Minecraft server players per GB of RAM

"How many players per GB" is the question everyone asks, and the honest answer is that players are only half of it. The world your players load is the other half. Here is a rule of thumb you can plan with, and the settings that move the number.

The rule of thumb

Every server needs a base amount of RAM just to run, and then roughly 50 to 75 MB for each player on top. How much RAM does my Minecraft server need? shows how the base is worked out for each server type and mod count. Read the table as "on top of the base":

Two things fall out of this. A plain Paper server is generous: 4 GB comfortably carries a group of twenty. And a big modpack eats the budget before anyone joins: an 8 GB server running All The Mods with two players can be tighter than a 4 GB Paper server with twenty. The Modded Minecraft Server Hosting Australia page shows the RAM each one-click modpack is sized for.

Why view distance is the real driver

Each player keeps the chunks around them loaded, and a loaded chunk costs memory whether one player is standing in it or five. The number of chunks per player is roughly (2 x view distance + 1) squared:

Ten players spread across the map at view distance 10 hold over 4,000 chunks in memory; the same ten at view distance 8 hold under 3,000. That is the single biggest lever you have, and it costs nothing:

1. Open the Config Editor tab and find Performance (or edit server.properties in the File Manager).
2. Set View distance (chunks) (view-distance) to 8 for a busy survival server, or 6 if it still struggles. Players can't see further than the server sends, so their own render distance only matters below this cap.
3. On Minecraft 1.18 or newer, set Simulation distance (chunks) (simulation-distance) to 5 or 6 as well. Simulation distance is how far crops grow and mobs move; it is usually the part players notice least and the part that costs the most CPU.
4. Select Save changes, then restart the server. When the Console shows Done (...s)!, the new distances are live.

Players who spread out cost more than players who build together: a group in one town shares chunks, while ten explorers each load their own set.

Other things that shift the number

• Plugins and mods that add world generation (biomes, dimensions) make every chunk heavier.
• Entities: mob farms, item frames and dropped items pile up. Paper's spigot.yml and paper-world-defaults.yml limits are worth setting on a public server.
• Pre-generating the world with a plugin such as Chunky trades a one-off CPU cost for far smoother chunk loading later. It does not reduce memory use, but it removes the lag spike of generating chunks while people play.

When to upgrade

Move up a tier when you see any of these with the settings above already applied:

• The console prints Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded? during normal play, not just on boot.
• The RAM Usage card on the Console tab sits above 85% for long stretches, or the server crashes with java.lang.OutOfMemoryError in the log.
• Players report block lag (broken blocks reappearing) while their ping is fine.

To upgrade, open Billing (/dashboard/billing) and choose Actions, then Change plan on the server's subscription. Your world and settings stay as they are, and the new RAM takes effect on the server's next restart.

Work it out for your exact setup

Set the Player count and Server software (and, for Fabric, Forge or NeoForge, the Mod load) to get a recommendation with headroom already built in. The same tool has its own page, the Minecraft server RAM calculator, with a players-per-GB table:

If your server still struggles at the size the calculator suggests, send your player count, mod loader, mod count and view distance with your support ticket.