How much RAM your game server actually needs

Memory is the most misunderstood number on a game hosting order form. Almost everyone assumes doubling the RAM doubles performance, and in most cases it doesn't: past a certain point the bottleneck moves to CPU clock speed.

In vanilla Minecraft, a server with ten players rarely goes past 1.5 GB in actual use. Add Paper and twenty plugins and you're at around 3 GB. Big modpacks are a different story: All the Mods 9 wants 6 GB just to load the block registry, and with players inside it climbs to 10 GB without breaking a sweat.

Rust scales differently. What matters there is map size, not player count: a 3000 map with 50 people uses less than a 4500 map with 20. Palworld is the most extreme case in the current catalogue, because it keeps the state of every creature in the world resident in memory.

The sensible way to pick is to start one tier below what you think you need and watch the panel graph for the first week. Upgrading is instant and doesn't lose data; overpaying for a year, on the other hand, nobody gives back.