How to buy or rent a DayZ server without overpaying

Before you rent a DayZ server, answer four questions: are your players on PC or on console, how many mods will you run, where do your players live, and do you have a Steam account you are willing to hand to a host. Those answers decide almost everything else. A PC server for a private group or a 30 to 40-slot vanilla community needs about 6 GB of memory, two real cores and 35 GB of disk. A server built around Expansion, traders and AI needs 10 to 12 GB and more disk than people expect. Console players cannot join a PC server at all. And the slot number printed on a plan is the least informative thing on the page, because DayZ's cost is driven by mods, persistence and one busy CPU thread, not by how many people are allowed in.

This guide is about the buying decision: what to look for, what to avoid, and what to do on the first day so the money is not wasted. The detail on memory is in how much RAM a DayZ server needs, the install and mods are in the DayZ server and mods guide, and every config key is in serverDZ.cfg explained.

PC or console: the decision that comes first#

DayZ has no crossplay. A PC server accepts PC players on Steam, an Xbox server accepts Xbox players, and a PlayStation server accepts PlayStation players. Nothing you configure and nothing a host sells changes that, so the platform your group plays on decides what you are shopping for.

PC servers are the open market. The server application (DayZ Server, Steam app id 223350) can be installed by anybody with a Steam account that owns the game, on their own hardware or on any host. You get the files, the mission folder, the mods, BattlEye and full control.

Console servers are a different and much narrower product. Xbox and PlayStation community servers are not something you can install yourself: they are rented through Bohemia's licensed console partner, which has for years been Nitrado. You cannot run one at home, you cannot move one to another host, and you cannot run mods, because console clients cannot load them. What you can usually change is the economy and gameplay files - types.xml, globals.xml, cfggameplay.json and similar - through the partner's web interface. Console arrangements are commercial agreements and can change, so check Bohemia's current information before you pay for one.

The honest summary for console groups: if anybody tells you they sell a DayZ server your PlayStation friends can join alongside PC players, they are wrong. If you need a console server, buy it from the licensed partner, and spend your effort on the economy files, since that is the part you control.

The rest of this guide is about PC servers, where the choice is real.

Slots or RAM: how DayZ servers are priced#

Hosts price game servers in one of two ways.

Per slot. You pick a number of players and the price scales with it. It is easy to understand and it maps badly onto DayZ, because a slot costs almost nothing directly. What costs memory and CPU is the central economy, persistent bases, infected counts and the mod list. A 60-slot vanilla server can use less memory than a 30-slot server running Expansion's market and AI. A slot-priced plan either hides the resources behind the number - in which case you do not know what you are buying - or charges you for player capacity you may not need while giving you too little of the resource you do.

Per resource. You buy memory, CPU and disk, and set maxPlayers in serverDZ.cfg yourself. This matches how DayZ actually behaves, and it means a quiet private server and a crowded public one on the same plan are the same price. The catch is that you have to know what you need, which is what the table below is for.

Whichever model a host uses, find these four numbers before paying. If a plan page does not state them, ask; if the host will not say, that is your answer.

maxPlayers is a line in a text file. A plan that "allows 100 slots" on 4 GB has told you nothing about whether 100 people can play on it; the answer is no. How many players fit on a server goes through the reasoning for any game.

Sizing: what to buy for what you will run#

These ranges come from the DayZ RAM guide, which explains where each gigabyte goes. Disk is the column people skip and regret.

How to use it:

• Size for the mod list, not the slot count. Write down the mods you intend to run before choosing a plan. Community Framework and an admin tool are cheap. Expansion with its market, vehicles and AI modules, plus a weapons pack and a clothing pack, puts you in the bottom row whatever your player count.
• Size for month two, not day one. Persistence grows with every base, stash and vehicle. A server that is comfortable in its first week can be tight five weeks later.
• Buy CPU deliberately. A DayZ server's health is its logged server FPS. Above about 30 is healthy; below about 15, players notice rubber-banding and doors that need two attempts. Memory you do not use does nothing for that number. Game server CPU requirements explains why one fast core beats several slow ones.
• Leave disk headroom for mod updates. Workshop downloads, a second copy of a mod folder you are testing, logs and the .ADM file all land on the same disk.

The cheapest correct purchase is usually the tier that fits your mod list with a margin of about 15% memory at the end of a restart cycle. If the host lets you move up a tier on the same server, starting one tier lower and measuring is reasonable; if moving means reinstalling, start one tier higher.

Mod-heavy servers: what the plan must allow#

Most DayZ communities are modded, and mods are where cheap plans and restrictive hosts fall down. Before buying, make sure you will be able to do each of these.

1. Upload folders, not just files. A mod is an @ModName folder containing addons, keys and sometimes a config. You need SFTP or a file manager that takes folder uploads, because thirty mods uploaded file by file is an evening gone. SFTP and the file manager covers both.
2. Copy keys. Every mod's .bikey must sit in the server's keys folder, or BattlEye kicks players with a signature error. If a host's mod system manages this for you, check that it does it again after every mod update.
3. Edit the launch line. You need control over -mod= and -servermod=, including the order, because frameworks such as @CF must load before the mods that depend on them.
4. Edit the mission folder. Mods that add items need economy entries, ideally in a custom folder registered in cfgeconomycore.xml. A host that hides the mission folder hides the place most DayZ administration happens.
5. Choose when to update. A DayZ patch breaks mods until their authors rebuild them. You want to decide when mods update, not wake up to a server nobody can join. What to do when a mod update breaks is the plan for that day.

A host's mod picker is convenient for the popular mods, but check that you can still add a mod it does not list, by hand, without a ticket. If the only route is their list, your server is limited to their list.

