Palworld With 20 Players or More: Where the Limit Sits
A Palworld dedicated server supports a maximum of 32 players. Above roughly 24 concurrently active players you will get occasional stutters no matter what, and that is a limit of the game engine, not of your hardware. Buying a bigger plan therefore does not solve that part: what does work is fewer simultaneously active bases, spreading players across the map, setting ServerPlayerMaxNum realistically and sticking to a fixed restart schedule.
Where does a Palworld server's limit sit?
There are two limits. The hard limit is 32 players: no more will fit. The practical limit sits around 24 concurrent players; above that the world stutters now and then, even on a machine that wants for nothing.
That stuttering looks unmistakable. You run forwards and get pulled back, a Pal freezes mid-task, a chest opens a beat late. No crash and no connection problem, just the world simulation failing to keep up for a moment. Why that is something other than high ping is explained in our piece on TPS, MSPT, FPS and ping.
The distinction you need to learn to spot: if your hardware is maxing out, there is something you can buy that helps. If the engine is maxing out, there is nothing you can buy that helps.
Why does a bigger plan not fix this?
RAM prevents crashes; it does not make the simulation faster. If you are up against your memory ceiling, more RAM is exactly the right answer. If you are sitting well below it and things still stutter, an extra 8 GB changes nothing.
Adding cores will not get you there either. The official documentation asks for four cores or more, but what really counts is per-core performance. That is why our Palworld servers run on AMD EPYC 7443P and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.
On top of that, the Palworld server process demonstrably climbs in memory use the longer it runs. More memory only means it takes longer before you hit the limit; what exactly happens and how you keep it in check is covered in why a Palworld server leaks memory.
Why does build volume weigh more than player count?
Twenty players who have only just logged in cost almost nothing. Eight players with fully built-out bases full of working Pals, breeding farms and production lines cost far more. The server keeps simulating those bases even when the owner is offline.
Every active base is a little factory that has to be tracked: which Pal is doing which job, what is finished, where it goes next. Multiply that by the number of guilds and you have the real load. A small group with dozens of bases taxes your server harder than a much larger group that has only just started.
So ask guilds to consolidate their bases, and spread the group across the map so that not everyone builds in the same region.
How much RAM do you need above 16 players?
Pocketpair officially recommends 16 GB of RAM for a dedicated server. 8 GB does start, but Pocketpair flags that configuration as crash-prone itself. For large or modded servers, 32 GB is the guideline.
| Group size | RAM class | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| 4 to 6 players | 8 GB | It runs, but with no headroom and prone to crashing |
| 4 to 16 players | 16 GB | Official advice, the safe zone |
| More than 16 players | 32 GB | The guideline for large servers: plenty of memory, but the engine still stutters at times |
That last row is the whole point: heading towards 32 players, 32 GB is sensible because memory use climbs high, but you are buying stability, not smoothness. Which plan matches which group size is set out in more detail in how much RAM your Palworld server needs.
The leak itself you keep in check with a scheduled automatic restart, usually every 6 to 12 hours. A daily clean restart holds the server in that fresh baseline state; extra RAM does not.
What does help at 20 players or more?
- Set
ServerPlayerMaxNumrealistically. Not to 32 because you can, but to the number that genuinely plays at once. More slots means more guilds, more bases and a world that fills up faster. - Cap the number of simultaneously active bases. This is the most effective dial you have, and it costs you not a single player.
- Look at
bEnableInvaderEnemy. The switch for hostile invaders is closely tied to how fast the memory leak grows. Since the Tower of Mercy update in early 2026 you can also scale raid difficulty. - Schedule the restart for a quiet moment. Every 6 to 12 hours, so for an evening crowd that means the middle of the night.
- Soften the grind.
ExpRateat 2 to 3,PalEggDefaultHatchingTimeat 5 to 10 instead of the default 72 hours andWorkSpeedRateat 1.5 all reduce the appetite for endless farms. There is more of this in our hosting tips for Palworld.
How to change the settings safely
- Stop the server completely first; changes you make while it is running are lost on restart.
- Find
ServerPlayerMaxNuminPalWorldSettings.ini(Linux:Pal/Saved/Config/LinuxServer/) and enter the number that suits your group. - If you want PvP on, enable
bIsPvP,bEnablePlayerToPlayerDamageandbEnableDefenseOtherGuildPlayertogether. Turning on just one does nothing. - Save, start the server only afterwards, and set up your restart schedule straight away.
If that file does not exist yet, our article on PalWorldSettings.ini explains how to create it and what the other settings do. If the server is entirely new to you, start with our guide on how to host your own Palworld server.
One big community server or several small ones?
Above 24 players this is the question that really matters. Two 16 GB servers with sixteen players each both stay in the safe zone. One 32 GB server with 32 players sits permanently in the range where the engine falls short.
Go for one big server if the shared world is the point: trade between guilds, joint building projects, watching each other's bases grow. Go for several small ones if smooth play is what you are after. Groups that barely run into each other anyway get little joy from that shared world and plenty of grief from the stuttering, and a restart then only touches half your community.
Splitting by platform is certainly not necessary: since version 0.5.0 of 19 March 2025, Steam, Xbox, PlayStation 5 and Mac all play together in the same world, on a dedicated server too. How to set that up is in our article on running a Palworld crossplay server. Mods are PC-only, though, and that is actually a good argument for splitting: a vanilla server for everyone and a modded server for the PC players.
Which plan suits your group?
Our plans run from 4 to 32 GB of RAM at a flat EUR 1.50 per GB, with 1.25 GB of NVMe per GB of memory. For a busy server, choose on the number of active bases rather than the number of slots.
| Plan | RAM | NVMe | 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, no headroom |
| 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, official advice |
| Fuddler | 20 GB | 25 GB | EUR 30.00 | Packed world, plenty of active bases |
| 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 |
What makes the biggest difference on a busy server comes as standard in the Pterodactyl panel you get with Palworld hosting from MC-Node: scheduled tasks for your restart routine and a file manager for getting at your configuration quickly. Automatic backups run alongside, and on a server a community has spent months building, that save file is the one irreplaceable thing. Pick your location deliberately too, because with twenty players distance counts: our own hardware in Previder PDC2 in Hengelo, plus Frankfurt, Warsaw and North America, all on NVMe storage with DDoS protection from PletX.
If you are above 24 and torn between two large plans, consider two Depresso servers instead: EUR 48.00 together, the same as one Mau, and both worlds stay in the zone where Palworld runs smoothly.
Frequently asked questions
How many players can a Palworld server handle? A dedicated server supports a maximum of 32 players. Above roughly 24 concurrent players you will get occasional stutters, however powerful the machine. That is a limit of the game engine, not of your hardware.
Does more RAM help against stutters at 24 players? Only if you were up against your memory ceiling; sit well below it and a bigger plan changes nothing. Pocketpair recommends 16 GB and 32 GB for large or modded servers, but that is about stability.
How often should I restart a busy server? Every 6 to 12 hours, and at the very least a clean restart daily. Memory use climbs the longer the process runs: a server for four players sitting at 5 GB on day one can be pushing 8 GB a week later. Only a restart winds that back.
What is a realistic number for ServerPlayerMaxNum? The number that genuinely plays at once, not the maximum of 32. Every extra slot invites another guild with more bases, and it is precisely the number of active bases that decides how hard your server has to work.
Can console and PC players share one big server? Yes, since version 0.5.0 of 19 March 2025 Steam, Xbox Series X|S and One, PlayStation 5 and Mac all play in the same world on the same dedicated server. Mods only work on PC: consoles cannot load PAK mods or PalSchema, so a modded server shuts them out.