Game server VPS with a core that does not stutter.
First month $1, then the normal monthly price. One per customer.
A KVM VPS with full root, NVMe RAID10 storage and unlimited traffic for Valheim, Palworld, Rust, ARK, Satisfactory, Enshrouded, Project Zomboid, Terraria or a Pterodactyl panel that runs several of them. Amsterdam for European players, New York for North America. Dedicated CPU plans when the tick rate has to stay flat under mods.
Transparent pricing
Plans and prices
| Plan | vCPU | Memory | NVMe | Traffic | Monthly | 1 year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | |||||||
| S-2Standard | 1vCPU | 2 GBMemory | 30 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $7.99/moFirst month $1 | $7.19/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| S-4Standard | 2vCPU | 4 GBMemory | 60 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $13.99/moFirst month $1 | $12.59/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| S-8Standard | 3vCPU | 8 GBMemory | 120 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $24.99/moFirst month $1 | $22.49/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| S-16Standard | 4vCPU | 16 GBMemory | 240 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $44.99/moFirst month $1 | $40.49/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| S-32Standard | 8vCPU | 32 GBMemory | 480 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $84.99/moFirst month $1 | $76.49/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| S-64Standard | 16vCPU | 64 GBMemory | 720 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $159.99/moFirst month $1 | $143.99/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| Dedicated CPU | |||||||
| D-4Dedicated | 1vCPU | 4 GBMemory | 45 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $37.00/moFirst month $1 | $31.45/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| D-8Dedicated | 4vCPU | 8 GBMemory | 90 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $69.00/moFirst month $1 | $58.65/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| D-16Dedicated | 4vCPU | 16 GBMemory | 160 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $118.00/moFirst month $1 | $100.30/mo on 1 year | Start for $1 |
| D-32Dedicated | 6vCPU | 32 GBMemory | 220 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $215.00/mo | $182.75/mo on 1 year | Deploy D-32 |
| D-64Dedicated | 10vCPU | 64 GBMemory | 400 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $377.00/mo | $320.45/mo on 1 year | Deploy D-64 |
| High Memory | |||||||
| H-64High Memory | 8vCPU | 64 GBMemory | 480 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $249.00/mo | $211.65/mo on 1 year | Deploy H-64 |
| H-128High Memory | 16vCPU | 128 GBMemory | 960 GBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $459.00/mo | $390.15/mo on 1 year | Deploy H-128 |
| H-192High Memory | 24vCPU | 192 GBMemory | 1.4 TBNVMe RAID10 | UnlimitedTraffic | $669.00/mo | $568.65/mo on 1 year | Deploy H-192 |
What a game server actually needs from a VPS.
Most survival and building games run their simulation on one thread. That shapes every choice below.
One fast core beats many slow ones
Valheim, Rust, ARK and Satisfactory do most of their work on a single main thread. Extra vCPUs help with networking and saves, but the tick rate follows the speed of that one core. Our published Geekbench 6 single-core median on a dedicated instance is 2,000.
Shared or dedicated CPU
Standard plans share physical cores at a 1:4 ratio. That is fine for a handful of friends on a vanilla server. Dedicated plans pin each vCPU 1:1 to a physical core on EPYC Genoa, so the frame time stays flat when neighbours get busy. Mods and large player counts are where the difference shows.
Memory grows with the world
A fresh world is small. After weeks of building, a Palworld or Rust save holds far more state, and the server process grows with it. Watch free -m over a few days rather than sizing from the first evening.
Traffic and ports
Traffic is unlimited, so player count is not a bandwidth question. Every game uses its own UDP ports, and the firewall must open exactly those. One IPv4 and a /64 IPv6 block are included. Minecraft has its own page at Minecraft VPS.
Which plan for which game.
