Is Shockbyte good? [Pros & Cons]

Shockbyte has been around for more than a decade and is one of the oldest names in the game server hosting industry. They’ve hosted thousands of Minecraft servers over the years and built up a reputation for being affordable and beginner-friendly.

But how does Shockbyte perform today? Is it still a good choice for Minecraft players in 2025?

We tested Shockbyte ourselves to see how it compares to modern providers, and to find out whether it’s still worth your money.

⏰ 60-Second Summary

Here’s a rundown of Shockbyte and its alternative:

• Shockbyte is a long-standing, budget-friendly multi-game hosting provider supporting over 60 different titles, including Minecraft, Rust, ARK, and Terraria.
• Servers run on AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon processors, delivering solid performance once active.
• Shockbyte also uses two separate accounts (billing + panel)
• Shockbyte is know for its extremely slow support response times, with some tickets taking 5–12 days to resolve.
• WiseHosting is a Minecraft-only hosting platform built by Shulkercraft (2.4 M subscribers) and designed entirely around Minecraft.
• It features a custom Pterodactyl panel, unified account system, plus one-click installs for everything.
• Every server runs on 100% AMD Ryzen hardware with NVMe SSDs
• With an average price of $3.25 / GB, WiseHosting offers faster setup, stronger hardware, bette price and superior 24/7 support, making it the clear upgrade over Shockbyte for dedicated Minecraft players.

Overview of Shockbyte as a Minecraft Server Hosting Platform

Shockbyte has been in the hosting space for over a decade, and it shows both in experience and age.

The company now hosts over 60 games including Ark, Rust, and Terraria which can dilute its focus from Minecraft.

For players who just want an easy setup and low prices, it’s appealing. But for those who expect top-tier performance and responsive support, it may leave you frustrated.

Below we’ll go through the main features and benefits that stood out during our review.

Easy-to-Use Control Panel

Shockbyte’s panel is clean, simple, and beginner-friendly. You can access files, restart your server, view logs, and everything is quite modern and simple.

One-Click Plugin & Modpack Installer

Shockbyte includes a built-in one-click installer for modpacks and plugins, which makes setup simple for popular configurations. You can install popular packs like SkyFactory, RLCraft, or Pixelmon with just a few clicks, no manual uploading or config editing needed.

This is a great feature for casual players who don’t want to spend time dealing with Forge or Fabric setups.

Task Automation System

One of the more interesting features Shockbyte offers is its task automation system. This lets you schedule common commands to run automatically, for example, restarting your server every night, clearing ground items, or running custom commands on a set schedule.

Server Hardware and Hibernation Mode

Shockbyte runs on AMD EPYC 4244P, EPYC 4464P, and Intel Xeon E-2276G CPUs all solid, modern processors capable of running Minecraft smoothly.

Performance was decent once the server was running, but hibernation mode (when enabled), which puts your server to sleep when no players are online, was frustrating.

Servers often take too long to “wake up” again or if you using their instances feature, it takes long time to get your server going.

Shockbyte Pricing

Shockbyte’s pricing starts at $3.99 per GB of RAM for premium plans:

• 3GB RAM - $11.99/mo
• 4GB RAM - $15.99/mo
• 5GB RAM - $19.98/mo
• 6GB RAM - $23.99/mo
• 7GB RAM - $27.99/mo
• 8GB RAM - $31.99/mo

They also offer budget plans for $1.99/GB of RAM. They dont clearly mention the differences between premium and budget.

⭐ Pros of Shockbyte

• Multi-game flexibility: You can host Minecraft, Rust, ARK, Terraria, and 60+ other titles, and swap between them easily without buying a separate plan.
• Beginner-friendly control panel: The interface is clean, simple, and doesn’t overwhelm you with unnecessary options.
• One-click modpack & plugin installer: Quickly launch popular packs like RLCraft, Pixelmon, or SkyFactory.
• Task automation tools: Schedule restarts, clear entities, or send commands automatically.
• Solid hardware for the price: Uses AMD EPYC 4244P / 4464P and Intel Xeon E-2276G processors.
• Unlimited storage (fair use): You won’t need to worry about running out of disk space.

❌ Cons of Shockbyte

While Shockbyte’s flexibility and pricing are appealing, the platform isn’t without its frustrations, especially for players who expect quick support, advanced tools, or a fully polished experience.

Here are a few key downsides that stood out during testing and from customer feedback:

• Extremely slow support: Many users report waiting several days, sometimes over a week, for ticket responses.

