How to Host a Palworld Dedicated Server (2026 Guide, Updated for 1.0)

Palworld's built-in co-op has two hard limits that eventually push every group toward a dedicated server: invite-code sessions cap at 4 players including the host, and the world only exists while the host has the game open. If the host goes to bed, everyone's base work stops. A dedicated server lifts the cap to 32 players and keeps the world online around the clock, whether the owner is logged in or not.

Four Palworld players riding flying Pals across an island world on a shared dedicated server

This guide covers what a Palworld server actually needs after the 1.0 release, how to run one yourself, and where the honest line sits between self-hosting and renting.

What the 1.0 update changed for servers

Palworld left Early Access on July 10, 2026, and 1.0 is the biggest update the game has had. For anyone running a server, the highlights:

Built-in voice chat, toggled in the server's world settings.
Guild roles and permissions, including structures that can be restricted to specific roles. Big shared servers got much easier to keep tidy.
Saner defaults. Dedicated servers now start with the same world settings as single-player Normal difficulty.
A bigger world, bigger downloads. The server install is now roughly 12 to 15 GB, and save files grow faster than they used to.
Server-side optimizations for busy servers and a save process that's less prone to corruption. The long-standing memory leak was not fixed, though; more on that below.

When co-op stops being enough

The 4-player invite-code limit is the obvious trigger, but most groups outgrow co-op for quieter reasons:

Host dependency. Nobody plays unless the host is online. Friends in different time zones effectively can't share a world.
One PC does double duty. The host's machine runs both the game and the session. Palworld is already heavy; hosting on top of playing is where the frame drops come from.
Guilds want persistence. Breeding lines, base production and raids all reward a world that's simply always there.

Palworld server requirements (read this before buying RAM)

Palworld is one of the hungriest survival servers you can run, and the numbers most people quote are optimistic. The practical picture:

16 GB of RAM is the official baseline, and the developer's own docs recommend going past 32 GB for a full server. 8 GB will boot a server for a handful of players (the docs themselves warn it can crash from running out of memory), but the headroom disappears fast.
RAM usage grows over time. The server software has a long-standing memory leak: usage climbs the longer the process runs, until it eventually crashes. More RAM delays this; it doesn't fix it. The fix everyone actually uses is a scheduled restart every day or so.
CPU matters more than in most survival games. Pals keep pathfinding and working at loaded bases, so you want strong cores, 4 or more of them.
The install alone is 12 to 15 GB since 1.0 grew the world, so plan for SSD storage with room for saves and backups on top.

If you'd rather not size hardware yourself, our Palworld server plans are built around exactly these numbers: 8 GB for small groups, 16 GB for a standard guild, and 32 GB for big communities at the full 32-player cap.

Self-hosting: the actual steps

Palworld ships a free dedicated server through SteamCMD (app ID 2394010). On your own machine the setup looks like this:

Install SteamCMD and download app 2394010 (12 to 15 GB since 1.0).
Run PalServer once so it generates its config folders.
Edit PalWorldSettings.ini to set your server name, password and player cap. Everything lives on one long OptionSettings line; unset keys keep their defaults.
Forward UDP port 8211 on your router to the machine running the server.
Share your public IP and port with your group; they join through the game's direct-connect option.

The gotchas nobody mentions

CGNAT. Many ISPs put home connections behind carrier-grade NAT, which makes port forwarding impossible. If you can't get a real public IPv4 address, home hosting is off the table without tunneling workarounds.
The restart routine. Because of the memory leak, a Palworld server left alone for days will eventually eat all available RAM and die, usually mid-session. Self-hosters end up writing cron jobs to restart it on a schedule.
Backups. Your world lives in the Pal/Saved folder. Palworld saves earned a reputation for corrupting when the process died at the wrong moment; 1.0 made the save process sturdier, but the rule stands: copy that folder out regularly, and stop the server before you do.
Updates. When the game patches, your server doesn't update itself. Until you run the SteamCMD update, nobody can join.
Electricity. A desktop idling around the clock costs real money in most of Europe, often more per month than a rented server.

Three Lamballs manning mounted guns behind sandbags, defending a Palworld base

Crossplay: who can actually join your server

Palworld has supported crossplay between Steam, Xbox (including Game Pass), PS5 and Mac since the v0.5.0 update, and 1.0 didn't change the rules. Dedicated servers come in two builds and the difference matters:

The Steam build accepts PC players who join directly by IP and port. This is the classic setup and the one most groups run.
The crossplay build runs on Epic Online Services. Console players can't type an IP address at all; they can only browse the in-game community server list, so a console-friendly server must be registered there and be effectively public.

Our Palworld plans run the Steam build, so they're made for PC groups who want a private, password-protected world. If your whole squad is on Steam, which is the vast majority of dedicated-server groups, this is the setup you want.

Making the world yours

PalWorldSettings.ini is where Palworld gets fun to tune. Popular changes include raising ExpRate and PalCaptureRate for a faster-paced world, slowing the day/night cycle, softening the death penalty, and adjusting raid difficulty. The workflow is the same everywhere: change the value, restart the server, and the world picks it up. On a GHosting Palworld server the essentials, server name, join password, player cap and a daily auto-restart toggle, are fields in the control panel, with a one-click restart to apply them.

Self-host or rent?

The honest math is the same as for any survival game, with one Palworld-specific twist. Self-hosting is genuinely fine if you have a spare machine with 16 GB to give, a real public IP, and you don't mind setting up scheduled restarts and backups. The twist is that Palworld punishes neglect more than most games: skip the restart routine and the server crashes, skip backups and a corrupted save can take your Pals with it.

A rented server is the same binary running in a datacenter, with the babysitting handled: an automatic daily restart that clears the memory leak before it can crash your session, datacenter bandwidth, DDoS protection, and a panel instead of a terminal. Our Palworld plans go from small-group starters to full 32-player worlds, online in minutes, cancel anytime.