So, have you got a whole crew of friends who are obsessed with Palworld, and you’re tired of playing in someone else’s world with someone else’s rules? Then, setting up your own dedicated server is genuinely one of the best ways to play this game with a group. This way, you control the settings, the world keeps running even when you’re offline, and nobody has to be the designated “host” every single session. Let me walk you through exactly how to get one running, plus the headaches you’ll want to avoid along the way.

Two Paths: Self-Hosting Vs Managed Hosting

Before you download anything, it’s worth deciding which route actually fits your situation for the team you are building to play Palworld:

	Self-Hosted	Managed Hosting
Cost	Free (just hardware + electricity)	Starting around $11.94/mo for 6GB
Setup time	30-60 minutes	Under 60 seconds
Port forwarding	Required	Not required
Uptime	Only when your machine is on	24/7
Backups	Manual	Automatic
Updates	Manual or scripted	One-click or automatic
Maintenance	All on you	Handled by the provider

You need to know that neither option is objectively “better”; it really comes down to whether you have spare hardware sitting around and enjoy tinkering, or you’d rather skip straight to catching Pals with zero setup friction.

What Hardware Do You Actually Need?

If you’re going the self-hosted route, you should know that Palworld’s dedicated server is heavier than most survival games. Pocketpair officially recommends 16GB of RAM, which catches a lot of people off guard.

Here’s the realistic breakdown if you are sure enough to choose this route:

• RAM: 8GB minimum for small groups of 4-6 players, 16GB recommended for bigger servers or longer sessions without restarts (Palworld has known memory leaks that cause usage to climb over time)
• CPU: A quad-core processor at 3.5 GHz or faster, since the server can use up to two full cores under load
• Storage: Around 12GB for server files, with an SSD strongly recommended for faster world loading and saving
• Bandwidth: A stable upload speed, 10 Mbps up comfortably handles a small group
• OS: Windows 10/11 or Linux (Ubuntu 20.04+, Debian, CentOS 7+), both work, though Linux tends to be more common for always-on setups

Honestly, this isn’t something you casually run on an old laptop while also using that same machine to actually play the game. You’ll be splitting resources between your game client and the server process, and Palworld already asks a lot on the client side alone.

Setting Up Your Dedicated Server On Steam

Here’s the step-by-step process for getting your server files downloaded and configured.

• Step 1: Install and boot Palworld once
  Purchase the game on Steam and launch it at least one time to make sure all the necessary files are in place. Close the game afterward.
  
• Step 2: Download the Dedicated Server tool
  In your Steam Library, change the filter dropdown to show “Tools” (or “Games and Tools” if you don’t see it right away). Search for “Palworld Dedicated Server” and download it.
  
• Step 3: Run it once, then close it
  Launch the Dedicated Server. A black command window will pop up, wait for a line of text to appear (something starting with “Setting breakpad”) before closing it. This step matters because it generates the folder structure you’ll need for configuration.
  
• Step 4: Find your config files
  Right-click the Dedicated Server in your Library, go to Manage → Browse Local Files. This opens a folder that typically looks something like:

[Drive]:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\PalServer

Here’s the part that trips up almost everyone: your actual config file, PalWorldSettings.ini, starts completely empty. You need to copy the entire contents of DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini, found in the PalServer root folder, and paste them in.

Navigate to:

PalServer\Pal\Saved\Config\WindowsServer

Open PalWorldSettings.ini in Notepad (or Notepad++), paste in the copied text, then edit these key fields before saving:

• ServerName — what shows up in the server list
• ServerDescription — optional, but nice to have
• AdminPassword — required for admin commands and RCON access
• ServerPassword — leave blank for a public server, set one for private
• PublicIP — your IPv4 address (find this by opening Command Prompt and typing ipconfig)

One critical warning here: always stop the server before editing this file. If you edit while it’s running, your changes get silently overwritten the moment the server shuts down. This is the single most common “why do my settings keep resetting” issue people run into.

Also, the file format is picky. Everything sits on one long line with comma-separated values. If you’re using an editor with Word Wrap enabled, disable it, several people have specifically flagged this as a hidden cause of config problems that looked like something else entirely.

