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Terraria server requirements

What a Terraria server needs in CPU, memory, disk and bandwidth, by player count. Change the numbers for your own server; the sources are listed below.

Mods (vanilla vs tModLoader)
Assumptions

What it needs

CPU
4 coresSingle-thread heavy: clock speed matters more than core count.
Memory
3 GB
NVMe storage
5 GB
Traffic per month
91 GB
Busiest upload
under 1 Mbit/s

On Clouduxe

Room to grow

VDS FusionCore

4 dedicated cores, 16 GB DDR5, 200 GB NVMe, 10 TB traffic

₹9,940$104.49/mo

  • 8 GB more memory, 120 GB more NVMe.
  • Dedicated cores: your server never waits for a core another customer is using.
  • Headroom for busy evenings, more players, and the mods and updates you add later.
Deploy FusionCoreAbout FusionCore

By player count. Without mods (vanilla vs tmodloader); each step up in the calculator adds memory, disk and sometimes a core.

PlayersCPUMemoryNVMeTraffic a monthFits your loadRoom to grow
83 cores2 GB5 GB45 GBVPS StarterVDS FusionCore
164 cores3 GB5 GB91 GBVPS GrowthVDS FusionCore
245 cores4.5 GB5 GB136 GBVDS OmniCoreVDS PrimeCore
327 cores5.5 GB5 GB181 GBVDS PrimeCoreVDS TitanCore
5010 cores8 GB5 GB284 GBVDS TitanCoreVDS UltraCore
10018 cores15.5 GB5 GB567 GBBare metalBare metal

Traffic assumes 35% of the player cap online on average across the month; change it under Assumptions in the calculator.

Where the numbers come from. Published figures first, then how the calculator turns them into a model.

Published requirements

How the model is built

Memory
0.5 GB plus 150 MB per player. Base 0.5 GB matches the official wiki's stated minimum of '500 MB free RAM for a small world' (source 0). The per-player slope is fitted so 3 players lands near 1 GB and 8 players near 2 GB, matching a hosting guide's vanilla table (source 1: small/medium world 2-3 players = 1GB; medium/large world 4-8 players = 2GB) and a second guide's tiers (source 2: 1-6 players = 1GB, 7-15 players = 2-4GB). This is the vanilla (no-mods) figure; multiply by the mods level for tModLoader.
CPU
2 cores, one more for every 6 players. Source 2 gives dual-core for 1-6 players and quad-core for 7-15 and 16+ players. Base 2 cores plus one extra core roughly every 6 players reaches 4 cores at 15-16 players, matching that jump.
Disk
2 GB for the server plus 3 GB for saves and backups. The base game and tModLoader binaries are small; source 3 advises setting aside '500 MB' minimum and 'up to 2000 MB' for mods, which the growth budget covers alongside world saves and backups. SSD is recommended for performance in source 2 but Terraria is not disk I/O intensive like larger 3D games, so it is not treated as required.
Bandwidth
50 kbit/s of upload per player. Sources disagree by roughly two orders of magnitude. A hosting guide (source 2) recommends 5 Mbps for 1-6 players and 10 Mbps for 7-15 players, which is 700-800 kbps per player, while a player-reported real-world figure on the game's own Steam forum (source 4) says a 10-player server needs only about 32-64 kbps total (roughly 3-6 kbps per player), consistent with Terraria's lightweight tile/event-based networking. 50 kbps per player is used as a defensible middle estimate that leans toward the lower, empirically-grounded figure, since generic hosting-guide bandwidth tiers are often generic across many game types rather than measured for this specific game. Treat as upload from the server.
Mods (vanilla vs tModLoader)
Memory times 1.6 for some and 2.5 for heavy; a heavy load also adds a core.

The official Terraria wiki only states a bare RAM minimum for a small world and does not give CPU, disk, or bandwidth figures, so those come from third-party hosting guides and a player forum report that disagree with each other, in the case of bandwidth by close to 100x. tModLoader (modded) servers vary widely depending on which mods are installed; Calamity- or Thorium-class content mods and stacked modpacks are the main driver of higher RAM needs, not vanilla play.

Before you set it up. The ports it listens on and what the guides say drives its load.

Ports

PortProtocolUsed for
7777TCPgame traffic (default port)
7777UDPgame traffic (needed for some cloud/NAT setups)

Game server hosting: every game we size, the protection each one gets, and the plan for it.

DDoS protection is on every Clouduxe plan. How Prism handles game traffic.

What drives the load

  • Terraria's simulation runs mostly on a single thread, so a faster CPU clock helps more than extra cores.
  • tModLoader roughly doubles RAM needs for a large modpack (Calamity, Thorium, or several big mods stacked together) compared to vanilla at the same player count.
  • The default max player count is 16 (raised from 8 in the 1.4 update); the game technically supports up to 255 but most servers run 4-16 for performance and gameplay reasons.
  • Terraria's actual network usage is very light for a game its size; treat generic hosting-guide bandwidth tiers as generous headroom rather than a hard requirement.

Terraria server questions

Talk to us
How much RAM does a Terraria server need?

About 2 GB for 8 players and 15.5 GB for 100, before mods (vanilla vs tmodloader). Base 0.5 GB matches the official wiki's stated minimum of '500 MB free RAM for a small world' (source 0). The per-player slope is fitted so 3 players lands near 1 GB and 8 players near 2 GB, matching a hosting guide's vanilla table (source 1: small/medium world 2-3 players = 1GB; medium/large world 4-8 players = 2GB) and a second guide's tiers (source 2: 1-6 players = 1GB, 7-15 players = 2-4GB). This is the vanilla (no-mods) figure; multiply by the mods level for tModLoader.

How many CPU cores does a Terraria server need?

3 for 8 players, 18 for 100. The server is single-thread heavy, so the clock speed of one core matters more than how many cores it has. Source 2 gives dual-core for 1-6 players and quad-core for 7-15 and 16+ players. Base 2 cores plus one extra core roughly every 6 players reaches 4 cores at 15-16 players, matching that jump.

How much bandwidth does a Terraria server use?

About 50 kbit/s of upload per connected player, so under 1 Mbit/s with 16 players online and about 91 GB a month if 35% of that cap is online on average. Sources disagree by roughly two orders of magnitude. A hosting guide (source 2) recommends 5 Mbps for 1-6 players and 10 Mbps for 7-15 players, which is 700-800 kbps per player, while a player-reported real-world figure on the game's own Steam forum (source 4) says a 10-player server needs only about 32-64 kbps total (roughly 3-6 kbps per player), consistent with Terraria's lightweight tile/event-based networking. 50 kbps per player is used as a defensible middle estimate that leans toward the lower, empirically-grounded figure, since generic hosting-guide bandwidth tiers are often generic across many game types rather than measured for this specific game. Treat as upload from the server.

Which Clouduxe plan should I pick for Terraria?

For 16 players, VPS Growth fits the load and VDS FusionCore leaves room to grow. Every plan includes DDoS protection: 17 Tbps of upstream mitigation plus Clouduxe Prism on the server.

Other games. The same calculator, sized from each game's own documentation.

All calculators

Host Terraria on VPS Growth.

Sized for 16 players, with DDoS protection included. Or talk to us about a bigger server.

See VPS GrowthSize another server