Valheim VPS Hosting

Valheim server hosting runs the game's dedicated server on a VPS, so the world stays online without any player's PC. The server does less work than most, because each player's game runs the area that player is in, and the server passes traffic and serves the map. It's a separate free Steam tool, app 896660, that anyone can download with an anonymous login. On a GreenGeeks VPS, SteamCMD downloads it, BepInEx adds mods if you want them, and backups run on a schedule you set. Valheim 1.0 launched on September 9, 2026, with console versions alongside PC.

Valheim caps every world at 10 players online at once, so you choose a plan by world size and mods. A new 1.0 world used about 1.34 GB with nobody playing, and each area where players are active adds roughly 100 to 300 MB. That's why 10 players exploring in different directions use more memory than 10 players building one base. A new world fits in 4 GB, even with all 10 players. An established, widely explored or modded world fits in 8 GB. The CPU works hardest when players reach new areas and the game generates them.

You install BepInEx yourself by copying BepInExPack_Valheim from Thunderstore into the server folder. Make start_server_bepinex.sh executable with chmod u+x, add your usual launch flags to it, and run it in place of the stock script. Plugins go in BepInEx/plugins, and BepInEx startup messages in the log show the loader is running. Iron Gate doesn't support mods and can't guarantee that any of them will work. Consoles can't run them at all, so a mod that every player also has to install locks out PS5 and Xbox players. Server-only mods are the exception.

The server backs up your world on its own, saving every 1800 seconds, or 30 minutes, and keeping 4 rolling backups in the same folder by default. On Linux that folder is ~/.config/unity3d/IronGate/Valheim/worlds_local. Those copies stay on the same disk, and GreenGeeks doesn't back up VPS servers. cPanel's backups only reach files in a cPanel account, so back up the world folder yourself. Stop the server with systemctl stop, have a daily cron job tar the folder, and send the archive off the server. To restore, stop the server and put back a matching .db and .fwl pair.

A Valheim server started with -crossplay shows a six-digit join code in its log, and PS5 and Xbox players use that code to join. A VPS or PC has to host the server, since consoles can't run a dedicated server themselves. Crossplay runs through Microsoft's PlayFab relays. That means no port forwarding, but players are more likely to see lag and disconnects. Switch 2 crossplay isn't settled yet. Check Iron Gate's latest patch notes before counting on it. Mods that run on players' games lock consoles out, so keep a crossplay world vanilla or server-side only.

Iron Gate, the game's developer, doesn't publish official requirements. Community figures start at 2 GB of RAM, and 4 GB or more is recommended. CPU advice varies. The community wiki suggests 4 cores at 2.8 GHz and prefers 6 at 3.4 GHz or faster. Storage needs are small, about 2 to 4 GB, plus room for backups. On Linux, Iron Gate asks for libatomic and the PulseAudio libraries, on a system with GLIBC 2.29 or newer. GreenGeeks VPS runs AlmaLinux 9, which meets that, and the packages install with dnf as libatomic, pulseaudio-libs and pulseaudio-libs-devel.

The 4 GB plan covers all 10 players on most Valheim worlds, at $69.95 a month with 4 vCPU and 75 GB of SSD storage. Old, widely explored or modded worlds do better on the 8 GB plan at $129.95, because each active area adds memory. Each plan includes a dedicated IP address, which PC players can connect to directly on UDP 2456 without going through the crossplay relay. SteamCMD downloads the server itself for free with an anonymous login, so there's no software cost on top of the plan.

A Valheim world is two files, [world].db and [world].fwl. Copy both into the server's worlds_local folder and set -world to that name. On a Windows PC they're in %UserProfile%\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\worlds_local. Always move both, because a missing .fwl makes the server create a new world. Transfer them zipped or in binary mode. If the world is saved to Steam Cloud, back up both copies first. Older worlds load fine on 1.0, but the Deep North only generates in areas nobody has explored yet, so Iron Gate recommends a fresh world.

Not the game itself. GreenGeeks' managed team looks after the VPS, and you can reboot it from your GreenGeeks account, but you install, patch and run the Valheim server yourself. Keeping versions matched is what trips people up most. The server has to run the same build as its players, and after 1.0 launched, updated players couldn't join servers still on the old build. Rerun SteamCMD after every patch. Stop the server with SIGINT or SIGTERM, never a hard kill, so it saves first. For a private world, add player IDs to permittedlist.txt.

You set difficulty with launch flags in the start script. Edit a copy of it, because Steam resets start_server.sh on every update. Start with -preset, which takes Normal, Casual, Easy, Hard, Hardcore, Immersive or Hammer and overwrites any earlier modifiers. Then fine-tune with -modifier and a value, such as -modifier raids none, -modifier combat veryhard or -modifier portals casual. Resources run from muchless to most, and death penalty from casual to hardcore. The -setkey flag adds switches like nomap, passivemobs, playerevents and nobuildcost.