So you want to run your own ARK: Survival Evolved dedicated server. Good call — once you've played on a server you actually control, going back to officials feels rough. You pick the map, you pick the rates, you pick the mods, and you decide who's allowed on. This guide walks through what you're signing up for, how self-hosting compares to going with a provider, and how setup actually works if you order a box from us.
A quick word on what ARK actually needs
Before we get into it, it's worth being honest about one thing: ARK is hardware-hungry. It always has been. The server process is mostly single-threaded, so clock speed matters more than core count, and RAM usage depends almost entirely on what you're doing with it. A vanilla Island server for you and four friends is the lightest thing you'll ever run. A heavily modded Genesis or Ragnarok server with a big tribe, hundreds of tames and a full mod list is a different beast entirely — and everything in between sits on that scale.
We deliberately don't quote exact numbers here because they depend on your map, your player count, and how much you and your players like hoarding dinos. Our ARK: Survival Evolved plans lay out what's included and how to scale up if you need more. Pick something in the middle and upgrade later if your population grows — that's what most people end up doing anyway.
Self-hosting from home
You can absolutely run ARK on your own box. People do it, and for a LAN party or a server for three friends it's perfectly reasonable. You'll need a machine that isn't also being used for anything demanding, decent upload bandwidth (ARK is chatty, and your players will feel it if you're on a flaky connection), and you'll need to get comfortable with port forwarding — 7777 UDP for the game, 27015 UDP for the Steam query port. If you want to run BattlEye you'll need to enable that on the command line and make sure your players have it installed too.
The catch is everything that comes after launch day. You're the one patching when Wildcard pushes an update. You're the one restarting at 3am when the save corrupts. You're the one fielding "why is it lagging" messages when your ISP has a bad evening. There's no DDoS protection on a residential line, and the moment somebody on your server makes an enemy in a PvP tribe, you'll find out what that means the hard way. It's doable, it's just not fun, and it stops being free the moment you count your own time.
Going with a provider
This is where we come in. Instead of running ARK on the machine you also use for Photoshop, you rent a slot on hardware that was built for game servers and let us handle the boring parts. With LOW.MS specifically you get:
- Cloud Backup taking regular snapshots so a bad mod update or a rollback doesn't cost you three weeks of tribe progress
- Mod Manager wired directly into Steam Workshop, so installing and updating mods is a few clicks rather than a scavenger hunt through file paths
- Configuration Files editor for GameUserSettings.ini and Game.ini, with syntax highlighting rather than notepad-and-a-prayer
- Commandline Manager for switching maps, flipping crossplay, adding cluster parameters and toggling BattlEye
- Web Console so you can watch the server live and run admin commands without logging into the box
- Instant automated setup — from order to a running server is a matter of minutes
- Multiple regions across Europe and North America so you can host close to your players
- DDoS protection on every server, and support staff who actually know ARK and are around 24/7
How setup actually works
The short version is: you order, we provision, you log in. The slightly longer version:
- Pick a plan on the ARK: Survival Evolved hosting page and check out. If you're not sure what size to go for, err on the smaller side — you can upgrade later without losing your save.
- Your server is provisioned automatically. You'll get an email with your login details for control.low.ms once it's ready.
- Log into the panel, open Commandline Manager, and pick the map you want to start on. The Island is the sensible default if you're new to running a server. Ragnarok is the crowd favourite once you know what you're doing.
- Open Configuration Files and set your admin password, server name, and any rate multipliers you want. Taming, harvesting and breeding multipliers are the ones most people change first.
- If you want mods, head into Mod Manager and pick them from Workshop. Restart the server when you're done.
- Grab your IP and port from the panel, hand it to your tribe, and you're live.
There's a proper walkthrough in our Getting Started guide if you want screenshots, and the Server Configuration guide goes deep on rates, breeding and admin commands. If something breaks, the Troubleshooting guide covers the usual suspects. There's also the older but still useful how-to-create-an-ark-dedicated-server guide if you want more background.
A note on clusters
If you want to run more than one map and let your players travel between them with their characters and tames, that's a cluster. Clusters are one of the best things about ARK and also one of the most fiddly things to set up cleanly, which is why we handle it for you. Order the servers you want in the cluster, open a ticket with support, and we'll wire them together with a shared transfer directory and a cluster ID. We've set up clusters ranging from two servers up to well over thirty — whatever size you're planning, we've probably done bigger.
Ready when you are
That's about it. ARK is one of those games where the server is half the experience, and running your own is genuinely worth the small amount of effort involved. If you'd rather skip the self-hosting headaches and have something running in the next ten minutes, take a look at our ARK: Survival Evolved plans and pick whatever fits. We'll handle the rest, and if you get stuck support is always around.