07/20/2026
How much RAM does a Palworld server need? (2026)
Palworld 1.0 landed on July 10, 2026, and suddenly everyone wants their own server for the squad. Short answer: a dedicated Palworld server officially wants 16 GB of RAM. 8 GB will boot, but you're risking crashes; 32 GB is for large, heavily modded worlds. The rest of this is the why — and what it looks like by player count.
Why a dedicated server at all?
Palworld has built-in co-op, but it caps at 4 players and the world only exists while the host is online. A dedicated server lifts that to 32 players and runs 24/7 — the world, your Pals and your bases stay alive even when everyone's asleep. That's what a squad actually wants: anyone logs in whenever they're free, no waiting on the host.
How much RAM by player count
RAM is the first thing that limits you on a Palworld server — it's spent both on player count and on how much your group builds. Here's how I split the sizes:
- 8 GB — 1 to 4 players. The minimum that boots. Fine for a small squad, but no headroom; big bases and long uptime tend to crash it (out of memory).
- 16 GB — 4 to 16 players. The official recommendation and my default for most groups. This is where Palworld is stable without thinking about it.
- 32 GB — 16 to 32 players or heavily modded. Full lobby, huge bases, heavy mods. Above ~24 players expect occasional lag spikes no matter the hardware — that's the game's ceiling, not the server's.
It's not just RAM — CPU, disk and port
RAM stops you first, but it's not everything. Palworld likes a strong core: a 4+ core CPU with a high single-thread clock (the server realistically uses up to two cores). Storage has to be fast — NVMe SSD; on slow storage your save can corrupt, and that's the worst loss there is. The server listens on UDP port 8211, so you need to open it on the firewall.
The memory leak — and the trick that fixes it
Palworld has had a known memory leak since launch; it's been partly patched, but it's still there in 2026. In practice RAM slowly climbs while the server runs and eventually fills memory. The fix everyone uses is simple: a scheduled automatic restart every 6 to 12 hours clears memory before it fills up. On my machines that runs automatically, so you never have to think about it.
Mods and crossplay want more RAM
Two things eat extra RAM: crossplay (Steam, Xbox, PS5 and Mac players on the same server — it works, but every player is load) and mods. Palworld has no official mod loader; mods are .pak files or UE4SS scripts you install manually on the server and on every client, and the versions have to match or players can't join. If you're planning heavier mods, budget one tier up from what you'd otherwise pick.
Myth: "8 GB is enough"
The most common mistake I see: someone grabs 8 GB because it "boots", then wonders about crashes a few days later. 8 GB is the absolute minimum, not a recommendation. For any serious squad you start at 16 GB. The other way round: you don't need 32 GB "just in case" if there are five of you and you don't mod — you'll pay double for RAM you never touch. Take the size that matches your player count.
If you'd rather not guess the size, on mcbalkan the Palworld server comes already set up on the right RAM for your player count, with automatic restarts and daily backups — and when something breaks you talk directly to me, no ticket queue, no bot. See our Palworld hosting. And if you want to know how to set it all up yourself, I wrote a guide to running a Palworld dedicated server.