Amsterdam is often the first answer when someone asks where to put a server for European users, and most of the time it is a good one. The reasons are measurable: how many networks you can reach without leaving the city, and how far the city is from the people you serve. This guide puts numbers on both, shows where Amsterdam is the wrong choice, and lists what an Amsterdam dedicated server from NexonHost costs today.
Why Amsterdam became a hosting capital
Amsterdam's strength is interconnection. When two networks exchange traffic directly at an internet exchange, packets skip the transit providers in between, which usually means fewer hops, less jitter and fewer places for congestion to hide.
The numbers from PeeringDB, the public database where networks list where they peer, on 2 October 2026:
| Exchange or facility | Networks present | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange) | 853 | Spread over 15 facilities in the region |
| NL-ix | 537 | Distributed exchange: Amsterdam plus other cities across Europe |
| Equinix AM6 (the building NexonHost uses) | 70 | 10 internet exchanges reachable in the building |
For comparison, LINX LON1 in London listed 837 networks and DE-CIX Frankfurt 1,018 on the same day. AMS-IX, LINX LON1 and DE-CIX Frankfurt are the only exchanges in Europe with more than 800 networks in PeeringDB.
NexonHost's own network, AS62390, is one of the AMS-IX members: PeeringDB lists a 100 Gbps port, peering through the exchange's route servers.
How far Amsterdam is from your users
Distance sets a floor under latency. Light in fibre covers roughly 200 km per millisecond, so over fibre a round trip cannot take much less than the great-circle distance divided by 100. Real routes are longer than the great circle, so measured round trips are higher, and cities at similar distances can swap places.
| From Amsterdam to | Distance | Round-trip floor |
|---|---|---|
| Brussels | 173 km | 1.7 ms |
| London | 358 km | 3.6 ms |
| Hamburg | 365 km | 3.7 ms |
| Paris | 430 km | 4.3 ms |
| Berlin | 576 km | 5.8 ms |
| Copenhagen | 621 km | 6.2 ms |
| Munich | 668 km | 6.7 ms |
| Dublin | 757 km | 7.6 ms |
| Oslo | 913 km | 9.1 ms |
| Vienna | 935 km | 9.4 ms |
| Warsaw | 1,093 km | 10.9 ms |
| Stockholm | 1,125 km | 11.3 ms |
| Madrid | 1,481 km | 14.8 ms |
Benelux, the UK, Ireland, north-west Germany and the Scandinavian capitals all sit within about 11 ms of Amsterdam at the physical limit. That spread is why an Amsterdam origin serves "Europe" well when "Europe" means mostly the north-west.
What runs well on an Amsterdam dedicated server
- Services for London and the south-east of England. Amsterdam is 358 km from London, almost the same as Paris at 344 km and far closer than Frankfurt at 638 km. If much of your traffic is in London and the rest is in the Benelux, north-west Germany or southern Scandinavia, Amsterdam is the natural EU home. For Irish users, and for British users outside London and the south-east, Dublin is closer: Manchester is 267 km from Dublin and 495 km from Amsterdam.
- Benelux and southern Scandinavian audiences. Oslo, Copenhagen and Gothenburg are closer to Amsterdam than to any other NexonHost city. Stockholm and Helsinki are not: Warsaw is 810 km and 915 km away, against 1,125 km and 1,501 km from Amsterdam.
- Traffic-heavy delivery. Downloads, software updates, game patches and video segments, where an unmetered port and dense peering do most of the work. Unmetered dedicated servers in the Netherlands covers the bandwidth side in more depth.
- APIs with many network peers. Payment gateways, ad tech and SaaS backends that talk to many other networks benefit from direct paths to many of them.
Where Amsterdam is the wrong answer
Central and Eastern Europe. Vienna is 935 km from Amsterdam and 598 km from Frankfurt. Warsaw is 1,093 km against 890 km. If your users are in Germany's south, Austria, Switzerland, Czechia or Poland, Frankfurt or a city closer to them wins. Dedicated Server Netherlands vs Germany compares the two directly.
