Everything You Need to Know About Palworld Server Hosting

Playing with your friends is one of the best parts of gaming, and Palworld is a prime example. Whether you like base building, exploring, or dungeoneering, this survival crafting game has something for everyone. If you’re here, that probably means your group has out-grown the 4 player co-op and doesn’t want to deal with public servers (I don’t blame you). Or maybe you’re trying to decide if a dedicated server is right for you.

Whatever your situation is, I want you to understand if a dedicated host is right for you and how to choose a host that fits your needs. But before we get into that I want to give a quick disclaimer:

I have been commissioned to write this article by AleForge who is a server provider. However, I do believe that a dedicated host is going to be the best option for most groups, and that AleForge is a standout option. But I still want you to know what the other options are so you can make that decision for yourself.

So, is a dedicated server right for you?

Ways to Play Palworld Multiplayer

Sadly, if you want to play on a dedicated server, you’ll have to own the game through Steam. Currently, the Game Pass version of the game (Both Console/PC) doesn’t support dedicated servers or crossplay. Pocketpair has said it will be implemented in the future but hasn’t given a time frame. With that out of the way, I want to give a quick rundown of the multiplayer options before digging into picking a host.

Co-op/Peer-to-Peer

This is the simplest way to play multiplayer, and you’ve probably already used it. If you haven’t and want to try, GamesRadar has a guide on how to do just that. It’s super easy to set up and allows you to get into the action right away, but the limited availability and player count makes this unsuitable for large groups with varying schedules. However you do have other options if you’re on Steam.

Public Servers

Palworld has a number of official servers available for anyone to join. Just click “join multiplayer” on the main menu and select one. However, there are some drawbacks to consider. Official servers wipe regularly and if no one in your guild logs on for 48 hours then the guild and its bases will be removed. Additionally, you won’t be able to customize the difficulty. Community servers avoid some of those pitfalls, but not all.

Community Servers

These are private servers that have been made available to anyone by their owner. You can find them in Pocketpair’s discord or on BattleMetrics, as the in-game server browser is finicky atm. If you spend enough time digging you’ll be able to find something that fits your group’s needs/playstyle, and probably a larger community to join up with. But if you want to fine tune your experience (or play with mods) you’ll need to pay for a host or self-host.

Self-Hosting

This is where I started. If you have a spare laptop/PC and the technical knowhow this is the way to go. Eurogamer has a guide on how to get a dedicated Palworld server running if you’re interested, but like the other options, this one isn’t perfect. It can pose an - admittedly minor - security risk for your home network, and you’ll have to be on-call to fix it when it breaks. I personally enjoy messing with the server just as much as playing, but it’s not for everyone. That brings us to the last option.

Use a Hosting Service

In the intro I said that a hosting service is the best option for most groups, and there’s a few reasons for that. Dedicated servers avoid the pitfalls of limited player count/availability. And using a server provider means you retain all the customizability without having to play tech support. Of course, you’ll have to pay for it. But considering a night out is $20-$60 per person for 2-3 hours of entertainment. Paying ~$30 for a month of fun that’s available 24/7 seems worth it to me. But how do you pick a host?

Who is the Best Palworld Server Provider?

This is a bit tricky. Every provider can deliver a dedicated server that just works, and 9 times out of 10 the first few days will be smooth sailing. But until you really get into the game or something goes wrong you won’t know if your host is actually good. That’s why there’s so much conflicting information. Someone with a small group that only plays occasionally could say any host is great. However, there are some things you can look at ahead of time to keep you from getting blindsided by a bad host. I’m gonna cover them in the context of Palworld server hosting, but really these apply to any game.

Stability and Uptime

The last thing you want is to sit down on Friday night to play with your friends just to find the server offline. So If the provider doesn’t have an uptime guarantee or has lots of reviews saying they’re unreliable, walk away. Reviews are important because a server could be “online” yet it’s so unstable that you can’t play for more than 20 minutes at a time. And I’d be wary of anyone claiming 100% uptime, as it’s just not realistic (or possible) so there’s going to be fine print/caveats.

Trustpilot and Reddit are my go-tos for reviews.

