How to create your first game server with Hostd
Create your first game server: pick a game and tier, pick a free address, pay, and connect. Per-game RAM guidance inside.
Creating your first game server with Hostd takes three steps: pick a game and tier, pick a free address, then pay and connect. Most Minecraft servers are ready to join within a minute or two of payment clearing; some other games (Rust, ARK: SA) generate a world on first boot and take longer; per-game timings are noted further down.
1. Pick a game and a plan
Head to Pricing and choose the game you want. Each game has a few tiers sorted by RAM. The right tier depends on what you actually plan to run, not just the player count.
For modded Minecraft, the minimum is 6 GB for most modpacks (lighter Modrinth and Forge packs sit happily there). Bigger packs like All The Mods, FTB Skies, RLCraft and similar want 10 GB or more; drop below that and the server will thrash on chunk loads. Non-Minecraft games each have their own floor.
| Game | Smallest tier | What it copes with |
|---|---|---|
| Minecraft Java | Vanilla, 3 GB | Vanilla or lightly plug-in'd Paper, up to about 10 active players |
| Minecraft Bedrock | Lite, 2 GB | Small Realms-style world, 10 slots, no add-ons |
| CS2 | Starter, 2 GB | 10-slot practice or scrim, no plugins |
| Valheim | Lite, 2 GB | Small crew up to 10, vanilla map (mods possible but watch the RAM panel) |
| Palworld | Standard, 8 GB | 16 players, the floor the engine genuinely needs |
| Rust | Standard, 10 GB | 50 slots; below this you will see lag on populated wipes |
| ARK ASA | Standard, 12 GB | 30 slots; ARK is RAM-hungry, this is the genuine floor |
If you are heading for a heavy modpack, jump to Installing a modpack to match the pack weight to the right tier before you order.
2. Pick an address
At checkout you will be asked for a subdomain. It is free, included with every plan. Higher tiers within each game get the shorter yourname.hostd.it; lower tiers get yourname.hostdservers.com. The exact cut-off varies by game (see each game's pricing page for which tiers qualify). You can rename once every 30 days. More detail in Your free hostd.it address.
3. Pay and connect
Payment clears, the server provisions automatically, and you land on the dashboard with the server running. For Minecraft Java, the address is the bare subdomain (awesome-mc.hostd.it). For other games, paste the address with the port shown on the dashboard (awesome-mc.hostd.it:25566).
Modded packs install on first boot and show live progress in the dashboard.
Last updated 2026-05-20. Notice a mistake? Tell us.