--- title: "How to set up a dedicated Palworld server" description: "The two passwords you must never merge, the official server’s memory leak and the setting that halves it, and why 16 GB is not comfort margin." url: https://tickserv.com/en/guides/palworld-dedicated-server site: "TickServ (https://tickserv.com)" lang: en published: 2026-07-20 updated: 2026-08-22 games: [palworld] --- # How to set up a dedicated Palworld server A dedicated Palworld server keeps the world running continuously: your friends join without you being online, and the Pals keep working the bases. Here's what to know before launching one — including a known defect in the official server that nobody warns you about. ## The two passwords, and why they must never be the same This is Palworld's most dangerous confusion, because it's silent. The server expects **two, distinct**: - **the server password** — the one you give friends so they can join; - **the admin password** — the one that unlocks **in-game admin powers** (ban, kick, teleport, shut the server down). Many setups, including some very widely read tutorials, let the second fall back to the first. The result: **all of your players are administrators**, and nobody notices until someone has fun with it. Here, the two secrets are generated separately per server, and a safety net draws a random admin password inside the machine if none is ever handed to it — so no path can make the admin password fall back to the players' one. ## Crossplay is configured platform by platform Palworld accepts four platforms, and you choose which are allowed in: **Steam**, **Xbox**, **PS5** and **Mac**. All four are allowed by default. It's a real decision, not a cosmetic checkbox: restricting it to the platforms your group actually uses shrinks the way in to a server whose only protection is a password. ## The defect you need to know about: memory that climbs The Palworld dedicated server has had a **documented memory leak since launch**. The pattern is always the same: consumption climbs hour after hour, even with few players, until it saturates the available memory — then the server turns unstable and eventually falls over. On a 16 GB machine, hosts commonly report **6 to 12 hours** before it gets uncomfortable. This isn't something a host can fix: it's in the game's server. There are only two real levers: **1. Restart.** That's the universal remedy, and it's why every monthly host schedules nightly restarts. The counter goes back to zero. **2. Turn off invasion raids.** The **"invader enemies"** setting is on by default, and it's the single biggest contributor: the consensus among hosts is that disabling it cuts memory consumption by roughly half. If your sessions run long, it's the first setting to touch. > An honest word about our model: this leak is a function of **uptime**. A server billed by the hour, switched off at the end of the evening, restarts clean for the next session and never reaches the window where the problem shows up. That isn't a fix on our part — it's a consequence of the server not running 24/7. ## RAM: 16 GB, and that isn't comfort margin Palworld is built on Unreal Engine and is demanding even with four players. The consensus among hosts and the community converges on **16 GB**, and that's also the tier our catalogue recommends for this game. - **16 GB**: the sensible default, small group included. - **8 GB**: holds for a short session with two or three players, but the memory leak above will catch you much sooner. - Player slots default to **16** and go up to 32. A Palworld server on too small a tier doesn't gradually "lag": it holds, then it falls over. That's the symptom to recognise. ## The first boot takes about ten minutes The Palworld server reinstalls itself from Steam on every start — the engine, the assets and the Steam runtime don't live in the data volume. So expect **up to 10 minutes** before the server is reachable, and don't worry that the first session is the longest. What persists between sessions is only your save directory: the world, the Pals, the bases, the characters. The game binaries are supplied fresh each time — which is why your archive stays small. ## How we know the server is ready Palworld plays over **UDP on port 8211**, and UDP doesn't answer a probe. The server does, however, expose a **local REST API** (port 8212), and that's what availability is checked through and how connected players are counted. It's also what triggers a clean save before shutdown. If you're self-hosting, remember it: enable the REST API, it's the only reliable way to know whether your server is genuinely up. ## The settings: fifty of them, and a handful that matter Palworld exposes around fifty settings. The vast majority are comfort multipliers you tune to your group's taste. The ones that genuinely change a playthrough: - **Difficulty** (default, casual, normal, hard) and **death penalty** — from "nothing" to "lose everything: items, equipment and Pals". This is the setting that defines the tone of the run; decide it **before** you start, not after. - **Experience rate** (0.1 to 20) and **capture rate** (0.5 to 5): the two that decide whether the run lasts a month or a weekend. - **Invader enemies**: see above — it's a performance setting too, not just a difficulty one. - **PvP** and **friendly fire**, both off by default. - **Guild members** (20) and **workers per base** (15): the real limits on a productive base. - **Voice chat**, off by default. ## Joining, and keeping the world Your friends connect using the **address shown in your console**, with the server password. Nothing to install client-side. The world is archived **before every shutdown** — with a save triggered immediately beforehand, so no minute of play is left in memory — then restored on the next session. An automatic backup also runs **every 30 minutes** during play, of which the **last 5** are kept. Server off: **€0**. On a game that wants 16 GB, that's the difference between a full monthly subscription and a few euros for the evenings you actually play. > [Create your Palworld server](https://tickserv.com/en/games/palworld). Your first session is free.