How much RAM does a Minecraft server need?

For vanilla or Paper with a handful of friends (1-5 players), 2-4 GB is enough — that's the Small plan. Ten players on vanilla pushes it to 6-8 GB, so you'd want Medium. Heavy modpacks are a different story: they can ask for 8-16 GB, and our plans don't reach that. Match the box to how you actually play.

Can I run a modded server (Forge/Fabric) here?

Light plugins on Paper — yes, comfortably. A big modpack with 150+ mods — no. Those want 8-16 GB and a fast single core, and a shared-vCPU box isn't the right tool. We'd rather tell you upfront than take your money and watch it lag.

Why does Minecraft feel slow even with RAM to spare?

Minecraft's main loop is largely single-threaded, so it leans on one core's speed more than on core count or memory. On shared vCPUs we don't guarantee a fixed clock, which is an honest limitation for a game server. Paper plus a tuned view-distance helps a lot, but if you need a guaranteed high-clock core, that's dedicated hardware, not a shared VPS.

Vanilla or Paper — which should I run?

Paper, almost always. It's a drop-in replacement for the vanilla server that's meaningfully lighter on the same hardware, and it supports plugins. Same gameplay for your players, more headroom on the box. Vanilla only if you specifically need identical-to-Mojang behavior.

Do I need to give you an ID to rent a game server?

No. Sign up with an email and pay in USDC or USDT. No documents, no phone number. The server is yours in about a minute.

VPS for a Game Server

Host a Minecraft server for you and your friends on a VPS with full root. Real RAM numbers per player count, an honest word on the single-thread problem, and where our plans stop and a modpack needs something else. From $8/mo.

A game server for you and a few friends is one of the nicer reasons to rent a VPS. You get a fixed address that's online when you are, nobody else's rules about mods or whitelist, and — if it's Minecraft — a world that keeps ticking whether or not your PC is on. The catch is that "game server" covers everything from five friends on vanilla to a 200-mod pack for a hundred people, and those are not the same machine.

So let's be specific about what actually fits.

Minecraft, by player count

The numbers that matter, for vanilla or Paper:

1-5 players, vanilla/Paper — 2-4 GB RAM. The Small plan ($8) is the comfortable spot.
~10 players, vanilla — 6-8 GB once the world grows and chunks load. That's Medium ($12), and honestly it's the edge of comfortable, not roomy.
A big modpack (Forge/Fabric, 150+ mods) — 8-16 GB and hungry for single-core speed. We don't reach that, and pretending otherwise would just get you a laggy server. That job wants a bigger, high-clock box.

If your plan is "survival world with friends, maybe a few quality-of-life plugins," Small or Medium is exactly right. If your plan is "the popular modpack everyone's playing," this is the wrong page and we'd rather say so.

The single-thread thing nobody mentions

Here's the part most game-hosting pages skip: Minecraft's server tick is largely single-threaded. More RAM doesn't fix lag once the CPU is the bottleneck — one core doing the world simulation is what sets your tick rate. That means clock speed matters more than core count for this specific workload.

On a shared-vCPU VPS — ours or anyone's — you don't get a guaranteed fixed clock. For a handful of players and a sane view-distance, you won't notice. Push the player count, the mob count, or a giant redstone contraption, and you will. If your server absolutely needs a guaranteed high-frequency core, that's dedicated hardware territory, not a shared plan. We'd rather you know that before you buy than blame the game after.

Making it run well anyway

Two settings in server.properties do most of the work:

view-distance — how many chunks around each player the server keeps loaded. Dropping from the default 10 to 6-8 cuts RAM and CPU noticeably with barely a visible difference.
simulation-distance — how far entities and redstone actually tick. Lower it and the far edges of the world stop eating CPU.

Run Paper, not vanilla — it's the single biggest free win. And give Java a sensible heap (-Xmx a bit under your plan's RAM, leaving room for the OS). None of this is exotic; it's just the difference between a server that holds 20 TPS and one that stutters.

Picking the plan

Setup	RAM you want	Plan
1-5 friends, vanilla/Paper	2-4 GB	Small ($8)
~10 players, vanilla	6-8 GB	Medium ($12), tight
Big modpack / big community	8-16 GB+	not a shared VPS

For most "server for the friend group," Small is the honest starting point, and you move to Medium if the group grows or you pile on plugins. There's a step-by-step build in our guide on setting up a Minecraft server on a VPS — the systemd service, the firewall port, world backups, all of it.

Why here

You get full root, so it's your server — your JVM flags, your plugins, your backups, no panel deciding what you're allowed to change. Payment is crypto (USDC or USDT on Base, Ethereum, or Polygon), no KYC, no documents — reasonable when you just want a box for a Friday-night world. Root in about 60 seconds after payment.

The honest boundary, one more time: vanilla and Paper for a friend group on Small or Medium — great fit. A heavy modpack for a large community — not our plans, and we'll tell you that instead of selling you the disappointment. Ready? Pick a plan and you'll be editing server.properties in a minute.