Why run a dedicated Valheim server
Valheim co-op has one catch: in a normal peer-hosted game the world only exists while the host is online. Friends cannot sail or build without you, and if the host crashes, everyone drops. A dedicated server keeps your world running around the clock on its own machine, so everyone plays on their own schedule and progress is always saved.
Hosting it yourself means a PC that never sleeps, port forwarding for UDP 2456 and 2457, and a stable address that survives your ISP rotating your IP. GHosting skips all of that. Your server is online in about a minute with a fixed address to share, and there is no CGNAT or router config to fight.
Renting a Valheim server versus keeping one at home
A spare PC in the corner can absolutely run Valheim, and for a couple of friends on the same evening schedule it works. The costs show up later. The machine has to stay awake and patched, UDP 2456 and 2457 need forwarding through a router you may not control, and a residential connection behind CGNAT often cannot accept inbound connections at all. Every time your ISP rotates the IP, everyone needs the new address.
Renting moves that to a machine built for it: a fixed address, a datacenter uplink, DDoS protection, and no electricity bill for a box running all night. The tradeoff is honest. You are paying for uptime and a stable address rather than raw hardware, and you give up the ability to reach into the operating system yourself.
How much RAM a Valheim server needs
Vanilla Valheim is light. Two to four players are comfortable on the entry plan. Memory use climbs as your world gets explored and built up, because the server keeps more of the map loaded, so a long-running world with large bases benefits from a step up.
- Small group, fresh world: the entry plan is plenty
- Large explored world or heavy building: mid tier
- A full group of ten in a large, heavily built world: the top plan
Updates and settings
GHosting runs the official Valheim dedicated server from Steam on the current release. Settings include Steam or crossplay networking, world presets, save frequency, rolling backups, public visibility, and optional daily restarts. When a game update lands you update and restart from the panel, with no SteamCMD commands to remember.
Mods from Thunderstore
The Mods tab installs Valheim mods from Thunderstore, the same place r2modman gets them. Paste a mod's link and the server gets BepInEx and every dependency at exact versions, each package checked before anything changes, and the world backed up before the mods do. When a mod has a newer release the panel offers it, and nothing updates until you choose to.
Already playing with an r2modman profile? Paste its profile code or upload the exported file, and the server takes the same mods at the same versions. It goes the other way too: players download the server's mods as a profile and import it into r2modman.
Console players cannot install mods, so on a crossplay server stick to mods that only need to run on the server.
Bringing an existing world with you
Most people arriving here already have a world they do not want to abandon. You do not have to start over. Since Valheim 1.0 a world is a folder named after it, full of _main and .chunk files. A world last saved before 1.0 is still a .db file with its .fwl beside it. With Steam Cloud on, the live copy is in Steam's userdata folder, otherwise in worlds_local on whoever hosted last. Upload the folder, or the pair, to save/worlds_local with the Files tab, set the world name in Settings to match, and restart to apply. The map, bases and boss progress come across intact.
Our free world migration checker reads the files in your browser first and catches the traps that lose a world: a save that never finished writing, a missing region file, a backup picked instead of the live world, or the map cache folder that only looks like one.
Character progress is separate and always has been. Valheim keeps your skills and inventory in your own character file on your own machine, so every player brings their existing character to the server without doing anything.
Try the real server for 48 hours
A verified account can start one 48-hour Wanderer trial with no payment card and no automatic renewal, subject to available capacity. It is the same 2 GB server, panel, settings and file access as the paid plan.
Turn on crossplay and get the Xbox or Microsoft Store player in your group connected, because that is the part worth proving before you pay for a term. Continue during the retention window and the same world, backups and address stay in place.
Regions and flexible billing
Pick Europe or North America based on where most of your group plays, since ping is decided by physical distance more than anything on the invoice. Valheim is forgiving about latency compared to a shooter, but a European group on a North American host will notice it in combat.
Choose pay once or optional automatic renewal. A pay-once server stops at the end of its term, while a subscription renews for the amount and cadence accepted at checkout until you cancel. That flexibility suits a game people play in bursts around each update. Renew inside the seven-day grace window and the same world comes straight back; leave it past that and the server is deleted, so download the save first if you plan a long break. Your first server is covered by a 72-hour money-back guarantee.