When it comes to ad servers, publishers who want to make money from their websites will be considering their possibilities of advertising servers open source or just Ad Servers entirely.
For publishers and advertisers to effectively encourage users of a website to click on an advertisement, ongoing management, testing, and enhancements are necessary for these top ad servers are required. These leading servers are the future of website advertising.
On the other hand, ad servers can lessen some of the strain associated with coordinating and integrating the many operations. Have you recently entered the field of advertising and are looking for top ad servers or some open-source ad servers or Just regular ad servers? Are you eager to find out more information about 3rd party ad servers?
Does your company require more promotion, or are you prepared to work with such companies to deliver services with leading servers for server advertising? Are you trying to display people the greatest advertisements as a publisher and get an alternative to ads?
If so, you should read this one. In a world where internet marketing is king, it is incredibly hard to put up with. Gaining knowledge in the sector is crucial to expanding your business and realizing your goals alternative to the ad. Selecting which advertisements to show to which audience is not an easy task. As you work, you learn more and more about the audience and the advertisements. Is it possible to resolve this problem? Of course! You may display advertisements to the most relevant audience with the use of ad servers. This raises the likelihood that such advertisements will bring in a higher sum of money and boosts revenues for the companies. Now that this has been clarified, let’s discuss what ad servers are.
What is an Ad server?
Publishers and ad networks employ ad servers, which are located on servers and contain advertising software for managing and facilitating adverts. What advertisement appears on what website or application at what time is determined by an ad server. Ads servers Publishers are able to use pre-established criteria to selectively display advertising to website users.
Ads servers provide In-depth monitoring of campaign analytics and statistical statistics (impressions, clicks, and CTR ratio) can be generated by ad servers, giving specialized publishers the opportunity to monitor advertising effectiveness and more precisely target their audience.
Publishers and agencies are connected by ad servers. They “feed” advertising to publisher ad inventory spaces by storing it in their system and using sophisticated decision engines to process vital ad targeting data.
Ad servers need to be equipped with robust decision engines that identify the optimal ad placement based on publisher and advertiser expectations, store all ad creatives and ad unit information, and have settings that govern every aspect of each ad impression. Lastly, ad servers gather and provide advertisers and publishers with vital statistics from ad networks, such as impressions.
Ad Server Types
Platforms for ad servers may be broadly divided into two categories:
Ad servers from the first-party
Independent Advertisers
- First-Party Ad Servers: First-party servers provide publishers with a great deal of control over their inventory by allowing them to better plan ad placements, improve ad delivery, and obtain data. Advertisers get requests from first-party ad servers, which are specifically housed on a publisher’s server, to display their ads on the publisher’s website(s) or mobile app(s). This makes the process of purchasing and selling ad spots more streamlined and straightforward. leading server In current times, when direct ad campaigns (sold directly to the publisher) are not being executed, the first-party ad server selects which advertisements to display on a publisher’s inventory.
- Third-Party Ad Servers: In contrast, marketers and advertising agencies use third-party ad servers to distribute, track, and assess advertising campaigns that are shown on various publishers’ websites as well as to store and manage advertising code. Advertisers may easily deploy their creatives and manage campaign-wide optimization with the help of third-party servers. These ad servers include reporting, data management, and general campaign optimization.
A Comparison Between Self-Hosted and Hosted Ad Servers
Whereas hosted versions are operated and maintained on an ad server company’s website, self-hosted versions are installed and maintained on your own leading server.
1. Hosted Ad Server:
No Installation: There is no installation required. After you only register for the service, everything is set up for you.
- Updates: You have already received the updates and installation of the platform.
- assistance: Hosted platforms provide more readily available and superior assistance.
- Speed and Reliability: Most hosted systems undergo ongoing security checks. As a result, errors and performance issues are fixed right away. Most of the time, before you even recognize them.
- Cost: Compared to self-hosted ad servers, hosted ad servers are more costly.
- Customization: Most hosted ad servers are not able to be adjusted to meet your exact specifications. A few do provide very little personalization.
- Data Control: The hosted ad server where your data is kept is not entirely within your control.
2. Self-HostedAd Server:
- Cost: A one-time purchase of self-hosted ad server scripts is required. The server you are using to execute it is the only ongoing expense you have.
- Customization: You may make modifications or hire a programmer to tailor a self-hosted script to your exact requirements.
- Data Control: You have control over the information that is kept on your leading server.
- Installation: The ad server script has to be installed on your server. To achieve this, considerable technical know-how is required.
- Updates: It is your responsibility to monitor and install updates.
- Technical Difficulties: You are in charge of fixing any issues that the script or server may run across.
Top Ad Servers for 2025
You are ready to start selecting the ad server you want to utilize for your website or app now that you have a basic idea of what an ad server is and how it operates. Below, we’ve listed seven of the best ad-serving platforms available in 2025 and 2026.
- Mylead
- OpenX Ad Server
- Kevel
- DoubleClick
- Broadstreet
- Fyber
- Sizmek
1. Mylead:
In the List of top ad servers, The best ad server in the world, MyLead, invites new users and has already paid its clients over $6 million. It gives you the most up-to-date tools and methods for smarter and more profitable partner marketing. Since MyLead also provides training programs for its new members, you shouldn’t be concerned about utilizing these more modern technologies and methods. For publishers and marketers, it’s one of the greatest and most well-known affiliate marketing networks. A substantial commission is yours for every sale you facilitate. The value of the goods sold as a result of your donation determines how much commission you will receive on this leading server.
