Valheim has a great modding scene built around BepInEx and Thunderstore, and on a self-hosted server the install is pretty simple – download BepInExPack, drop it into the server folder, drop .dll files into BepInEx/plugins/. On LOW.MS it's a bit different. Our Valheim servers run on Windows with TCAdmin, and our control panel deliberately doesn't accept .dll uploads from customers (blocking executable uploads on shared hosting is pretty standard security). So the workflow here involves us a bit more than a typical self-host guide would tell you.

The short version: a couple of hundred mods are one-click from the built-in Mod Manager. For anything outside that catalogue, you send us the list of Thunderstore URLs and we install it for you. Your players still handle their own clients with r2modman as normal – that side hasn't changed. If you are weighing up hosts, you can spin up a Valheim server with us and the Mod Manager is there from day one.

Before you pick a mod

A few things worth knowing before you settle on a mod list.

Crossplay and mods: what actually happens

You'll read in a lot of places, including in earlier versions of this guide, that turning crossplay on stops BepInEx loading and kills every mod on the server. That isn't right, and it's worth correcting properly because it's been sending people down the wrong path for a while.

All the -crossplay argument does is move your server off Steam's matchmaking and onto Iron Gate's PlayFab backend. It doesn't touch mod loading. BepInEx attaches when the game process starts, before the server has even read its command line, so a startup flag can't stop the loader. Run a crossplay server with mods on it and you'll see BepInEx start, load your plugins, and the PlayFab backend come up, all in the same log.

What crossplay genuinely does break is a particular class of mod: anything written on the assumption that every player arriving would be on Steam. Mods that key off a SteamID64 for admin or permitted lists, or that lean on Steam networking, can misbehave or throw errors when someone joins. Enough mods still carry that assumption that the blanket advice, keep crossplay off on a heavily modded server, is still sound. The reason usually given for it isn't.

There's also a hard limit that has nothing to do with BepInEx: console players can't install mods at all. If your server runs anything client-side, they can't match your mod list, so they can't join whatever the server does. Today that means Xbox and Game Pass players. From 1.0 on 9 September it means PS5 and Switch 2 players too. That's the real trade-off to weigh, not the loader.

Server-side, client-side, or both?

Every Valheim mod is one of three things: server-side only, client-side only, or both. Always check the mod's Thunderstore page before you ask for it. Mismatched server/client mod sets are the #1 reason "I can't connect" tickets exist.

Back the world up first

Especially if you're installing mods that touch world generation, building pieces, or items. Mods aren't going to corrupt your world most of the time, but the times they do you'll really wish you'd taken a backup. Every LOW.MS server has Cloud Backup in the panel sidebar – kick one off before anything significant goes in.

Option 1: Mod Manager (the easy route)

Open your server in the LOW.MS Control Panel and look for Mod Manager in the left sidebar. There's rather more in there than people expect: north of two hundred pre-bundled Valheim mods, each installing with one click. No ticket, no files, no version juggling.

They sit in two groups. The Thunderstore.io group is the bulk of it and covers most of the names you'd actually think of – Jotunn, EpicLoot, PlanBuild, ValheimPlus, CreatureLevelAndLootControl, Expand_World, Server_devcommands, XPortal and a long tail past those. The ungrouped set is our own bundles: ValheimRAFT, BuildShare V2, Better Wisplight, Bigger Chests, Chest Reloaded, Compass, Cooking Station Tweaks and similar.

Have a proper look through it before you write a ticket. A good share of the "can you install X for me" requests we get are for mods already sitting in that list. Some older entries are labelled (Outdated), which means what it says: they haven't been rebuilt for a recent Valheim version, so treat those as a maybe rather than a yes, and tell us if one misbehaves.

Use Mod Manager if:

The mod is in the catalogue. Have a browse first – it's the first thing to check.
You want something low-friction to try a few popular mods.
You want to uninstall cleanly with a click later on.

You'll need the custom-mod route below if:

The mod genuinely isn't in the catalogue. Thunderstore is enormous and ours is a subset of it, so plenty of things won't be there.
You need to pin a mod to a specific version – Mod Manager always installs whichever version is bundled.
You're putting together a complex modpack with manual config tweaks.

Option 2: Custom mods via support

For anything outside the Mod Manager catalogue, the workflow is: you send us the list of mods, we install them on the server. We'd love for this to be self-service, but Windows + TCAdmin won't accept customer .dll uploads through File Manager, SFTP or FTP, so custom mods go through us.

What to put in the ticket:

A list of Thunderstore URLs, one per line.
For each one, whether you want the latest version or a specific version pinned. If you've already built a modlist in r2modman and exported it, just share that file and we'll mirror it exactly.
Anything else worth flagging – e.g. "this mod depends on Jotunn but I've already included Jotunn in the list", or "please keep these updated whenever Thunderstore shows a new release".

What we'll do on our end:

Install BepInExPack for Valheim on your server if it's not already there. On Windows that's winhttp.dll, doorstop_config.ini and the BepInEx/ folder in your server root.
Drop your requested mods into BepInEx/plugins/. For mods that ship default config files or assets, we'll include those as well.
Double-check the startup is set up so BepInEx actually loads when the server boots.
Restart and check BepInEx/LogOutput.log to confirm everything loaded cleanly.

Most custom-mod tickets are sorted within the hour during working hours, quicker outside those if the queue is empty. The first install is the slow one because we're putting BepInEx in for the first time. Subsequent "please add this mod" tickets are usually just a file drop and a restart.

