Search for a cheap DDoS protected dedicated server and many offers look the same: a low price next to a large number in Gbps. What separates cheap protection from useful protection is what the card leaves out: which layers, what packet rate, and what happens above the tier. This guide puts those questions to any provider, then does the arithmetic on NexonHost's ladder. Since 23 October 2026 the €129-a-month build includes 100 Gbps of Layer 4 protection, and paid tiers run from €149 to €4,499 a month.
Six questions a cheap offer leaves unanswered
Put these to any provider, us included, before you compare the DDoS protected dedicated server price on each card:
- Capacity in Gbps and in packets per second. Small-packet floods can exhaust a filter before they fill the bandwidth; see Gbps vs Mpps.
- Which layers. Layer 3/4 filtering handles floods aimed at the link and the TCP/IP stack; an HTTP flood at Layer 7 looks like visitors and needs different tools.
- What happens above the tier. Some providers keep filtering, some null-route the attacked address for a time, some ask you to upgrade. Get it in writing.
- Whether clean traffic is metered during an attack. If it is capped or billed, an attack can cost you money even when it fails.
- Whether protection is on by default. Cloudflare's DDoS threat report for the first half of 2026 found that 90.60% of the network-layer attacks it mitigated ended in under 10 minutes, and calls manual or on-demand mitigation too slow.
- Whether Layer 7 is included, and if not, the cheapest way to add it.
NexonHost's answers, from its DDoS protected dedicated server page: the included 100 Gbps covers Layer 3 and 4 attacks (UDP, ICMP and amplification floods, SYN floods, connection exhaustion); protection is active from the moment the server is online, with nothing to enable; and clean traffic is not capped or billed while an attack is being filtered. Not published: a packet-rate figure for any tier, and the policy for an attack larger than the tier. Ask sales both.
How big the attacks actually are
Cloudflare's H1 2026 report covers the attacks it mitigated on its own network from January to June. Of the network-layer attacks, 96.62% stayed under 500 Mbps. The included 100 Gbps is 100,000 ÷ 500 = 200 times that.
The top end is real but rare: 935 network-layer attacks above 1 Tbps in six months, out of 23.2 million, or 935 ÷ 23,200,000 = 0.004%, about one in 25,000. Cloudflare's Q4 2025 report recorded a 31.4 Tbps attack lasting 35 seconds, 3.14 times NexonHost's largest tier.
Small is not harmless: the H1 report notes that "a 100 Gbps attack can knock most unprotected data centers offline", and that 100 Mbps can overwhelm a server. That is the case for included protection, not for the biggest tier.
The price ladder, per Gbps
Every NexonHost dedicated server and VPS gets the same ladder, billed per server, per month. Dividing price by capacity gives the cost per Gbps; the last column adds the cheapest build, the €129 Xeon (what else that price covers is in what €129 a month buys).
| Tier | Price a month | Per Gbps a month | With the €129 build |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 Gbps, Layer 4 | Included | — | €129 |
| 500 Gbps, Layer 4 | €149 | €0.298 | €278 |
| 1 Tbps, Layer 4 | €499 | €0.499 | €628 |
| 2 Tbps, Layer 4 | €999 | €0.4995 | €1,128 |
| 5 Tbps, Layer 4 | €2,499 | €0.4998 | €2,628 |
| 10 Tbps, Layer 4 + 7 | €4,499 | €0.4499 | €4,628 |
Three things fall out of the division:
- The first step is the cheapest per Gbps: €149 ÷ 500 = €0.298, or €149 ÷ 400 = €0.3725 counted only on the 400 Gbps it adds.
- Bigger tiers are not bulk discounts. From 1 to 5 Tbps the rate holds at almost exactly €0.50. Only the 10 Tbps tier dips, to €0.45, and it is the only one with Layer 7.
- Protection quickly becomes the bill. The €149 step costs more than the server itself, taking the total from €129 to €278, or 2.16 times as much. At 10 Tbps, protection is €4,499 ÷ €4,628 = 97.2% of the invoice.
The cheapest protected configuration is the included one
The cheapest protected configuration costs nothing extra: the €129 build with its included 100 Gbps. For most buyers the honest advice is: no upgrade until you have evidence.
Evidence means your own numbers: peak bits and packets per second from an attack you have taken, or a record of attacks on an address you are moving. Without them, €149 a month buys capacity sized against a guess. How much DDoS protection is enough sizes protection by what downtime costs you, and what to do when your server is under DDoS attack covers capturing those figures.
Settle one thing first: ask sales how, and how fast, a tier is raised on a running server. Waiting is only cheap if upgrading later is quick.
The Layer 7 gap, and the cheap way to close it
The included 100 Gbps, and every tier up to 5 Tbps, filters at Layers 3 and 4 only. An HTTP flood arrives as valid requests over real connections, so a website on the €129 build has its network link protected, not its login page.
On the ladder, Layer 7 starts at 10 Tbps. For a website there is a far cheaper route: the Remote DDoS Protection website proxy in front of the origin, with a web challenge for bots, GEO-IP blocking, WAF support, live logs and SSL. Its Micro plan is €49 a month (€44.10 a month billed annually).
