Try a Valheim Server Free for 48 Hours (No Card Required)
Most Valheim hosting problems are not about performance. They are about whether the people you actually play with can get in: the Xbox friend who needs crossplay, the join code that never appears, the server that runs fine but never shows in the community list. None of that is visible on a pricing page. GHosting now offers a real 48-hour Valheim server trial with no payment card, no subscription and no automatic renewal, so you can settle it before paying anyone.
Try a Valheim server free for 48 hours
What the free Valheim trial includes
The trial provisions the same isolated server and dashboard as a paid plan. It uses the 2 GB Wanderer plan, which suits a group of about five, and includes:
- 2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU and 15 GB NVMe storage.
- A public address with both of Valheim's ports open and proxied.
- The live server log, so you can watch the world load and see who connects.
- Browser file access and SFTP for world saves, configuration and backups.
- A choice of Europe or North America, subject to available trial capacity.
Settings worth testing in 48 hours
The Settings tab covers the parts of a Valheim server people normally edit by hand:
- Crossplay. Switch to Valheim's PlayFab backend so Xbox, Microsoft Store and Steam players share one world, and hand out the join code instead of an IP address.
- Public listing. Put the server in Valheim's in-game community browser, or leave it off and keep it private.
- Join password. Required by the game, at least five characters, and it cannot appear inside the server name.
- World name and preset. Load an existing save or create a new one, optionally applying an official modifier preset such as Casual, Hard or Hammer.
- Save interval and rolling backups. Choose how often the world saves, between 5 and 60 minutes, and how many of Valheim's automatic backups to keep.
- Daily auto-restart. An optional restart around 05:15 UTC. Valheim gets a graceful stop signal first so it saves before going down.
Saving does not interrupt play. Changes are stored and applied on the next restart to apply, so nobody gets dropped mid-raid because someone opened Settings.
Upload your existing world
If your group already has a world on someone's PC, this is the honest test of a move.
Upload the .db and .fwl pair through Files, set the world name
to match those files, and restart. If the world comes up with your bases intact, the
migration works. If it does not, you have found that out for free.
If people still cannot connect
A dedicated server removes the port-forwarding and NAT problems that break most self-hosted setups, but client-side and listing quirks remain. Our guide on a Valheim server not showing up covers the community-list delay, the crossplay and Steam split, and why the join code sometimes takes a few minutes to appear.
No card and no surprise charge
Starting the trial does not open Stripe Checkout. After 48 hours the server stops and nothing is charged. Trial files are kept for three days, which gives you a short window to renew from the dashboard or download anything worth keeping.
Can I keep the same world?
Yes. Choose a paid term from the dashboard during the retention window and the same container resumes. The world, settings, uploaded saves, files and public address all stay where they were, so your group reconnects to the address they already have.
How to start the Valheim trial
- Open the Valheim server hosting page.
- Choose a region and select Start free trial.
- Create an account and verify your email address.
- Return to the Valheim page, start the trial, then add the server from your dashboard.
Each verified account can claim one trial per eligible game. A rolling network allowance and a capacity reserve for paying customers keep the limited slots available for real groups.
Start the free Valheim server trial