Removing a mod is the same workflow – open a ticket with "please remove X" and we'll pull the .dll and restart. If you ever want to go fully unmodded again just say so and we'll strip BepInEx out entirely.

What about mod updates?

Valheim mods break regularly on game updates. If you're on a custom-mod setup, you've got two options:

Leave it to us. Tell us up-front that you want mods kept current. We'll watch the Thunderstore pages and push updates after the dust has settled on the game update.
Drive it yourself. When you see a mod's been updated, ping us and we'll swap it in. A lot of groups prefer this because you often want to pin versions for a while before updating.

Either way works – just tell us your preference the first time we set things up.

Editing mod config files

This bit you can do yourself. After a mod runs for the first time it generates a config file in BepInEx/config/. These are plain text .cfg files, not .dll, so they're not blocked by the upload filter.

Ask us to install the mod (Option 2 above), or install it via Mod Manager.
Start the server once so the config file gets generated.
Stop the server.
Open Configuration Files in the panel sidebar – .cfg files for installed mods are usually listed there, or you can find them under BepInEx/config/ in File Manager.
Edit the settings you want, save, and restart.

Config files are roughly INI format:

[Section]
## Description of the setting
# Setting type: Boolean
# Default value: true
MySetting = true

Some mods sync config from server to clients automatically – the Thunderstore page will usually tell you whether they do. Others expect the same config file on the client side, which your players handle themselves via r2modman.

Setting up your players' clients

Client-side mods are entirely up to your players – we don't touch anything on their end. The easiest path by a long way is a mod manager. Don't have them install BepInEx by hand unless they're comfortable with it.

r2modman (recommended)

r2modman by ebkr is what we'd suggest. It's free, actively maintained, and handles dependencies automatically.

Download and install r2modman.
Pick Valheim as the game.
Create a new profile for your server (e.g. "My Server Mods").
Search for and install the same mods we've put on the server.
Click Start modded to launch Valheim with the mods enabled.

If you've got a specific Thunderstore modlist pinned by version, have every player import that same list in r2modman. Matching versions across the group is the single most reliable way to avoid "I can't connect" tickets.

Thunderstore Mod Manager (Overwolf)

The Thunderstore Mod Manager is the alternative. Same idea, slightly different UI.

Manual install (advanced)

If a player really wants to install BepInEx and mods by hand on their client:

Install BepInExPack into the Valheim game directory (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Valheim\).
Drop mod .dll files into BepInEx/plugins/ inside that directory.
Launch Valheim normally through Steam.

It's fine, but a mod manager is much harder to mess up. For groups of more than two or three people, manual installs aren't worth the support overhead.

Troubleshooting

Mods aren't loading

In rough order of likelihood:

Client/server mismatch. Every player needs the same mods at the same versions. r2modman makes this obvious – anyone with a different modlist will just fail to connect.
Missing dependencies. The Thunderstore page lists each mod's dependencies. If you asked us to install a mod and the dependency wasn't on the list, drop us a ticket and we'll add it.
Mod isn't compatible with your current Valheim version. After game updates this is usually the culprit.
A mod that assumes Steam, on a crossplay server. Read the log before you assume this one: BepInEx does load with crossplay on, so if the loader started and your plugins are listed, crossplay isn't stopping them. If a specific mod is throwing on join, though, and it handles admin lists or networking, this is worth testing. Crossplay isn't a settings toggle – it's decided by which predefined line your server starts with in Commandline Manager. Switch from Default (With Crossplay) to Default and restart to test it. One thing to know before you do: only the Additional Configuration line carries the preset and extra-argument tokens, so moving between lines can quietly drop tuned settings. If you need crossplay and custom arguments at the same time, open a ticket and we'll sort a custom line.

BepInEx/LogOutput.log is the file to read for anything weird on the server side. You can browse to it via File Manager or open the live Log Viewer in the panel sidebar. It's verbose, but the actual problem is usually obvious if you scroll to the end.

Server crashes after adding a mod

Open a ticket with "please disable the mod we added last" – we'll pull the .dll back out and restart. From there it's a bisection: if the server boots, that was the culprit. If it doesn't, we'll pull the one before.

Players can't connect after adding a mod

Almost always a client/server mod mismatch.

Check whether the mod is server-side, client-side, or both.
Verify every player has the same mods at the same versions.
Some mods enforce strict version matching and will kick clients on a mismatch – the Thunderstore page will say.
The fastest "nuke and start over" fix: have the player wipe their r2modman profile and reinstall the same list from scratch.

Mods stop working after a Valheim update

Normal. Game updates regularly break mods, sometimes for a few hours and sometimes for a week. The drill:

Don't update your server immediately when a Valheim update drops.
Check each of your installed mods on Thunderstore for a compatible release.
If a critical mod hasn't been updated yet, hold off on the server update. The dedicated server app does keep older builds on Steam branches (default_old is the previous stable, and there are branches going back to before Mistlands), so a rollback is possible if you're stuck – open a ticket and we'll switch you. Usually it's easier to wait it out.

If you've asked us to keep your mods current, we'll already be watching. Drop a message in your ticket if you want to push things along.

Mod load order

BepInEx handles most load order automatically – you usually don't need to worry about it. If you do hit a load-order conflict, the mod's docs will say what needs to go first. Open a ticket and we'll adjust.

Need help?

Mod setups can get messy, especially the first time. If you're stuck, open a ticket from the panel – we deal with Valheim mod installs every day and can usually spot the problem in a few minutes. The more detail you give us up-front – Thunderstore URLs, which versions, what you've tried – the faster we'll have you sorted.

How to Install Mods on Your Valheim Server