How Much RAM Does a Palworld Server Need? 8, 16 or 32 GB
Pocketpair officially recommends 16 GB of RAM for a dedicated Palworld server. A server will start on 8 GB too, but Pocketpair flags that configuration as crash-prone itself: four to six players fit, with no headroom whatsoever. Four to sixteen players sit comfortably on 16 GB, and large or modded worlds want 32 GB.
Below you will find where those numbers come from, why your server eats more memory after a week than it did on day one, and why throwing extra RAM at it changes nothing.
How much RAM do you need per group size?
The "runs on" column is the bare minimum that will actually boot; "comfortable" is what you want if you would rather not think about your server every week.
| Group size | Runs on | Comfortable | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 to 6 players | 8 GB | 16 GB | It runs, but with no headroom: one raid tips it over the edge |
| 4 to 16 players | 16 GB | 16 GB | The official recommendation from Pocketpair |
| More than 16 players | 32 GB | 32 GB | Large server; 32 players is the hard cap of a dedicated server |
| Modded server | 32 GB | 32 GB | Mods load extra assets and logic straight into memory |
A dedicated server supports 32 players at most, and above roughly 24 players you will get the occasional stutter no matter what: that is a limit of the game engine, not of your hardware. Bolt 32 GB onto it and the stutters stay. What does help is covered in running Palworld with 20 players or more. If you want to understand exactly what you are looking at when things hitch, read our explanation of what TPS, MSPT, FPS and ping actually mean.
Why does Pocketpair advise 16 GB if 8 GB boots fine?
Because booting and running stably for a month are two very different things. A fresh Palworld server with a handful of players typically sits around 5 GB. On an 8 GB plan that looks roomy. The catch is that the number does not stand still: it climbs the longer the server runs, and it climbs the more your players build.
That is exactly why Pocketpair labels the 8 GB configuration as crash-prone. Not because it fails to start, but because there is no room for the spikes. A raid, four players loading in at once, a base with dozens of Pals hard at work: all of that temporarily demands more. If you are already pressed up against your 8 GB, the process falls over.
Put honestly: 8 GB is fine for a small group that does not mind stepping in now and then. You pick 16 GB when the server simply has to run without you thinking about it.
Why does memory use grow along with what you build?
Player count is only half the story. The other half is how much stuff is standing in your world. Every base, every wall, every crafting bench and above all every Pal that is working is something the server has to keep in memory permanently and update on every tick. A Pal chopping wood at a base with nobody nearby still costs memory and processing time.
That produces a pattern that catches plenty of people out: a server for four players that cruised along in week one feels heavy a month later. No extra players joined, but a few bases full of Pals are now grinding away day and night. That is normal behaviour, not a fault. So choose your RAM based not on the group you have today, but on the world you will have in two months.
Clock speed or core count: which matters more?
The official documentation asks for four cores or more. That is a floor, not a direction to optimise in. In practice, clock speed and per-core performance matter far more than the core count printed on the spec sheet. Palworld does not spread its heavy work evenly across every available core, so a processor with lots of slow cores performs worse than one with fewer but faster cores.
When you compare hosts, then, do not look only at RAM and cores, but at the processor underneath. Our budget line runs on AMD EPYC 7443P and our premium line on AMD Ryzen 9 9950X; that gap shows up most clearly around busy bases.
Does more RAM fix the memory leak?
No. This is the single biggest trap on the whole topic, so let us be blunt: the memory use of the server process demonstrably climbs the longer it runs. A group of four sitting calmly at 5 GB on day one can be pushing 8 GB a week later. No settings-based fix exists that solves it completely.
Throw 16 GB at it and here is precisely what happens: the leak keeps growing, it just takes longer before you hit the ceiling. You are buying time, not a solution. The only approach that genuinely works is a scheduled automatic restart, usually every 6 to 12 hours, which clears the memory. A daily clean restart keeps the server permanently in that fresh baseline state. Adding more RAM does not.
