Getting Started with Hytale Server Hosting

Hytale launched into Early Access on 13 January 2026, and it's been a long time coming – development started in 2015, the studio went through being bought by Riot and then reformed as an independent company in late 2025, and now the game is finally in players' hands. If you've been waiting as long as I have, welcome. Let's get you a server up.

This guide walks through the first-server experience on LOW.MS: ordering, the first boot, connecting, and the small handful of things worth setting up before you invite anyone in. I'm assuming you already know you want a dedicated server rather than hosting peer-to-peer. If you're still on the fence, the short version is: a dedicated server runs 24/7 whether you're playing or not, it handles mods properly, and it doesn't eat into your gaming PC's frame rate.

Picking a plan

Hytale server hosting on LOW.MS is RAM-based. The more RAM you buy, the more players the server can comfortably hold, and the more mods it can support. As a rough rule of thumb: 4 GB is fine for a small group of friends on vanilla, 6–8 GB gets you comfortable with light modding, and 12–16 GB is where you want to be for a larger community running a heavier mod pack.

I'm not going to list prices here because the Hytale hosting page always has the current tiers. You can also swap plans later if it turns out you misjudged – upgrading a server keeps the world, mods, and config intact.

Every plan includes automatic cloud backups, DDoS protection, and access to the full control panel. Dedicated IP and premium CPU are optional upgrades if you want them.

Ordering and first boot

Pick a RAM tier on the hosting page, pick a region close to where your players live, add any extras you want, and check out. The server is provisioned within a couple of minutes, and you'll get an email with the connection details and a link to log in.

On first boot, LOW.MS takes care of the things that trip up self-hosters: Java 25 is installed for you, the server is pre-authenticated, UDP port 5520 is open, and the server is ready to accept connections. You don't need to run /auth login device yourself unless you're self-hosting from your own machine – on LOW.MS it's already done.

Log in to the LOW.MS control panel and your new server will be on the dashboard. The top of the page shows the server's IP and port (that's what you and your friends will use to connect), along with SFTP details if you want to move files in and out directly. The left-hand sidebar is where you'll do most of the actual work:

• Service Settings – change the server name and password.
• Configuration Files – edit config.json, permissions.json, whitelist.json, bans.json in the browser.
• File Manager – full filesystem browser for everything else, including the mods/ folder.
• Commandline Manager – the launch command, if you need to add a custom flag.
• Mod Manager – one-click installs for a curated set of mods.
• Web Console – live in-browser console for issuing commands and watching logs.
• Log Viewer – historical logs, where to go after something crashes.
• Scheduled Tasks – automatic restarts and any other recurring work.
• Cloud Backup / Cloud Restore – managed backups and restores, separate from anything in-game.
• Current Activity & Stats – live RAM, CPU, bandwidth, and player graphs.

Connecting

In the Hytale client, go to the Multiplayer menu, pick Direct Connect, and paste in the IP and port from your control panel dashboard. That's it – no extra port, no weird protocol negotiation. Hytale uses QUIC over UDP, so as long as UDP isn't being blocked between you and the server (home ISPs basically never block it), you'll connect.

If Direct Connect fails, the failed-to-connect troubleshooting guide is the first place to look. There's also a dedicated join guide that walks through saving the server to your favourites.

The four things worth doing first

Once the server is up, there are a handful of setup steps that I'd do before inviting people in. None of them take long.

1. Make yourself an admin. You'll want admin rights to run commands, kick anyone misbehaving, and edit permissions later. The permissions and ranks guide walks through how permissions.json works and how to set your account up as a server admin.

2. Pick your game mode and world settings. Exploration or Creative is the first decision. If you're going Exploration, take a minute to think about your world seed – write it down, because it's the only way to reproduce the same world later. The server settings guide has the full walkthrough of config.json.

3. Decide how private the server should be. If it's just you and a few friends, set up a whitelist – it's much more robust than a password. If you want a drop-in-drop-out vibe, set a simple password instead. Both are covered in the whitelist and password guide.

4. Install any mods you want from the start. One of the best things about Hytale is that players auto-receive any mods installed on the server when they connect – no client setup required. If you know you want a specific mod pack from day one, install it before anyone joins so the first experience is the one you want them to have. The mods and plugins guide has the full process.

Keeping the server up to date

Hytale is in active Early Access, which means updates land often. Running an older version than the client is the single most common reason players suddenly can't connect after an update – if your friends say "Hytale just updated and now I can't join", that's almost always what happened. The update guide covers how updates work on LOW.MS (usually: one click in the panel).

I'd also take a fresh Cloud Backup before every big update, just in case.

Where to go next

The rest of the Hytale knowledgebase is organised around specific tasks. A few you'll probably hit early:

• Hytale server requirements and specs – if you want the detailed hardware picture.
• Hytale save file locations – where worlds, mods, and configs live on disk.
• Migrating a singleplayer world to a dedicated server – if you want to bring an existing solo game online.
• Performance optimisation – once you have real players, this is where to tune.

If you get stuck, support is 24/7 – open a ticket from the panel and someone will be along.