Setting Your Launch Options

Right-click the Dedicated Server in Steam, go to Properties, and paste your startup arguments into the launch options box. Here’s a solid starting point:

-port=8211 -players=32 -useperfthreads -NoAsyncLoadingThread -UseMultithreadForDS

If you want your server to show up publicly in the in-game community server browser rather than just being joinable via direct IP, add:

-publiclobby

A couple of these arguments deserve a quick explanation. -port controls which port the server listens on (8211 is the default). -players sets your max player count. The performance flags help with thread allocation, and according to Pocketpair’s own official documentation, in version 1.0 and later, sometimes leaving these performance flags unset can actually improve performance, so if you’re running into stuttering, it’s worth testing both ways. There’s also -publicip and -publicport, which let you manually specify your network’s global IP and port if auto-detection isn’t working correctly, useful specifically for community servers.

The Firewall Step (Do Not Skip This)

This is where a lot of players quietly give up, so pay attention here.

If you’re using Windows Firewall, open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “Palworld Server” -Direction Inbound -LocalPort 27015,27016,25575 -Protocol TCP -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “Palworld Server” -Direction Outbound -LocalPort 27015,27016,25575 -Protocol TCP -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “Palworld Server” -Direction Outbound -LocalPort 8211,27015,27016,25575 -Protocol UDP -Action Allow

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName “Palworld Server” -Direction Inbound -LocalPort 8211,27015,27016,25575 -Protocol UDP -Action Allow

Beyond the command line rules, you’ll also want to manually allow Palworld through your firewall via Settings → Firewall & Network Protection → Allow an app through firewall. Make sure every Palworld-related executable is checked, including things like PalWorld-Win64-Shipping.exe, PalServer.exe, and the test-cmd variants. Some players have specifically reported that their friends also needed to allow these same executables through their own local firewalls before they could connect, so if someone’s still timing out after everything else looks right, that’s worth checking.

Port Forwarding: The Part Everyone Struggles With

Officially, Pocketpair only lists port 8211 as required. In practice, plenty of self-hosters have needed to open quite a bit more to get things working reliably. Based on combined community experience, a safer minimum set looks like:

• 8211 (UDP) — the main game port
• 27015-27016 (TCP/UDP) — Steam-related multiplayer ports
• 25575 (TCP/UDP) — used for RCON

Some players dealing with persistent connection timeouts have gone further, opening ranges like 27031-27036 and even 51999-61000 and 61002-65535 to fully resolve the issue, after confirming through Wireshark exactly which ports their server was actually trying to communicate over. That’s admittedly overkill for most setups, but if you’ve done everything else right and people still can’t connect, it’s a legitimate troubleshooting step.

To port forward, log into your router’s admin panel (Google “[your router model] port forwarding” if you’re not sure how), and forward traffic on those ports to your server machine’s local IP address.

One major gotcha: some ISPs use Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), meaning you share a public IP with other customers. If that’s the case, port forwarding simply won’t work, because you don’t actually control the public IP. To check, compare your router’s WAN IP against what a site like whatismyip.com shows you. If they don’t match, you’re behind CGNAT, and self-hosting from home becomes a lot harder without a workaround like a VPN tunnel service.

Joining Your Server

Once everything’s running, launch Palworld, select Join Multiplayer Game, then enter your public IP followed by the port, like this:

104.54.78.249:8211

If you set a server password, make sure to check the password box and enter it. If you’re joining your own server locally for testing, you can use 127.0.0.1:8211 instead.

A couple of known quirks worth expecting:

• It can take a few attempts to connect the first time, especially right after the server starts
• If you get a “No password has been entered” error even though you did enter one, there’s a slightly odd workaround: go back to the server list, select any other locked community server, enter any password when prompted, then choose “No” when asked to join. This resets whatever’s causing the bug, and afterward your actual server connection should go through normally

Getting Admin Access

Once you’re in your server, press Enter to open chat, then type:

/AdminPassword YOURPASSWORD

You should get a confirmation message that you’re now an admin. From here you can run commands, and you’ll also want this for properly saving and shutting down your server. To do that safely rather than just closing the window, type /Save first, wait for the save confirmation, then type /DoExit to close things down cleanly.

