---
title: "Bring Your Own Image (BYOI) vs Bring Your Own Linux (BYOLinux) - Comparison for dedicated servers"
description: "Although OVHcloud provides its customers with a wide range of Operating Systems (OS) for their dedicated servers, you might have good reasons to need to install"
url: https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal-cloud/dedicated-servers/bring-your-own-image-versus-bring-your-own-linux
lang: en
---
> For AI agents: the complete documentation index is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms.txt, the full documentation bundle is available at https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/llms-full.txt.

# Bring Your Own Image (BYOI) vs Bring Your Own Linux (BYOLinux) - Comparison for dedicated servers

Although OVHcloud provides its customers with [a wide range of Operating Systems (OS) for their dedicated servers](https://us.ovhcloud.com/bare-metal/os/), you might have good reasons to need to install a custom OS:

- OS is not part of the OVHcloud catalog,
- Specific OS build version, or
- OS with a specific kernel version.

There are two different services that you can use for installing a custom OS on a dedicated server:

- **Bring Your Own Image** (BYOI),
- **Bring Your Own Linux** (BYOLinux).

This page is about breaking down the feature differences between the **Bring Your Own Image** and the **Bring Your Own Linux** services.

 

## Features

| Feature Name         | Feature Description                                                                                                                                                                                                      | BYOI       | BYOLinux |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------- | -------- |
| Custom Image         | Provide the download URL to a custom OS image                                                                                                                                                                            | ✅          | ✅        |
| Custom Partitioning¹ | Exploit [OVHcloud partitioning API](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal-cloud/dedicated-servers/partitioning-ovh.md) to configure partitions, software RAID, LVM, and ZFS in your custom image at OS installation | ❌          | ✅        |
| Multiple-disks       | OS installation on multiple disks²                                                                                                                                                                                       | ❌          | ✅        |
| Image Format         | The image URL provided must redirect to a compatible file format                                                                                                                                                         | RAW, QCOW2 | QCOW2    |
| Hardware RAID²       | Exploit OVHcloud API to configure your dedicated server's hardware raid controller at OS installation                                                                                                                    | ✅          | ✅        |
| Non-Linux-based OS   | In addition to Linux-based-OS, use any OS: UNIX, Windows, FreeBSD, etc.                                                                                                                                                  | ✅          | ❌        |

¹ Your image must be built accordingly.\
² Assuming you have compatible hardware.

 

## Go further

[Bring Your Own Image (BYOI)](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal-cloud/dedicated-servers/bring-your-own-image.md)

[Bring Your Own Linux (BYOLinux)](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal-cloud/dedicated-servers/bring-your-own-linux.md)

[OVHcloud API and OS Installation](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal-cloud/dedicated-servers/ovhcloud-api-os-installation.md)

Browse all the [Dedicated Servers guides](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/bare-metal-cloud/dedicated-servers/landing-page-dedicated-servers.md).

Browse the rest of the [OVHcloud US documentation](https://docs.us.ovhcloud.com/en/index.md) for guides on our other products and services.

Learn more about [Dedicated Servers](https://us.ovhcloud.com/bare-metal/) on the OVHcloud US website.