Palworld co-op or dedicated server: when is switching really worth it?
Almost everyone starts Palworld the same way: one friend hosts the world and the rest join through an invite code. And that works fine — until it doesn't. The host doesn't feel like playing one evening and the whole group is locked out. A fifth player wants to join and simply can't. Or the host's PC starts stuttering as soon as the bases grow. That's exactly the point where most groups start to wonder: do we stick with co-op or rent our own server? This guide lays out the differences honestly, including the situations where co-op is simply enough and a server would be money down the drain.
How co-op works, and where it hurts
In co-op, your world runs on the host's PC. That PC is doing two things at once: running the game for the host and keeping the world going for everyone playing along. Three hard limitations follow from that:
- Four players maximum. Palworld's co-op limit is four players, and there's no way around it. Player number five is out of luck, no matter how much fun you're having.
- The world only exists while the host is online. Want to catch some Pals on a Sunday morning while the host sleeps in? Not possible. When the host quits playing, everyone gets kicked out of the world. Your playtime is always tied to one person's schedule.
- All progress lives on a single PC. Even the guests' characters are stored in the host's save. If that SSD dies or the save gets corrupted without a backup, you don't just lose the world — everyone's character, Pals and gear go with it.
And there's a sneaky fourth one on top: performance. The bigger your bases and the more Pals running around and working, the heavier the world becomes to simulate. In co-op, the host's PC pays that bill, and everyone else notices it as stuttering and rubber-banding.
What a dedicated server does differently
A dedicated server is nothing more than that same world, running on a machine that exists purely for that job. That changes the rules on every point above:
| Co-op | Dedicated server | |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 4 maximum | Up to 32 |
| Availability | Only while the host plays | Online 24/7 |
| Progress | On the host's PC | On the server, with backups |
| Performance | Host PC runs game and world | Server runs the world, your PC only the game |
| Access | Via the host's invite code | Fixed address, with a password if you want |
The biggest difference only really shows after a few days: everyone logs in whenever it suits them. One person plays late at night, another early on Sunday morning, and you're still building the same world together. That's the difference between playing a game together and having a shared world.
Honestly: when co-op is just fine
Not everyone needs a server, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise. Co-op is perfectly fine if this is your situation:
- There are two, three or four of you, and that's not going to change.
- You almost always play at the same time, say every Tuesday evening.
- The host has a beefy PC and copies the save folder every now and then.
- Nobody feels the need to keep playing on their own.
A fixed group of friends that plays one evening a week together loses little with co-op and saves itself a server. In that case, by all means carry on — and come back to this article as soon as one of the pain points above starts to itch.
The signs that your own server pays off
On the other hand, there are moments when switching pays for itself almost immediately:
- Player five is at the door. There's no trick to get around the co-op limit. If you want your group to grow, a server is the only route — and with room for up to 32 players you won't have to turn anyone away for a long time.
- Everyone has a different rhythm. Shift work, studies, small kids: once schedules drift apart, "we play when the host can" becomes the reason nobody plays at all. A 24/7 server fixes that in one go.
- The host is the bottleneck. If the world stutters because the host's PC is struggling, or sessions depend on one person's availability, you're better off moving the world to hardware that's there for it all day long.
- You're attached to your world. Hundreds of hours of bases and captured Pals aren't something you want sitting on a single consumer SSD. On a server, you make backups easily through the panel, independent of anyone's PC.
At MC-Node, your Palworld server runs 24/7 on our own hardware with NVMe storage in the Previder data center in Hengelo, with DDoS protection included. You manage everything through a panel — restarting, changing settings, making backups — and everything can be cancelled monthly. If it turns out not to be your thing after a month, you simply cancel again.
Taking your co-op world with you: moving without losing anything
The biggest hurdle to switching is the fear of having to start over. Good news: you don't have to. Your existing world is just a folder of files on the host's PC, and you can move it to your server. Roughly, it goes like this:
- Find the save on the host's PC. On Steam/Windows it lives in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Pal\Saved\SaveGames, in a folder named after the Steam ID with a folder per world inside. - Make a copy first. Zip the entire world folder before you move anything at all. If something goes wrong along the way, you can always go back.
- Put the save on the server. Upload the world folder via the panel or FTP to your server's save location and point the server at that world.
- Mind the host's character. In a co-op save, the host's character is stored slightly differently from the guests', so it needs an extra step to come along properly. Our knowledge base has the full walkthrough: moving a co-op save to a dedicated server.
- Test with the whole group. Have everyone log in and check that characters, Pals and bases are all there. Keep the old save around for a few more weeks; you can always delete it later.
Which plan fits your group?
A Palworld server at MC-Node starts from € 6,00 per month, with plans from 4 to 32 GB of RAM. The rule of thumb: the more players and the bigger the bases, the more memory you want, because Palworld is a real RAM hog. A small group can start low; if you play with eight or more, aim higher. When in doubt, start one size smaller — you can upgrade at any time without losing your world.
Check out the plans in the MC-Node Palworld store; after ordering, your server is ready within minutes and you can upload your world right away. And if your pick turns out wrong after all: everything can be cancelled monthly, so a wrong guess costs you one month at most.