How much RAM does your Minecraft server need?

In 2015 a parent on Hacker News asked a hosting company whether its 1 GB plan left the whole gigabyte for Minecraft, or whether the operating system took some of it. They wanted a server for their kids and the kids' friends, and as they put it, a Minecraft server needs 1 GB to itself.

On a 16 GB Pelican Panel server the answer's still no. About 2 GB goes to the system and the panel before your world loads, and Java needs memory beyond the number you give it.

The requirements on this page come from the people who make the software: the Minecraft Wiki, Paper, the modpack makers' own server files and Pelican's source code. The 2 GB reserve and the room each plan leaves are figures we've estimated ourselves. We also ran Minecraft on our own test machine (not a DreamHost server) to see what a memory setting takes, further down. Start from the table and check your memory once your group is playing.

Memory by what your group runs

Find the row that matches what your group plays. Each plan in the right column keeps about 2 GB for Debian, the panel, Docker and Wings. Wings is the Pelican service that runs each game server in its own container. Pelican doesn't publish a figure, so that 2 GB is our planning number. Wings then lets each server's container use 5 to 15% more than the memory you type, with the larger share going to servers of 4 GB or less.

After both, you've got room for about 1.7 GB of game servers on Stack 4, 5.7 GB on Stack 8, 13.3 GB on Stack 16 and 28.6 GB on Stack 32.

The Wiki is the only source that ties memory to a player count. It does that only for vanilla on a new world at the default view distance. Its main table is headed since 1.11.2, a version from years ago, so treat Stack 4 as a starting plan for a small new world. Its table for Linux servers goes further, up to 6 GB for 20 or more players. Paper and the modpack makers size by the software, so your headcount doesn't change their figure. There's no maker's figure for vanilla with a handful of mods, so plan against the lighter-modpack row and its 4 GB minimum.

Stack 8 is the lighter option for Paper. It leaves about 5.7 GB, under Paper's 6 GB low end before Java takes its share. Paper's getting-started page starts its example server with 4 GB. A small group on one Paper world can start on Stack 8 and move up when memory runs short. If you run Purpur, it's a drop-in replacement for Paper, and Paper's figure covers it too.

Why mods matter more than players

The Wiki's table assumes a fresh world. Its own footnote says a big world with redstone machinery, farms and grinders can easily more than double the requirements. If you and your group have built on the same world for a year, plan above the table.

All the Mods 10's server pack is one of the biggest around, and its start script still cuts view and simulation distance below the game's default of 10. The Minecraft Wiki suggests lowering view distance when players lag. On your own server, start at the defaults and drop toward the pack's settings if memory or the tick rate runs short.

Newer packs ask for more memory than older ones. Eight of the ten packs on FTB's popular-installs list, all built for older Minecraft versions, ask for a 4 GB minimum and 6 GB recommended. Its packs for Minecraft 1.21 and later mostly list 6 GB and 8 GB. FTB lists a minimum and a recommended figure per pack without saying whether they're for the server or your own computer. All the Mods 10's server files, by contrast, set Java's limit on the server itself.

Researchers at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam measured where the lag comes from. The Meterstick study ran vanilla, Forge and Paper on Minecraft 1.16 worlds. Its cloud machines had 2 vCPU and 8 GB of memory, the same shape as Stack 8, and Java was limited to 4 GB.

The world mattered more than the headcount. Farms and TNT made the game far less steady than 25 emulated players did, and entities took up most of each busy tick. In that study, Paper was generally steadier than vanilla and Forge. Delays peaked at 20.7 times the average, and the worst ones came right after a player connected.

What Pelican does with the memory you type

When you create a server in Pelican, you type a memory figure for it. Wings adds 15% to that figure for servers up to 2 GB, 10% up to 4 GB, and 5% above 4 GB. It uses the total as the container's hard limit. Wings' source code says the extra is there because Java doesn't always stay under its limit.

Pelican's community eggs for Paper and vanilla Minecraft start Java with -XX:MaxRAMPercentage=95.0. That lets the heap grow to 95% of the container's limit, so by our arithmetic the two settings nearly cancel out. Type 6144 MB and the heap can reach about 6129 MB, which leaves about 322 MB for everything else Java does.

Paper's memory advice wants 1,000 to 1,500 MB of that room. Its example: on 8 GB, use 6500 MB for the heap.

To keep a 6 GB heap and give Java that room, raise the memory you type and lower the 95 in your server's startup command. Type 7,000 MB and set it to 85, and about 1,100 MB stays outside a heap of about 6,248 MB.

That's our reading of Pelican's code and Paper's docs, so watch your memory after the change. This room comes out of each server's own figure, and the plan's 2 GB reserve stays as it is.

On Stack 16, that Paper world and a 4 GB vanilla world take about 11.6 GB of containers, inside the 14 GB left after the reserve. Two Paper worlds set up the same way would need about 14.4 GB, so they'd only fit if you type less for each.

What a memory setting took on our test machine

We ran Minecraft on Oct 22, 2026, on two of our own test machines (not DreamHost servers) with 2 vCPU (arm64), one with 4 GB and one with 8 GB. The servers were vanilla 26.1 and Paper 26.1.2, from itzg's minecraft-server Docker image, a widely used community image, instead of Pelican's egg, and test players (bots) that spread out across the world.

With default flags, the 2 GB vanilla server started near 1 GB. Once four players spread out, it grew past its setting by about 300 MB, and it kept that memory after they left. With Aikar's flags, which many hosts use, the server claimed its whole setting the moment it started, whether or not anyone was online.

Either way, plan on the setting plus about 300 to 500 MB for Java. That's less than the 1,000 to 1,500 MB Paper advises, but our test was short and light, so we keep Paper's figure in the table above. Our bots ran into new terrain and built nothing, so a group with farms and redstone will look different. The Paper run had only one player online, because Paper's connection throttle turned the others away, so we use it for memory only. It still shows why Stack 8 is tight for Paper: a 6 GB setting left under 1 GB free on an 8 GB machine, before any panel.

RAM or CPU: read the symptom

Minecraft runs its world in ticks, 20 a second, or one every 50 milliseconds. When your server can't finish a tick in time, the tick rate drops and everything slows down. The Wiki says the world still ticks largely on one main thread. The server uses about three cores at most, so a fast core matters more than many of them.

When memory runs short, Paper's docs warn, the server can run out of memory or get killed by the system's out-of-memory killer. Lag while plenty of memory sits free points to the CPU instead. On Paper, the bundled spark profiler shows what's taking each tick. Run /spark profiler start --timeout 600 while the lag is happening, and it'll return a report link after 10 minutes. From the server's shell, two Linux commands cover memory and load:

free -h
uptime

The available column in free -h is how much memory new programs can still use without swapping. uptime ends with the load average over 1, 5 and 15 minutes. That figure isn't divided by the number of CPUs, so you'll compare it to your plan yourself. A 15-minute load near 2 on Stack 8 means both vCPU are busy. On Stack 16 the same load uses half of its 4. A load near 1 with lag can still be one busy main thread, which a spark report will show.

When you outgrow the plan

Moving up is a plan change in the panel, and your server comes with you. The Help Center walks through how to upgrade in the panel. You can also add game capacity on a second server with the Additional Wings Node template. It doesn't have a panel or login of its own.

Your worlds live on the server's root disk, and backups are yours to run. If you're still choosing between your own server, a game host and Realms, see how much a Minecraft server costs for a group. For the panel itself, read Pelican vs Pterodactyl. The plan guide covers sizing other apps on a VPS.

Minecraft server RAM FAQs