Sizing for a private server with a handful of friends. Public servers with dozens of players want the next plan up and a dedicated core.
| Game | Friends, vanilla | Mods or more players |
|---|---|---|
| Valheim | S-4 or S-8 | D-4 (1 pinned core, 4 GB) |
| Palworld | S-16 (16 GB), memory grows over time | D-16 (4 cores, 16 GB) |
| Rust | S-16, the map alone needs headroom | D-16 or D-32 |
| ARK: Survival Evolved | S-8 or S-16 | D-16 |
| Satisfactory | S-8 | D-8 (4 cores, 8 GB) |
| Enshrouded | S-8 or S-16, runs under Wine | D-16 |
| Project Zomboid | S-8 (Java, 8 GB) | D-8 |
| Terraria | S-2 or S-4 | S-8 with TShock and plugins |
| Pterodactyl, 2 or 3 small servers | S-16 | D-16 or D-32 |
The entry point for a few friends on Valheim, Satisfactory or Terraria is S-4 (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 60 GB NVMe) at €11.99 a month ($13.99). S-8 (3 vCPU, 8 GB, 120 GB) at €21.99 a month ($24.99) is the comfortable choice for Project Zomboid, ARK or Valheim with a larger world, and the 120 GB disk leaves room for mods and backups. The table names a plan rather than a RAM figure per game; check each game's dedicated server guide for its current requirements.
When the tick rate matters, go dedicated. D-4 (1 vCPU, 4 GB, 45 GB) at €34.00 a month ($37.00) gives Valheim one pinned EPYC Genoa core with DDR5 ECC memory, and that is exactly what a single-threaded game loop wants. D-8 (4 vCPU, 8 GB, 90 GB) at €64.00 a month ($69.00) covers Satisfactory, Project Zomboid or a modded Valheim with room for a second small server. Palworld and Rust are memory-heavy and their saves keep growing, so plan for S-16 (4 vCPU, 16 GB, 240 GB) at €39.99 a month ($44.99) as a floor and D-16 (4 vCPU, 16 GB, 160 GB) at €109.00 a month ($118.00) when you want the deterministic core as well.
Honest limits: S-2 has 30 GB of disk and is only sensible for Terraria. Enshrouded and ARK: Survival Ascended have no native Linux server and run through Wine or Proton, which costs CPU and memory on top of the game itself. If you outgrow a plan, resize RAM and vCPU in place; data and IP stay and it usually takes one short reboot.
Setting up a Valheim server on BuyVPS.
Step 1: order, pick Ubuntu 24.04, log in
Order from the plans page or start with the $1 trial month on S-4 through D-16. Choose Ubuntu 24.04 and the region. The VPS is ready 30 to 60 seconds after payment. Then create a user for the game so nothing runs as root.
ssh root@YOUR_IP apt update && apt -y upgrade adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" steam
Step 2: install SteamCMD
SteamCMD lives in the multiverse repository and needs the i386 architecture enabled for its 32-bit bootstrap.
add-apt-repository -y multiverse dpkg --add-architecture i386 apt update apt -y install steamcmd lib32gcc-s1
Step 3: download the Valheim dedicated server
Run this as the steam user. App ID 896660 is the Valheim dedicated server. Other games use the same command with their own app ID.
su - steam /usr/games/steamcmd +force_install_dir /home/steam/valheim \ +login anonymous +app_update 896660 validate +quit
Step 4: a systemd unit so it survives reboots
The server reads its name, world and password from the command line. The password must be at least five characters and must not be part of the server name. Save this as /etc/systemd/system/valheim.service.
[Unit] Description=Valheim dedicated server After=network-online.target [Service] User=steam WorkingDirectory=/home/steam/valheim Environment=SteamAppId=892970 Environment=LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/steam/valheim/linux64 ExecStart=/home/steam/valheim/valheim_server.x86_64 -nographics -batchmode \ -name "Our server" -port 2456 -world "Midgard" -password "CHANGEME" -public 0 Restart=always RestartSec=10 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
systemctl daemon-reload systemctl enable --now valheim journalctl -u valheim -f
Step 5: open the firewall
Valheim uses UDP 2456 and 2457. Keep SSH open before enabling ufw or you lock yourself out; the VNC console in the panel is the way back in if that happens.