DDoS Protection

Most providers list DDoS protection on their sales page, but what is it? DDoS stands for Distributed Denial-of-Service. It’s a cyber attack that aims to overwhelm a server with fake data/requests, denying service to actual users. Imagine 50+ bots started DM-ing you on Instagram non-stop, you’d probably miss the message from your friend, right?

Now, does DDoS protection matter for a small server? Yes… kinda. It’s pretty rare for a small server to get attacked but it does happen. Boredom, practice for larger attacks, or petty anger at the “Pokémon clone” could all be motivators for a small-scale attack. So protection is worth having, and should come standard from most providers.

Support

If and when something goes wrong, you’ll want someone who knows what they’re doing to help you out. But what is “good” customer service for Palworld server hosting? This is largely subjective but there’s some foundational things:

• Thorough Knowledge Base. Aka proactive support, quick well-written guides on how to solve the most common issues.
• Real People. Going back and forth with a bot that can’t understand the game or your specific setup isn’t fun.
• 24/7 Support. Not required for me personally, but it’s nice to have. Especially if your group likes to play until 3:00am on a regular basis.

Everything else is difficult to quantify or control. Sometimes the service rep had a bad day, or you get someone who’s still training. That being said, look through the reviews to get an overall feel. If the reviews consistently say the customer service was bad, take that as a sign.

Pricing

Unfortunately, this is where things get complicated, as there isn’t a standard pricing structure. Most places use $/GB of RAM or player slots. Some use a combination of both. I tend to avoid providers that use player slots, as it’s an easy way for them to hide what you’re paying for.

Say you paid for 10 slots on a Palworld Server, but no one joins a guild. That means you could have 30 bases and 300 Pals running around doing base work. The server requirements for that are vastly different than those of a 10 person guild. And that’s not including the potential of mods, which I go into more detail in this blog.

Even the places that offer variable RAM packages often make you dig for details about their hardware. Why does it matter what hardware they use? Better hardware means a smoother experience even if the amount of hardware is the same. So knowing what hardware they use is essential if you want to make an educated decision. I know nitty gritty computer specs can be daunting, but I’ll help you understand what’s going on under the hood.

What You’re Paying For

A server, duh. No but really, on a more abstract level you’re paying for access to part of a machine’s CPU and RAM. Networking matters too but it’s the most noticeable when done poorly, so most game server hosts have it down. You’re also paying for customer support and some bonus features, but CPU/RAM are the foundation. So how does hardware affect a server’s performance and how do you know what you need?

Understanding Hardware Specs

It’s easy to drown in all the numbers and acronyms we use to describe computer hardware, but I’ll go over what’s important for Palworld servers.

This overview of computer hardware is far from comprehensive, and there are performance factors I don’t cover. This is only meant to help you understand comparisons I make later.

CPU

CPUs (Central Processing Unit) can be broken down into 3 parts:

• Cores are like little factories, each core can only make one thing at a time.
• Threads are assembly lines allowing a factory to make complicated things more efficiently.
• Clock Speed determines how many things the factories can produce in a second. (Measured in GHz)

Currently, Palworld servers don’t make great use of multiple cores, so thread performance and clock speed are going to be the most important.

RAM

RAM (Random Access Memory) is like a warehouse for the factories. Its parts are more self explanatory, but I’ll still break it down:

• Capacity determines how much the warehouse can store at once. (Measured in GB)
• Speed is how many things can be stored and/or retrieved from the warehouse in a second. (Measured in MHz)

Speed is the most important for any game server. Higher speeds mean the server can respond to your actions faster, leading to a smoother experience. However, at the time of writing Palworld servers are still subject to memory leaks (Leaving things in the warehouse they don’t need anymore). Though, they’re much less common than they were at launch.

If you want to read how we navigated Palworld’s poor launch performance with our community, check out this article. And we have a guide that will walk you through how to optimize your Palworld server’s performance if you need it.

What Do You Need?

Palworld’s official recommendation is 4 cores and 16-32GB RAM but they don’t give any other details. The community FAQ gives more specifics for an 8-12 player server: 4x CPU cores with a minimum 3.8GHz clock speed and 8GB RAM +2GB per player (With restarts due to the memory leak). Keep in mind that mods can exponentially increase server requirements, especially since Palworld is still in early access.

