancouver-y folks ping great to ATL in my experience, tho chi folks will get mad ;)

I know it's been said to death but just adding in a +1 to NFOServers, I've had servers through them since 2012 and host servers with them whenever I can

When I opened a support ticket a few months ago, the same guy helped me that helped me back in like...2012 with my servers lol. Their support is great.

Between 2015 and 2017 was using a St Louis server from gameservers.com, occasionally would find someone with poor routing (frenzy had poor routing from southern florida, only person off the top of my head I can remember complaining at the time) but overall never had any issues with the server. Don't know how their service is nowadays but they were pretty reliable for me when I was running teams and PUGs, used it basically daily through those 2 years.

Please use this referral link if you buy NFO server: https://www.nfoservers.com/order.php?referrer=blazer