Rent a high-performance Project Zomboid server on fast hardware. Instant 60-second setup, free mods, always-on DDoS protection and 24/7 support — from $10.99/mo.
ONLINEEvery plan includes DDoS protection, NVMe storage, one-click mods and 24/7 support. Upgrade or downgrade anytime — no setup fees.
Prices in USD. * Slots are performance-based, not licence-capped. 7-day money-back guarantee.
Premium hardware, real protection and a control panel built for gamers — not sysadmins.
Your server is online in under 60 seconds — pick a plan, pay, play. No waiting, no manual config.
Always-on, multi-Tbps filtering on every plan and location keeps your world online through any attack.
High-clock AMD Ryzen cores and NVMe SSD storage deliver zero-lag tick rates and fast world loads.
Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Warsaw, Stockholm, Milan and Madrid — host close to your players for low ping.
Install modpacks and plugins straight from the control panel — no files, no fuss.
Real humans on live chat and tickets, with a 7-day money-back guarantee on every plan.
Build 42 is now the version most groups play. The Indie Stone moved 42.20 to the public Stable branch on 29 July 2026, and it shipped with multiplayer, which had been back on the Unstable branch since 42.13 in December 2025. 42.21 followed on Stable on 28 September 2026 with fixes for zombies duplicating in multiplayer and disappearing when a player re-entered a chunk. Build 41 saves do not carry over to Build 42, so a group with a long Build 41 world can stay on the legacy41 beta branch, which still received a hotfix (41.78.21) in August. The server and every player have to be on the same branch.
A dedicated server keeps its configuration in four files named after the server: servertest.ini for server options, servertest_SandboxVars.lua for the sandbox rules, plus the spawn point and spawn region files. In the ini, Open=false turns the server into a whitelist where admins create accounts with adduser, PauseEmpty (on by default) stops game time while nobody is online, and BackupsCount, BackupsOnStart and BackupsOnVersionChange control the built-in world backups. You can save the ini while the server runs and apply it with reloadoptions. Players connect through Join, then Favorites, using the server's IP and port 16261. By default the game uses UDP ports 16261 and 16262.
The official PZ wiki sizes a server at a base of 3 GB plus about 500 MB per player, so its four-player example comes to 5 GB. By that arithmetic Starter's 4 GB suits a duo, Plus's 6 GB about six players and Pro's 8 GB about ten, with fewer slots once a large mod list is loaded, since the wiki notes that mods add to the memory need. MaxPlayers defaults to 32, and the server settings reference warns that higher counts can cause poor map streaming and desync. Servers run in European locations, the web control panel handles settings, restarts after a patch and file uploads, and the 7-day money-back guarantee applies if the server does not suit your group.
Workshop mods load through two lines in servertest.ini, and a modded server needs both. WorkshopItems= takes Workshop IDs, the number at the end of each mod's Workshop URL, separated by semicolons, and tells the server what to download. Mods= takes mod IDs, the id= value in each mod's mod.info, and decides what loads. One Workshop item can hold several mods. Map mods also need their folder name in the Map= line. Connecting players download the server's Workshop mods automatically. Check that each mod has a Build 42 version first: the official wiki shows Build 42 mods using common and version-numbered folders that Build 41 mods lack.
Your Project Zomboid server comes with the full GGameHost panel. Click through to see what you get.
Five steps, about two minutes. No command line, no port forwarding.
Choose the Project Zomboid plan that matches your group. Starter suits a small private world; you can upgrade in one click later without losing anything.
There is nothing to install and no server to configure by hand. Payment goes through and your machine provisions itself in under a minute.
Your login is the email you signed up with. The panel shows live CPU and RAM, a real console, and one big Start button.
Pick your version, set the slots and allocate 4–8 GB. Mods and plugins install from the panel — no FTP, no config files by hand.
Copy the address from the panel and send it to your group. Plans here run up to 32–64 slots. That is the whole job — the server stays online whether or not you are.
Seven European locations, each with always-on DDoS protection and NVMe storage.
Pick the city closest to most of your Project Zomboid players and tell us when you order — we deploy your server there.
See all locations →Project Zomboid is a Medium-class game. For a smooth experience we recommend 4–8 GB RAM, scaling with player count and mods. CPU clock speed matters most for tick rate — our high-clock AMD Ryzen hardware keeps Project Zomboid fast even under load, and you can upgrade in one click as your community grows.
The official Project Zomboid Tech Support wiki sizes a dedicated server this way: allocate at least 3 GB of RAM for the server itself, then add roughly 500 MB for every additional player you plan to host. Its worked example is 4 players on 5 GB total.
| Players | Assigned memory (3 GB + 0.5 GB per player) |
|---|---|
| 4 | 5 GB |
| 8 | 7 GB |
| 16 | 11 GB |
| 32 | 19 GB |
Only the 4-player row appears on the wiki; the rows below it extend the same published formula. The wiki adds that a modded server may need more, depending on how much RAM the mods use.
Slot count comes down to one server setting, MaxPlayers. Its documented default is 32, and admins do not count against it.
That ceiling is not the number to plan around. The official server settings reference attaches an error-level warning to the key: player counts above 32 "will potentially result in poor map streaming and desync", and it asks you to proceed with caution.
Two version facts also shape the decision: 42.20 has been released to the public Stable branch, and online multiplayer returned to Build 42 in 42.13.0.
The server is a separate Steam application, Project Zomboid Dedicated Server, rather than the game client. SteamCMD fetches it under an anonymous login; the wiki's install script annotates that line as being for servers that don't need a login.
The server pulls Workshop content itself, keeping a list of Workshop item IDs to download. The wiki notes that mods added this way then download automatically onto connecting client machines.
Two conditions are worth settling up front. First, friends on GOG or another non-Steam copy need a server started in non-Steam mode, and everyone then has to join through the non-Steam version of the client; Steam owners get there by adding -nosteam to the game's launch options. The same wiki records that disabling Steam's API integration "prevents joining Steam servers or accessing Workshop content", so a non-Steam world and a Workshop-heavy world are two different setups. Second, groups that would rather stay on Build 41 have a route: the 42.20 release announcement points server owners and online players at an existing legacy41 beta channel.