One setting is closely tied to this: bEnableInvaderEnemy, the switch for hostile invaders and raids. The more active it is, the faster the leak grows. Turning it off is not a fix, but it noticeably slows the rate at which memory fills up. How to spot the leak and which restart rhythm suits your server is covered in our article on the Palworld memory leak.
How do you set up that restart and that setting properly?
The settings live in PalWorldSettings.ini, which on a Linux server sits in Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/. Stop the server before you edit that file, because otherwise your changes get overwritten on restart. That is by far the most common mistake people make. The full walkthrough is in our article on PalWorldSettings.ini.
If all you want is to keep memory use in check, two things are enough: bEnableInvaderEnemy switched off if you will not miss the raids, and an automatic restart every 6 to 12 hours at a time when nobody is playing. For a group that plays in the evening, the small hours make obvious sense.
Setting up a server for the first time? Start with our step-by-step guide on how to host your own Palworld server. For settings such as ExpRate, PalEggDefaultHatchingTime and WorkSpeedRate, we have collected the usual tweaks in our Palworld hosting tips.
Which plan suits your group?
Our Palworld plans run from 4 to 32 GB of RAM at a flat EUR 1.50 per GB. Storage scales with it at 1.25 GB of NVMe per GB of RAM. Honestly: if you play with three friends, you do not need 32 GB.
| Plan | RAM | NVMe | Price per month | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jolthog | 4 GB | 5 GB | EUR 6.00 | Too tight for Palworld |
| Gumoss | 8 GB | 10 GB | EUR 12.00 | 4 to 6 players, small bases |
| Vixy | 12 GB | 15 GB | EUR 18.00 | Small group that builds heavily |
| Depresso | 16 GB | 20 GB | EUR 24.00 | 4 to 16 players, recommended |
| Fuddler | 20 GB | 25 GB | EUR 30.00 | Packed world, plenty of Pals |
| Teafant | 24 GB | 30 GB | EUR 36.00 | Large group with many active bases |
| Killamari | 28 GB | 35 GB | EUR 42.00 | Big community running mods |
| Mau | 32 GB | 40 GB | EUR 48.00 | 24 to 32 players or heavily modded |
Every Palworld hosting plan at MC-Node comes with the Pterodactyl panel, including its own file manager and scheduled tasks. Those scheduled tasks do most of the heavy lifting for Palworld: the automatic restart that beats the climbing memory use is a few clicks, with no cron jobs or scripts involved. Automatic backups run alongside, which is reassuring given that a single save file holds everything your group has ever built. It all sits on NVMe with DDoS protection from PletX, and you pick one of four locations yourself: our own Previder PDC2 data centre in Hengelo, Frankfurt, Warsaw or North America.
If you are caught between two plans, size up rather than down. The gap between Gumoss and Depresso is EUR 12.00 a month, and that is nothing next to a server that collapses mid-raid.
Frequently asked questions
Is 8 GB enough for a Palworld server? For four to six players it runs, but with no headroom. Pocketpair itself flags the 8 GB configuration as crash-prone and officially recommends 16 GB. With small bases and a scheduled restart every 6 to 12 hours you will get by nicely on 8 GB; if you plan to build seriously, 16 GB is the better call.
Why does my server keep using more RAM? That is the well-known memory leak in the Palworld server process: memory use climbs the longer the server runs. A server for four players sitting at 5 GB on day one can be pushing 8 GB a week later. There is no complete fix through settings, only a scheduled restart that clears the memory.
Does more RAM help against the memory leak? No. More RAM only stretches out the time before you hit the ceiling. A daily clean restart keeps the server permanently in that fresh baseline state, and extra memory does not. The setting bEnableInvaderEnemy is closely tied to how fast the leak grows.
How many players can a Palworld server with 32 GB handle? Even with 32 GB the cap stays at 32 players, and above roughly 24 players you will get occasional stutters regardless. That is a game engine limit, not a hardware one. RAM decides whether your server stays stable, not how many players fit on it.
Do I need lots of cores for a Palworld server? The official documentation asks for four cores or more, but in practice clock speed and per-core performance count for more than the core count. A processor with fewer but faster cores outperforms one with lots of slow cores.