- €129 + €49 = €178 a month for the server, its 100 Gbps, and Layer 7 filtering through the proxy.
- €129 + €4,499 = €4,628 a month for the same server on the 10 Tbps tier.
That is €4,628 ÷ €178 = 26 times the price; the €4,450 monthly difference is €53,400 a year.
Plan around its limits. Micro includes 3 TB of clean traffic and 10 Gbps of Layer 4 protection; Small is €139 for 5 TB and 25 Gbps. It only helps if attackers cannot reach the origin's real address. And it is an HTTP(S) proxy, so for game servers and other UDP services it does not apply; game server DDoS protection explains what does.
Five configurations side by side
| Configuration | Layer 3/4 | Layer 7 (HTTP) | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| €129 build, included tier | 100 Gbps | No | €129 |
| + Micro proxy | 100 Gbps server, 10 Gbps proxy | Via proxy | €178 |
| + 500 Gbps tier | 500 Gbps | No | €278 |
| + 500 Gbps + Micro proxy | 500 Gbps server, 10 Gbps proxy | Via proxy | €327 |
| + 10 Tbps tier | 10 Tbps | On the tier | €4,628 |
Each proxy plan lists its own Layer 4 figure: 10 Gbps on Micro, 25 on Small, 50 on Business (€399), 100 on Enterprise (€710, options to 1 Tbps). With the site's DNS on the proxy, floods aimed at its name hit the proxy first, so ask sales how the plan's figure and the server's tier work together, and what happens when a flood exceeds the plan.
Where a cheap dedicated server with DDoS protection is enough
- A new service with no attack history. Start on the included tier and record what normal traffic looks like.
- A service attacked at sizes well under 100 Gbps, which is where most attacks in Cloudflare's H1 2026 data fall.
- A website whose real risk is HTTP floods. The €178 combination covers both layers; no server tier below 10 Tbps adds Layer 7.
Where cheap is not enough
- The address already draws floods of 100 Gbps or more. Then the €149 step is justified; multi-hundred-Gbps targets need a tier sized from the measured peak plus headroom.
- You need a packet-rate figure in writing. NexonHost publishes Gbps only. If small-packet floods are your threat, ask sales what packet rate your tier filters, in writing, and ask every other provider the same.
- You need a written answer on attacks above the tier. The policy is not published here; ask before you buy, not during an attack.
- You need application-layer filtering for something that is not HTTP. The website proxy does not carry game, SIP or other UDP traffic. Ask sales what fits.
Where NexonHost fits
A cheap DDoS protected dedicated server at NexonHost is the €129-a-month Xeon build: 20 cores, 128 GB of RAM, an unmetered 1 Gbps port and 100 Gbps of Layer 4 protection, provisioned automatically in minutes in any of twelve locations. Every build on the DDoS protected dedicated server page has the same included tier and ladder; the full range is on the dedicated servers page. For a website, price the €49 Micro proxy before the top tier.
What it does not solve: the included tier does not filter HTTP floods, and no tier has a published packet rate. Start on a one-month term.
Prices as of 26 October 2026, in euros excluding VAT; check the product page before you order.
Sources
- Cloudflare DDoS Threat Report H1 2026 — Cloudflare's own report on the attacks it mitigated from January to June 2026, published 11 August 2026, retrieved 26 October 2026: 96.62% of network-layer attacks under 500 Mbps; 90.60% ended in under 10 minutes, and manual or on-demand mitigation is too slow; 935 network-layer attacks above 1 Tbps; 23.2 million network-layer attacks; the 100 Mbps and 100 Gbps examples.
- Cloudflare 2025 Q4 DDoS threat report — published 5 February 2026, retrieved 26 October 2026: a record 31.4 Tbps attack that lasted 35 seconds.
- NexonHost — DDoS protected dedicated servers, product page, retrieved 26 October 2026: protection tiers, layers and prices, billed per server per month; attacks covered by the included tier; active from first boot with nothing to enable; clean traffic not capped or billed during filtering; the €129 build, its port and delivery time; twelve locations.
- NexonHost — Remote DDoS Protection plans, retrieved 26 October 2026: clean traffic and Layer 4 protection per plan; Micro at €44.10 a month billed annually. Monthly prices (€49, €139, €399, €710) and plan features from the NexonHost store, retrieved 26 October 2026.
- Computed: 100,000 ÷ 500 = 200; 935 ÷ 23,200,000 = 0.004% (1 in 24,813); 31.4 ÷ 10 = 3.14; per Gbps: 149 ÷ 500 = 0.298, 499 ÷ 1,000 = 0.499, 999 ÷ 2,000 = 0.4995, 2,499 ÷ 5,000 = 0.4998, 4,499 ÷ 10,000 = 0.4499; 149 ÷ 400 = 0.3725; totals 129 + 149 = 278, + 499 = 628, + 999 = 1,128, + 2,499 = 2,628, + 4,499 = 4,628, + 49 = 178, + 149 + 49 = 327; 278 ÷ 129 = 2.16; 4,499 ÷ 4,628 = 97.2%; 4,628 ÷ 178 = 26; (4,628 − 178) × 12 = 53,400.