Southern Europe. Madrid is almost 1,500 km away. For Iberian traffic a Madrid server cuts most of that distance, and for Italy, Milan does the same.
A legal requirement to be in a specific country. Amsterdam is inside the EU, which settles most data-residency questions, but a contract that names Germany or France is not met by the Netherlands. EU data residency explains which requirement you actually have.
Amsterdam dedicated server builds and prices
Seven of NexonHost's eight dedicated configurations can be ordered in Amsterdam. The eighth, the AMD EPYC 7702, is available only in Bucharest.
| Build | Cores / threads | RAM | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2× Intel Xeon E5-2630 v4 | 20 / 40 | 128 GB | €129 |
| 2× Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4 | 28 / 56 | 128 GB | €249 |
| 2× Intel Xeon E5-2699 v4 | 44 / 88 | 256 GB | €425 |
| 1× AMD EPYC 9254 | 24 / 48 | 128 GB | €449 |
| 2× AMD EPYC 9254 | 48 / 96 | 256 GB | €679 |
| 2× AMD EPYC 9554 | 128 / 256 | 512 GB | €959 |
| 2× AMD EPYC 9754 | 256 / 512 | 1,024 GB | €1,519 |
In Amsterdam, the E5-2690 v4 build may be supplied with dual E5-2680 v3 or E5-2670 v3 processors when it is out of stock; those have 24 cores and 48 threads.
Every price includes a 1 Gbps unmetered port and 40 Gbps / 4 Mpps of layer 4 DDoS mitigation. The Xeon builds provision automatically in minutes; the EPYC builds carry an estimated delivery of about two weeks. Port upgrades go up to 20 Gbps on the Xeon builds and up to 100 Gbps on the larger EPYC builds. Xeon vs EPYC helps if you are unsure which side of the table you belong on.
What 1 Gbps unmetered means in Amsterdam
A 1 Gbps port that runs flat out for a 30-day month moves 324 TB. Nobody runs a port flat out all month, but the point of unmetered is that there is no quota and no overage line to watch. If your traffic is spiky, the peak sets the port size, not the monthly total. How much bandwidth does a server need? works through the sizing from page views and peak hours.
Choosing between Amsterdam and the other eleven cities
A quick rule that holds for most deployments:
- Put the server in the city with the shortest distance to the largest group of your users.
- If two cities are close, choose the one with the denser exchange. Of NexonHost's cities, Amsterdam and Frankfurt sit on two of Europe's three biggest exchanges; London's LINX is the third.
- If you have two large audiences far apart, run two servers, not one in the middle.
Choosing a European Server Location works through the trade-offs for all twelve locations.
Where to order
An Amsterdam dedicated server from NexonHost starts at €129 a month, sits in Equinix AM6, and ships with an unmetered 1 Gbps port and DDoS mitigation included. Every build available in the city, with the location preselected, is on the Netherlands dedicated server page. If you need unmetered bandwidth but not Amsterdam specifically, the unmetered dedicated servers page lists all eight builds; you choose the city when you configure the server.
Specifications and pricing are as of 2 October 2026. Check the product pages for current figures.
Sources
- AMS-IX, PeeringDB: 853 networks, 15 facilities. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- NL-ix, PeeringDB: 537 networks. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- DE-CIX Frankfurt and LINX LON1, PeeringDB: 1,018 and 837 networks. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- Equinix AM6, PeeringDB: 70 networks, 10 exchanges. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- NEXONHOST (AS62390), PeeringDB: AMS-IX, 100 Gbps, route-server peer; facilities Equinix AM6 and Bucharest. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- NexonHost store configurator: builds, locations, port options and prices. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- Netherlands dedicated server, NexonHost: delivery estimates and the E5-2690 v4 substitution note. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- Computed: great-circle distances from city-centre coordinates; round-trip floor = distance ÷ 100 km/ms (light in fibre at ~200 km/ms, both directions); 1 Gbps × 2,592,000 s ÷ 8 = 324 TB per 30-day month; Manchester–Dublin 267 km and Manchester–Amsterdam 495 km; Warsaw–Stockholm 810 km and Warsaw–Helsinki 915 km.