On my server, we rarely had more than 4 players on at once and we were all in the same guild so 2 cores and 18GB ended up being overkill. Now that you have a better idea of how this works, how do the various providers stack up?

Price assumes ideal specs for an unmodded 6-12 player server: 2 Cores and 16GB RAM

Hardware info source	CPU Clock Speed	Single Thread Rating	Cores/Threads	RAM Speed	Monthly Price
AleForge	4.9-5.7GHz	3469 - 4288	16/32	3200-3400MHz	$32.00
Apex Hosting	3.5-5.0GHz	2459 - 3471	4/8 - 28/56	1066-3200MHz	$51.99
Bisect Hosting	3.7GHz	N/A	N/A	N/A	$31.84
G-Portal	3.9-5.0GHz	2255 - 2902	8/16 - 24/48	N/A	N/A
Shockbyte	4.4-5.1GHz	2654 - 3458	6/12 - 8/16	N/A	$55.99

Single Thread Rating from PassMark

I know that’s a lot of numbers - it’s a bit overwhelming for me too - but there’s a few specific things I want to point out. In those ranges, AleForge’s low-end outperforms everyone on basically every metric, and does it for half the price. Not to mention, they’re one of the only server hosts that provides any details about their RAM.

The available information regarding server hardware was sparse to say the least. Outside of AleForge and Apex, there’s no information on what hardware is used for each server. Most providers list several processors but don’t give any details on how/where they’re used.

But AleForge uses AMD Ryzen 9 5950X minimum across any game, or you can upgrade to the 7950X for an even smoother experience. And as far as I know, they’re the only one who lets you pick how many cores you’re getting. Of course, even with the best of the best hardware there’s other things that can significantly impact your experience.

Other Considerations

We already looked at stability, customer support, and pricing but I want to touch on some other things AleForge does that I haven’t seen from other providers.

Not Overselling

In the server hosting industry, it’s common to sell more plans than there’s hardware for. Betting that not everyone will need it at the same time. Similar to how airlines will overbook a flight, expecting a few people aren’t going to show.

The practice is less-predatory for server providers than it is for airlines, as it’s unlikely any group will use all of their resources 24/7. But unlike airlines where a few people get screwed over by overbooking; if a server host gets the ratio wrong, everyone suffers.

The ratio of hardware to server-plans is generally considered sensitive information, but could be 4:1 or higher depending on the host. Meaning some providers could require 4x the amount of hardware they have to support peak use.

In AleForge’s case, they undersell. Aiming for 80% RAM and 70% CPU usage max. The effects of this are two fold: One, it helps keep the servers cool so they perform better. Two, it allows for burst usage, so if a server experiences a sudden spike in load, it can temporarily access more resources to handle it. Instead of just crashing. But that’s not the only QOL feature AleForge offers.

Game Swap/Split

You’re not paying for a Palworld server, you’re getting protected access to hardware for running game servers. So at any time, you can switch to a different game, or split your resources across multiple games. That’s right, you don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops or get a new plan if you want to have 2 different game servers. And the protected access means you won’t notice when someone else runs their server into the ground with 100+ mods.

You can switch games at any time using our control panel: the Blacksmith’s Portal. And while self-serve server splitting isn’t available yet, all you have to do is open a ticket on our website or on our Discord and we’ll get you sorted. Whether you decide to split your resources or swap to a different game, as long as the total cores/RAM stays the same, the price won’t change.

Conclusion

Ultimately the choice is yours, and I encourage you to experiment and find what works best for your gaming group. But I genuinely believe paying for a host is a great option for groups of all sizes. If you decide to shop around for a server provider, take a close look at their reviews to make sure they aren’t just blowing smoke and actually deliver on the promises they make.

Or if you don’t want to shop around, AleForge is a stellar option. The customer service, transparency, and performance for the price are all top notch. But you don’t have to take my word for it, there’s plenty of reviews on Trustpilot saying the same thing.

Whatever you decide, now is a great time to hop into Palworld. The most egregious bugs have been fixed, and the new raid boss Bellanoir is killer multiplayer content. Not to mention the four new pals Pocketpair announced.

Ready to bite the bullet? Check out AleForge’s Palworld server plans, or if you want some guidance getting the right specs for your group, hop in the Discord and we’ll help you out. Happy pal hunting!