Playing On Console? Here’s Your Situation

If you’re on PlayStation or Xbox, self-hosting simply isn’t possible, dedicated servers require the Steam version specifically. Your two realistic options are:

1. Play co-op through your own local world, inviting up to 3 friends directly (no dedicated server needed)
2. Rent a hosting service that supports crossplay and community servers

If you go the rental route, make sure whatever host you pick explicitly supports crossplay, since console players can’t type in a direct IP the way Steam players can. Your server needs to actually appear in the in-game community server list, which requires CrossplayPlatforms=(Steam,Xbox,PS5,Mac) to be set correctly in the server’s config file. Most reputable hosts handle this automatically or offer it as a simple toggle.

Common Problems And How To Fix Them

Whether you are a player from the UK, the US, or anywhere else in the world, the process and resolution is basically the same:

Players can’t connect at all
Work through this checklist in order: confirm port forwarding is correct, confirm the connecting player has the right password, confirm your server version matches the client version (Steam auto-updates the client, which breaks things if your server falls behind), and try Direct Connect with the IP and port instead of browsing the server list.

Your server isn’t showing up in the browser
This is a known Palworld limitation, not something you’re doing wrong. The in-game server browser can only display the first 200 servers it receives, which makes it functionally useless for finding a specific server among thousands of listings. The reliable workaround is simply sharing your IP directly and having people use Direct Connect instead of searching.

Settings keep resetting
As mentioned earlier, this happens when you edit the config file while the server is actively running. Always stop the server first, make your edits, save, then restart.

High memory usage and crashes
Palworld has confirmed memory leak issues. Two things genuinely help here: setting bEnableInvaderEnemy=False in your config to disable the invader spawning system (a known contributor to memory leaks), and scheduling periodic server restarts every 6-12 hours rather than letting it run indefinitely.

Adding Mods To Your Server

If you want to run mods, they need to be manually installed into one of four specific locations, since the server does not manage mod updates for you:

• UE4SS mods: Server\Pal\Binaries\Win64\ue4ss\Mods
• Palschema mods: Server\Pal\Binaries\Win64\ue4ss\Mods\PalSchema\mods
• Paks: Server\Pal\Content\Paks\~mods
• Logic mods: Server\Pal\Content\Paks\LogicMods

Important detail here: the server will attempt to run any manually installed mod whether or not it’s stable, and it does not check for parity between what the host is running and what connecting players have installed. If you want your players to actually experience your mods, you need to give them a modlist yourself, whether that’s a Steam Workshop collection or a pre-packaged zip file. For Steam Workshop mods specifically, the mod author needs to have explicitly flagged it as server-compatible, or the server won’t even attempt to load it.

Considering Managed Hosting Instead?

If all of the above sounds like more infrastructure work than you actually want, managed hosting providers handle the hardware, networking, updates, and backups for you. The general process looks like: pick a RAM tier appropriate for your group size, select your closest data center, and your server is typically live in under a minute, no port forwarding required.

Look for a few things when comparing providers: automatic backups on a regular schedule, an auto-update option so your server stays current without manual SteamCMD commands, DDoS protection, and NVMe storage for faster world loading.

Quick Recap

I know, this post has been mainly technical, so here’s a quick summary of what you need to know before hosting a dedicated server:

Setting	Recommendation
RAM	8GB minimum, 16GB recommended
Main port	8211 (UDP)
Additional ports	27015-27016, 25575 (TCP/UDP)
Config file	PalWorldSettings.ini (copy from DefaultPalWorldSettings.ini first)
Console players	Must rent a hosting service, self-hosting not possible
Backup save location	Pal/Saved/SaveGames/

Whether you go the self-hosted route and wrestle with port forwarding yourself, or hand it off to a managed host and skip straight to the fun part, the end result is the same: a world that’s actually yours, running on your rules, ready whenever your friends are.