ufw allow OpenSSH ufw allow 2456:2457/udp ufw enable
Step 6: Pterodactyl for several games (outline)
Pterodactyl is a web panel plus a daemon called Wings that runs each game server in its own Docker container. The panel needs PHP, MariaDB, Redis and nginx; Wings needs Docker. Follow the installation guide at pterodactyl.io, then the short version is:
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh curl -L -o /usr/local/bin/wings \ https://github.com/pterodactyl/wings/releases/latest/download/wings_linux_amd64 chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/wings # paste /etc/pterodactyl/config.yml from the panel's node page, then: systemctl enable --now wings
Open 8080 for Wings, 2022 for its SFTP server, 80 and 443 for the panel, and the game ports you allocate per server. Every server gets its own port range in the panel, so write those down before you touch ufw.
Pitfalls we see, and how to avoid them.
Palworld eats memory over days
The Palworld server grows in RAM the longer it runs, and a server that was fine on day one gets killed by the OOM killer on day four. Restart it on a schedule with a systemd timer, keep swap off the critical path, and size from the plateau you measure after a week, not from the first login.
No world backups until the world is gone
A corrupt autosave after a crash is the classic game server disaster. Copy the save directory to another host on a cron, before the nightly restart. Our backup add-on costs 20 to 60 percent of the plan price; a file-level copy of the world is still the fastest thing to restore.
Ports that are open on the wrong protocol
Most game ports are UDP, the query port is sometimes TCP, and RCON is almost always TCP. "The server is running but nobody can join" is almost always a ufw rule with the wrong protocol. Check with ss -ulnp what the server actually listens on, then match the firewall to it.
Mods on a shared core
Modded Valheim or ARK with many creatures pushes the main thread flat out. On a shared vCPU the tick rate then depends on what the neighbours do, and players feel it as rubber-banding. If top shows the game process near 100 percent of one core all evening, move to D-4 or D-8. In-place resizing adds RAM and vCPU; if you expect to want a pinned core, start on one.
Pick the region closest to your players.
Ping decides how a game server feels. From Amsterdam we measure 9.0 ms to London, 8.5 ms to Frankfurt and 9.3 ms to Paris. From New York, Boston is 5 to 8 ms, Philadelphia 4 to 7 ms and Toronto 10 to 15 ms. Between the two regions it is 75 to 90 ms, so a mixed group should pick the side with more players. See VPS Amsterdam and VPS New York.
Questions about running a game server on a VPS.
Do I need a dedicated CPU plan for a game server?
Not for a handful of friends on a vanilla server; S-4 or S-8 is fine there. Go dedicated when you run mods, a large world or a public server, because the game loop is single-threaded and a pinned core keeps the tick rate flat no matter what other tenants do.
Can I host several games on one VPS?
Yes. Pterodactyl runs each game in its own Docker container with its own port range, or you write one systemd unit per game. Add up the memory of every server you keep running at the same time and pick the plan from that total, with room left for the OS.
Is there a bandwidth limit for players?
No. Traffic is unlimited on every plan and there is no bandwidth bill. Player count is limited by CPU and RAM, not by the network.
Which games do not have a Linux server?
Enshrouded and ARK: Survival Ascended ship Windows server binaries only and run on Linux through Wine or Proton. That works but costs extra CPU and memory. We do not offer Windows Server, so a game that truly needs Windows is not a fit here.
What happens when the world outgrows the plan?
Resize in place. RAM and vCPU can be added from the panel or the API; data and IP stay and it usually takes one short reboot. If you want to move from a Standard to a Dedicated plan, copy the save directory to the new server or ask support first.
Can I try it before committing?
Yes. The first month is $1 including VAT on S-2 through S-64, D-4, D-8 and D-16, once per customer, paid by card or iDEAL. On top of that, the first order has a 30-day performance guarantee with a full refund.
Deploy a measured VPS
From $6.79/mo on a 2-year term. KVM on AMD EPYC, NVMe RAID10, ECC memory. No setup fee, cancel monthly.
30-day performance guarantee. Not satisfied? Full refund, no admin fee. How it works