One user noted:

“Customer service is nowhere to be found. Been waiting 5+ days and still no response on my ticket.”
— Trustpilot review

Another one wrote:

"They never respond to support tickets. I purchased a server days ago and am having issues and can't even play it."
– Trustpilot review

• Hibernation delays: Servers enter “sleep mode” when no players are online. While this saves resources, it often takes a long time to start up again.
• Limited panel depth: The interface is beginner-friendly but lacks advanced management tools, you’ll often need to use the file manager for tasks like world management or mod configuration.
• Separate logins for billing and control panel: Managing payments, tickets, and your actual server still requires two different accounts.
• Not Minecraft-focused: Shockbyte supports dozens of games, which splits their focus. As a result, their platform doesn’t feel as optimized for Minecraft as hosts that specialize exclusively in it.

While Shockbyte’s feature set is functional, its slow support is definitely a killer and might not be the best option for many server owners.

Customer support is everything if you go with third-party hosting provider since you have 0 control over the server and hardware. Your provider is responsible for everything and if something breaks its on them and if they dont respond, that means you are paying for nothing.

Alternative to Shockbyte

While Shockbyte splits its focus across 60+ titles, many Minecraft players are looking for a more complete solution, like WiseHosting which is built exclusively for one game: Minecraft. Every feature, every optimization, every support person is designed for players who live and breathe the game.

Created by Shulkercraft, a Minecraft YouTubers with over 2.4 million subscribers, WiseHosting takes everything that frustrates players about traditional hosts and fixes it.

No separate logins. No hibernation. No week-long ticket waits.

Compare WiseHosting vs Shockbyte head-to-head

Let’s compare Shockbyte and WiseHosting at a glance:

Deep Minecraft Expertise

Unlike Shockbyte, which supports over 60 different games, WiseHosting is specialized in Minecraft server hosting.

After trying other hosting services with mixed but generally negative results, WiseHosting stands out as the most reliable, efficient, and supportive by far. The control panel is responsive and easy to use, and we’ve never once felt like I was fighting the system just to get my server running the way we want it.
Trustpilot review

One-Click Addons for Everything

Installing mods or plugins manually is one of the biggest frustrations players face.

WiseHosting’s Addons Hub solves that. From here, you can install almost anything: mods, modpacks, plugins, or datapacks with a single click.

The support team, available tools, tips, overall clarity; all of it is so good. There is very clearly a lot of care placed into WiseHosting as it is. The response time to a server issue I had is incredible. Mods are very easy to add along with mod presets saving loads of time.
Trustpilot review

100% High-Performance Hardware

Unlike Shockbyte where servers run on both, Intel and AMDs, 100% of servers on WiseHosting run on AMD Ryzen CPUs.

Because WiseHosting doesn’t stretch its infrastructure across 60+ games, every server is tuned specifically for Minecraft workloads.

First of all, the server runs great. I basically had no lag the entire 9 hours of playtime so far. It boots up EXTREMELY fast, I'm talking 20 seconds fast. There are no forced payments (or in your face), you get everything you paid for with no catch, the console has a great UI with a bunch of features which is very simple to use. 10/10 would recommend, my favorite server hosting provider so far.
Trustpilot review

Manage players with Live Player Manager

The Console tab provides real-time control with an integrated Player Manager. Ban, kick, whitelist, or OP players directly, no commands required.

For creators or admins managing multiple communities, this is a huge upgrade over manual console entry. You can see everything happening live and act instantly.

Easy to use customized Pterodactyl Panel

Clean, modern, and powerful, WiseHosting’s modified Pterodactyl control panel is easy to navigate for beginners while offering deep controls for advanced admins.

Quality-of-life utilities built-in

WiseHosting goes beyond “hosting”, it’s packed with server-side utilities that usually require separate websites or plugins:

• 🎨 MOTD Editor: Custom message editor with color palette and live preview.
• 📍 Coordinate Calculator: Instantly convert between dimensions or coordinates.
• 🧮 Enchantment & Resource Calculators: Handy math tools for game planning.
• 🧑‍🎨 Skin Grabber: Quickly load and preview player skins.

... and much more!

These tools eliminate context-switching, everything you’d normally open a separate tab for now lives in your hosting dashboard.

WiseHosting pricing

WiseHosting has on average of $3.25/GB, making it way better value to run your server.

WiseHosting: The Only Minecraft Server Hosting Platform You'll Ever Need

The quality of your Minecraft experience depends entirely on the host you choose.
While Shockbyte is an old-school hosting provider, WiseHosting takes things much further combining simplicity, support, and performance into one unified platform built exclusively for Minecraft.

Unlike Shockbyte, which splits its focus across dozens of different games, WiseHosting channels all its energy into perfecting Minecraft hosting.

With instant setup, one-click mod installs, 100% Ryzen hardware, and 24/7 expert support, it’s everything you need to run, grow, and optimize your server.