The game matters as much as the player count. World activity, uptime, mods, settings, and updates can all change memory use.
Practical starting points
Use case
Planning range
What to expect
Small or lighter server
4–6 GB
A possible starting point for lighter games, smaller worlds, and a few players.
Active survival or sandbox server
6–10 GB
More room for exploration, bases, entities, plugins, and longer sessions.
Demanding or heavily modded server
10 GB or more
Consider additional headroom for demanding games, large worlds, or substantial modpacks.
These are planning ranges rather than guarantees. The safest choice is to monitor the actual server after launch and adjust when the game, world, or player activity changes.
What increases memory use?
More simultaneous players and widely separated exploration.
Larger, older worlds containing many bases, entities, or active areas.
Long periods between restarts.
Mods or settings that increase activity and entity counts.
Game updates that change dedicated-server behavior.
Why headroom matters
A server that regularly reaches its memory limit can slow down, become unstable, or be stopped by the hosting environment. Selecting a plan with some unused memory gives the server room to handle busy periods.
Astro Hosting recommendation
Before activation, we ask which game you want to run, your expected player count, whether the world already exists, and any planned mods or plugins. We then confirm whether the selected plan is a reasonable fit.