Pelican vs Pterodactyl, and can we move our servers across?

Pelican published its Pterodactyl migration guide on October 10, 2026, the same day it tagged its 1.0 release candidate. A Pterodactyl user had asked for one back in April 2024, a month before Pelican's first beta. The guide upgrades your Pterodactyl database where it sits, with Pelican installed next to the old panel, so it's made for a group that's keeping its machine.

One codebase, two projects

Pelican started as a fork of Pterodactyl. Its FAQ puts the split down to a difference of visions, directions, and opinions, and it says there are no hostilities between the two teams. Pterodactyl has been open source since 2015, according to its site.

Both panels leave the running of each game to Wings, and both describe each game with an egg.

Pelican also moved the panel from Pterodactyl's MIT license to AGPLv3. You'd need its commercial license only if you changed the panel's code, kept the changes private and ran that panel for the public. Pelican's FAQ also says family, friends, and acquaintances are not the public. So a group can run a tweaked panel for its own members without the commercial license.

How the two panels compare

Versions as published on GitHub on October 22, 2026. Rows marked * come from Pelican's own comparison page, last updated October 11, 2026, which doesn't say which Pterodactyl version it compares against.

How much memory each panel takes

We measured both panels at rest on Oct 22, 2026, on our test machine with 2 vCPU and 4 GB (arm64), not a DreamHost server. Each came from its project's own Docker Compose file, and we measured before the web setup, with no game servers. Pelican Panel v1.0.0-rc.1 ran as one container on SQLite and used 196 MiB. Pterodactyl Panel v1.15.2 ran three containers, the panel, MariaDB 11 and Redis, and used 230 MiB. Either one is a small part of the 2 GB we set aside for the system and panel, so the game servers decide your plan. On a fresh Docker volume, Pelican's Compose file wouldn't start until we removed the mount for its plugins folder. We didn't run Wings, a game through either panel, or the migration.

Which panel fits your group

Can you move your servers across?

You can, and how depends on where Pelican goes: onto the machine you have now, or onto a new server.

On the same machine: Pelican's in-place upgrade

Pelican's migration upgrades your Pterodactyl database in place. Users, servers, nodes, eggs, databases, backups, schedules, subusers and API keys all come across, and the 1.0 release candidate keeps two-factor settings too. Game servers keep running and keep their files.

You need Pterodactyl 1.11.4 or newer and PHP 8.4 or newer with PHP-FPM. The migration script has a check mode that changes nothing and tells you what to fix first, such as an old PHP version or a missing extension. Run for real, it installs Pelican in /var/www/pelican, copies your .env file, upgrades the database and sets up the queue worker and cron job. After that, you point your web server at /var/www/pelican/public and turn off the Pterodactyl site yourself. On each node, a second script swaps in Pelican's Wings and keeps your config and server files. The same page has a Docker route and a by-hand route if you'd rather not run the scripts.

Pelican doesn't publish a rollback. Its guide sends you to its Discord if something goes wrong. Your old panel stays untouched in /var/www/pterodactyl. Going back would mean restoring those backups, putting Pterodactyl's Wings back on each node and turning the old site, queue worker and cron job back on.

To a new server running Pelican

Neither panel has a tool that moves a game server to a different panel. Someone asked Pelican for one in December 2024, and it's still an open idea. Neither project documents this move, so the steps below are our reading of what each one does document, and we haven't timed them on a DreamHost VPS.

1. Stop the server on Pterodactyl

   Stop it from the panel so nothing's writing to the world while you copy it.

2. Download its files over SFTP

   Pterodactyl's Wings has its own SFTP server. Connect with any SFTP client and copy the whole server folder to your computer.

3. Bring the same egg across

   If you changed the egg, export it from its page in Pterodactyl's admin area and import that JSON file in Pelican, which reads Pterodactyl eggs. If you didn't, import the game from Pelican's egg catalog.

4. Create the server with the same version, settings and memory

   Match the game version, the egg's variables and the memory limit to the old server. Creating it downloads the game files.

5. Stop it and upload your world over SFTP

   Pelican's Wings runs its own SFTP server and takes the same login as the panel. On our image, connect to your server's IP address on the SFTP port the panel shows for that server, and the files land under /var/lib/pelican/volumes. For a big world, you can run an SFTP client on the old server and push the folder straight here, which skips the trip through your home connection.

6. Start it and send your friends the new address

   The connect address is on the server's Console tab, with port 25565 for Minecraft or 8211 for Palworld.

Each world arrives with its files and settings. Your friends' accounts, their subuser permissions and your schedules live in the Pterodactyl database, so you set those up again in Pelican.

What the in-place upgrade keeps

Pelican's migration guide points theme users to its plugins, which can change colors, fonts and CSS without touching core files.

Where each project stands this month

Pelican put out 37 betas between May 12, 2024 and August 16, 2026. Then, on October 10, 2026, it tagged v1.0.0-rc.1, its first release candidate (rc.2 followed on October 22), and dropped the beta wording from its docs. Its FAQ now says Pelican 1.0 is out!, though there wasn't a final 1.0.0 tag by October 22. From 1.0 on, Pelican follows semantic versioning, any Panel 1.x works with any Wings 1.x, and only the latest release gets fixes. Moving up from beta38 or earlier needs PHP 8.4 and drops a few old Application API inputs, so check any billing integration that still sends them.

Pterodactyl's latest stable release is v1.15.2, from October 21, 2026. Its 2.0 went into open beta on October 14 with extensions, themes, an egg catalog and tags in place of nests, and the release notes say to keep production panels on 1.x for now. The 2.0 upgrade guide needs panel 1.12.0 or newer and PHP 8.3 or newer with the intl extension, and it installs 2.0 next to 1.x so you can switch back. It removes the nest endpoints from the Application API as well, which breaks a billing module that still calls them.

What running it yourself takes

Updates are yours on either panel. Pelican's update docs recommend its automatic update script and warn that an update overwrites the core eggs it ships, so copy an egg before you change it. Our image pins one tested beta release and leaves the move to 1.0 to you. Since Pelican fixes bugs only in its latest release, it's worth planning that update early. Pelican 1.0 needs PHP 8.4, so check the PHP version on your server before you update.

On our image, the panel starts with one local backup host on the same server as your worlds, and every new server has a backup limit of 0. Raise that limit before you count on a scheduled backup, and add an S3-compatible backup host in the panel if you want copies off the server. DreamHost support is available 24/7 for the hardware, network and connectivity, and the operating system, Pelican and your games are yours to manage.

Memory depends on the game. Our guide to how much RAM your Minecraft server needs goes by player count and mods. Palworld's requirements ask for 16 GB of memory on their own. For the money side, see how much a Minecraft server costs for a group.

Pelican and Pterodactyl FAQs