The main goal of MyLead is to build a big network of more buyers, publishers, marketers, and clients so that everyone in the network can get the most out of it. There are a lot of choices on the MyLead site that should be enough to get you to the level of affiliate marketing you want. You can market your goods and services on a number of different social media sites, depending on what you’re interested in.
2. OpenX Ad Server:
In the List of top ad servers Given its longevity and reputation, OpenX is a solid option for larger publications, as it provides a large number of advertising on a monthly basis. For a higher fee, OpenX gives publishers access to micro-target audiences, personalized campaign reports, and 12 months’ worth of historical analytics data. To name a few, Samsung, Electronic Arts, and CBS Interactive are among the businesses that use OpenX.
It is capable of more precisely targeting audiences and has strong internal analytics of data. It is Easy access to data from the previous year with this ad server. It gives you reporting on personalized marketing and the integrated OpenX Ad Exchange enables customers to resell unsold space it is both automated optimization and real-time reporting.
3. Kevel:
With the help of the Kevel API suite, programmers can quickly design, develop, and launch a completely customizable server-side advertisement server. The management of sponsored listings, native ad spots, internal promotions, etc., is provided by Kevel. They are a respectable business with customers including Mozilla, Yelp, Ticketmaster, and Strava. Their monthly plans begin at $3K. Kevel helps companies all over the world increase their online revenue through sponsored listings, native advertisements, internal promotions, and other techniques. They achieve this by providing developers and product managers with the necessary APIs to quickly build fully customized ad servers. With over three billion API queries processed every day, its multi-award-winning technology speeds up build times for industry giants like Yelp and Ticketmaster by over 90%.
For far too long, big ad tech has had complete control over everyone. They force you to play by their rules and follow their game, violating the privacy and online experience of your consumers. Furthermore, only the biggest companies had the resources to build their own monetization platforms in order to reclaim control up until this moment.
4. DoubleClick:
In the List of top ad servers, DoubleClick for Publishers is owned by Google. DART for Publishers was acquired by Google in 2008, and DoubleClick for Publishers was the new name. DFP is free to use if you offer fewer than 90 million ad impressions monthly. DFP also offers premium services for publishers with large sales teams and a need for more complex features. Right now, this is one of the most popular ad-serving platforms. Because of its wide feature set, easy-to-use administration and reporting tools, user-friendly design, and several monetization options, Google Ad Manager is the go-to ad platform for many premium publishers. All of these are supported by the reliability of the Google network.
Two server versions of Ad Manager are also available; the small business edition is available for free to publishers who are just getting started with their website launches.DFP can display ads across desktops, tablets, mobile sites, applications, and desktops from a conventional advertising platform thanks to its cross-platform capabilities and extensive variety of programmatic choices.
5. Broadstreet:
In the List of top ad servers The Broadstreet Ad Server hosted solution was developed to satisfy the needs of news websites. It may be used for other types of web pages, though. This is an inexpensive option for ad-serving for smaller publications. The regional news and magazine websites’ ad-serving needs were the original target of the Broadstreet ad server. The simple user interface of the Broadstreet ad server was designed with non-technical users in mind. They also provide knowledgeable and effective technical assistance.
Because it is inexpensive, interacts with WordPress, and allows email newsletters, Broadstreet is a great ad-serving platform for small and medium-sized businesses. While its main target market is local publishers, Broadstreet also works well for small and medium-sized businesses that place a high priority on sales.
6. Fyber:
In the List of top ad servers With its main office located in Berlin, Fyber leads the industry in mobile advertising technologies. The mobile ad network services offered by Fyber are utilized by demand-side platforms, marketers, agencies, app developers, and other ad networks. It incorporates unique technology and expertise in mediation, ad server, RTB, video, and audience segmentation to provide all-encompassing solutions that impact the app economy’s future. It provides advertisers with programmatic ad formats that are compatible with the IAB. With Fyber, mobile application developers may introduce video, interstitial, interaction, and install campaigns. Following their complete integration, Heyzap, Inneractive, and Fyber RTB (previously Falk Realtime) are now operating under the same brand as Fyber. FBEN is listed for public trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker.
They can run several campaigns across mediated, programmatic, and direct networks to maximize revenue. They may also cross-promote other applications in their portfolio to consumers in order to increase a user’s lifetime value beyond just one app. In contrast, advertisers are in charge of the users’ age and gender as well as the location they choose to target. Account managers are able to assist marketers with campaign planning, testing, and optimization, among other things.
7. Sizmek:
Sizmek, the largest third-party ad server globally, focuses mostly on corporate advertisers. Over the past 15 years, Sizmek has grown into a global leader in the digital advertising space, controlling both multi-channel internet-targeted advertising and video ads.
Sizmek offers a great degree of creative flexibility, the ability for several people to collaborate, and 24-hour technical assistance. During the course of its last fifteen years of business, the company made significant investments in industry innovations such as video, rich media, and multi-channel advertising. Sizmek, the largest third-party ad server globally, offers every feature and tool required for multi-channel advertising. In this case, the price is determined by the quantity of users.
Conclusion
Even if you dedicated an entire week to studying every ad server, you would probably still feel like you were taking a wild guess. This is due to the fact that while many ad servers claim to be the best, very few truly are.
When selecting the appropriate ad-serving platform, publishers and advertisers in the digital ecosystem must take a number of factors into account. The features your business needs from its ad platforms, your financial condition, and the way your brand is positioned in the market will all determine which ad server is ideal for you. For this reason, we’ve compiled a list of some of the top ad servers that we believe would be a suitable fit for you.
