ScalaCube Game Hosting Review - Ark

Updated 2022

4.4/5

Prices starting from:

$FREE /mo

For 1 slots, and 32GB RAM.

About ScalaCube

Scalacube offers free Ark server hosting with full mod support and easy one-click installation. You can host your own server with Scalacube and have full control over your game settings, mods, and players. Scalacube’s free ark server hosting is the perfect solution for those who want to play Ark: Survival Evolved. Though to play with friends your need to pay to have a higher slot count as their default free tier only comes with one slot. 

Specification Value
CONTROL PANEL:
Custom Control Panel.
PLATFORM:
PC. (Steam / Epic)
MIGRATION SUPPORT:
Not advertised.
MONEY BACK POLICY:
No money back policy
ARK CLUSTER SUPPORT:
Yes, but only on paid plans.
MOD SUPPORT:
Yes, with mod manager GUI and 1 click installs.
AUTO UPDATE:
Yes, both mods and game files.
DDOS PROTECTION:
Yes.
AUTOMATIC OFFSITE BACKUPS:
Yes. With a €9.70 (One Time Fee)
SUPPORT:
Yes via tickets.

Game Server Hosts

Advantages of ScalaCube

If you’re looking for a powerful and scalable hosting solution, ScalaCube is worth considering. Here are some of the advantages of using ScalaCube for your hosting needs:

1. Flexible plans and pricing. Including a free ark server hosting tier!

2. Scalability. One of the main advantages of using ScalaCube is its scalability. If your website or application grows in popularity, it’s easy to upgrade your plan to accommodate the increased traffic and resource requirements.

3. 24/7 support. Whenever you need assistance, ScalaCube’s team of experts is available 24/7 to help you with any issues you may be having.

Is "Free Ark Server Hosting" worth it with ScalaCube?

In short, it might all seem fancy on the face of it with a wonderfully easy custom control panel and ease of signing up but during our tests we hit issues and our opinions here come from a new to ScalaCube view. We where looking for ease of use and functionality.

 

  1. The setup took nearly an hour to install. Even with good data center speeds and SSD disks, this should not exceed 20 minutes in our experience with Ark Servers. Whilst overall not a major issue ARK is quite disk heavy and fast speeds for loading are vital. We compared this speed with 1GB home line and downloaded the files in less than 20 minutes.
  2. One Player slot only. If you want free you will be playing alone and that’s that.
  3. Editing Game.ini, GameUserSettings.ini and any other configs are locked under the premium feature.
  4. Forced updates. Locked under the premium feature.
  5. Workshop Mods not allowed on the free time.
  6. You have to renew often, they only allow free tiers to renew for 2 days at a time.
 

From just the time we spent exploring this free option we started to form a quick opinion that really this free server is aimed at being a “Trial” as everything is locked down to how ScalaCube want the server to run. This way it controls its RAM usage and allows a free plan to be offered with no thrills attached to it and likely limited cost to the host. 

 

Is it free we asked? It certainly is and if you want to play ARK with the bare minimum default game setup as many do then this is certainly an option but your be fast wanting to upgrade to unlock any of the real server features to make it a custom server to your liking. Thankfully they include options to do this.

ScalaCube Ark Price Plans

Pros & Cons of Using ScalaCube

Pros

Cons

Conclusion

ScalaCube offers a fairly unique solution in the industry as one of the truly free ark server hosting providers. Allowing you to generate a server for free, at simply no cost. Sadly there are many applied limits for this form of hosting including a 1 player slot count, no file explorer, and no cluster support.


We can see from TrustPilot that ScalaCube receives a large number of reviews in comparison to other providers with over 2000 total reviews for a combined score of 4.4 stars.


Scalacube hasn’t flagged any reviews in the past 12 months either and replied to almost 90% of their negative reviews indicating they take customer service very importantly.

TopServer.Network
Logo