Hey everyone, after seeing a few posts about server hosting on this sub and r/feedthebeast I thought I would write an all inclusive walk through to picking the right setup for you. I feel qualified to write this post after working for a company that did both VPS hosted servers and node hosting

1- Understanding your needs

Ask yourself what will the server be. Vanilla/modded, public/private, friends/randoms and then how big the server will be.

First let's talk about vanilla/modded.

A vanilla server needs far less power than a modded server. A server running any kitchen sink pack needs a MINIMUM 4gb on the Ram department to keep a decent TPS.

If you only plan for 3-4 people a 4gb modded server us perfectly fine. If you plan for 6+ you will need atleast an 8gb server maybe more depending on the mods and how crazy your players are. I ran a FTB:IE server for 10 players who all were extremely end game players that make crazy machines and at the end I had to upgrade from 8gb to 16 because they were obliterating the server with some of the machines.

Public VS private- if you have a private server you control the max amount of players logged in at all times through your whitelist. Therefore it is easy to plan the size of your machine because you know what to expect.

When you are public you have only the max player slots to control your max players, it is also recommended to keep the count decently high because players have been known to be turned off by low max player count servers. In general for a public server plan for atleast Double your estimated needs so that you can accommodate waves of players that appear whenever you advertise or bump your server.

Friends/Randoms this kind of ties into public/private but if you plan to open a server and just let people in without having friends already there, you can not expect everything to be great. Randoms will create TPS killing machines and it is always a good idea to have a stronger machine when dealing with randoms to lower the effects of their lag machines

2- your options

You have 3

1- the most common method, dedicated hosting. You go to a website and pay for a rental slot that runs only Minecraft. It shares a machine with all other servers on that node.

2- VPS rent a personal server, no one else is sharing it's resources it's all yours, you can run any game (usually) host a website and even a team speak off it.

3- extra computer, if your internet is good and you only plan for 1-2 people your extra computer (so long as it's not a potato) can run the server.

Pros/Cons

Node Hosting

PROS- quick easy setup, swipe the card wait 5 minutes and bang your logged in

Most hosts have modpacks setup already from a selection menu

Cheaper for tiny servers

CONS- oversold, every host company puts too many servers in their nodes. This causes other servers to dig into what should be your servers resources causing the entire node to slow down.

More expensive for larger servers

Lack of customization

VPS

PROS. Only you use your resources, you are not connected to anyone else.

100% flexible you can run Minecraft ARK TS server you name it

Better machine specs. (As an industry average)

Cheapest for large servers

CONS- your on your own fixing issues.

Need to be knowledgeable with Linux is most cases

More expensive for small servers

The laptop

PROS- it's right there and is free

CONS- home Internet's don't run servers very well.

Dedicated port on node hosts- DON'T DO IT. If you must have your own dedicated port so people don't have to put yourIPhere:12345 as the address. GET A VPS Only one server on each node can have the dedicated port. So this is what happens when you buy it. You get moved to an open node, then they will the node with servers who don't want the port. These are usually the small guys the 1-2gb GREAT DEAL NOW servers

Those servers are run by kids and will be POORLY managed and will TAX THE CRAP out of the machines and you are stuck with them.

You have better odds not getting on a node like that by sticking to your 4gb without a dedicated port

When I was working for a node host I would keep all the 4-8gb servers near echother so that they ran to fill a machine and had less total servers on the machine. For example all of our setups were 32gb machines. I would reserve 2gb for system and the other 30 divide among users over 4gb and a machine would look like this

3 4gb 3 6gb

That's six servers running on one machine. Vs nodes I would stuff (ones with a dedicated port taken)

1 8gb (has the port) 16 1gb 3 2gb

That's 19 servers on one node ya that CPU is done.

But I did it that way because it made the company more money. Those 16 small servers would only last a month maybe 2 the longest lasting 1gb I ever saw went 7 months, and my logs showed only one person ever logged in. It was basically someones single player. And that one large server I may lose because "lag" but I'm ok because this other node is full of happy customers that pay me an average of 6 months, and pay more than the small guys do.

As a side note I want to let everyone know something about those server hosts you always see advertised. MOST DO NOT OWN THEIR SERVERS they are renting space just like you would on a VPS and renting a small space inside that to you.

You are getting middle manned by these companies, many of which are one or two man bands looking for a buck. It's why they overload servers.