Expansion and community maps deserve their own planning. Expansion is modular, and running only the modules you use makes a large difference to memory and CPU - see the DayZ Expansion server guide. A community map such as Namalsk or Deer Isle brings its own mission folder and adds a gigabyte or two; running Deer Isle or Namalsk covers what changes.

The Steam login requirement#

Unlike most Steam games, the DayZ server cannot be downloaded with an anonymous SteamCMD login. The install needs a Steam account that owns DayZ:

$ steamcmd +force_install_dir /home/dayz/server +login <steam_account> \    +app_update 223350 validate +quit

Every host that installs a PC DayZ server is doing that with an account you supply, or with one of their own. That has consequences you should think about before you pay.

• Use a spare account. Create a separate Steam account, buy DayZ on it, and use it only for servers. It costs one copy of the game. In exchange, the account you give a host has nothing else on it: no inventory, no payment method, no friends list, no other games.
• Expect the credentials to be stored as typed. A host needs the password to update the server later, so it is kept in a form that can be used, not as a one-way hash. That is normal and unavoidable. It is exactly why the account should be a spare.
• Steam Guard. SteamCMD asks for a Steam Guard code the first time an account logs in from a new machine. Read what your host's install step asks for and have the code ready; after the first login it usually does not ask again.
• Change the password if anything changes. If you hand the server to another admin, leave a host, or suspect a leak, change the spare account's password and update it on the server.

Workshop mods are downloaded against the client app id, 221100, with the same login. SteamCMD explained covers app ids, validate and beta branches if you are doing any of this by hand.

On RE:NODE the server is created as soon as payment clears, and the DayZ install then waits on the Setup tab until you enter that Steam login. The panel stores it as typed, which is one more reason to use the spare.

Location and ping#

DayZ is UDP and latency-sensitive, and a player with a bad connection desyncs for the people around them, not only for themselves. Put the server close to the bulk of your players. A server in central Europe serves Europe well and the eastern United States acceptably; it is the wrong choice for a group in Australia or on the American west coast, however cheap it is. Game server ping by region has the rough distances, and choosing where your server lives covers the decision in general.

Two settings in serverDZ.cfg relate to this:

maxPing = 200;hostname = "EU | Chernarus | Vanilla+ | 3-hour restarts";

maxPing kicks players whose ping stays above the value in milliseconds, which protects everybody else from a player who would rubber-band. Putting the region at the front of hostname lets players filter themselves out before they join.

RE:NODE runs in one location, Germany, on hardware we run. That suits European communities and is not the right buy for a group whose players are mostly in Asia, Oceania or the Americas. Pick a host near your players rather than the other way round.

Backups: what a host should give you#

DayZ keeps every base, tent, stash, vehicle and character in storage_<instanceId> inside the mission folder. That folder is your server's entire history. Lose it and the world is wiped; corrupt it and storageAutoFix = 1 may save you, or may not. The mission XML you spent evenings tuning is the second thing worth protecting.

What to look for in a plan:

• Backups included, not an add-on. You will want one before every mod update and every game patch.
• Stored somewhere else. A backup on the same disk as the server protects against a bad edit, not against losing the machine or deleting the server.
• Restorable without a ticket, and downloadable, so you can keep your own copy.
• Schedulable, so the backup runs just before the scheduled restart rather than when somebody remembers.

Then restore one. Backups that actually restore explains why: a backup nobody has restored is a hypothesis. Game server backup strategy covers how many to keep and when to take them, and DayZ wipes and persistence explains what is in storage_1 and what a partial wipe can remove.

Every DayZ plan on RE:NODE includes two backup slots. Backups run on demand or on a schedule, restore with a button, can be downloaded, can be locked so rotation does not remove them, and are stored off the machine they protect. One caution that applies there and almost everywhere: deleting a server deletes its backups, locked ones included. Download a copy before you cancel anything.

Plans and offers to avoid#

Most bad DayZ purchases fall into a short list.

• Slot-priced plans that do not state memory and CPU. You cannot size a DayZ server on a slot count. If the resources are not on the page, you are buying a guess.
• Small memory with a big slot number. "60 slots" on 4 GB is a 60-player config line on a server that will struggle with a modded 20.
• Small disk for a modded server. Under about 30 GB, a twenty-mod list, its updates and a season of logs will fill it. A full disk stops saves, and a DayZ server that cannot write persistence is a server about to lose a raid's worth of bases.
• No access to files. If you cannot reach serverDZ.cfg, the mission folder, keys and the profiles logs, you cannot administer DayZ. A config form with ten fields is not a substitute.
• A year paid up front, on the first day. Longer terms are cheaper per month at most hosts, including ours. They are worth it after you have run the server through a busy weekend and know the tier is right, not before. A refund is a conversation; a monthly term is a decision you can revisit.
• The wrong continent. A cheap server far from your players costs you the players.
• "Unlimited" anything. Memory, CPU and bandwidth all have limits somewhere. A plan that names its limits is one you can plan around.
• A shared Steam account you do not control. Some offers install with an account of their own. That works until the account is changed or banned, and then your server cannot update. Know whose login is doing the install.

Also be wary of buying the top tier "to be safe". Memory you do not use does not raise server FPS. If the server is slow while memory has room, the fix is fewer infected, less AI or a lighter mod list - CPU vs RAM for game servers shows how to tell which is the limit.

A first-day checklist#

The first evening sets up the server you will live with. Do these in order.

1. Install with the spare account. Enter the Steam login, wait for the install to finish, and start the server once vanilla so it generates its folders and logs.
2. Back up the clean install. Before any edit, take a backup and lock it if your host allows. It is your copy of the untouched mission folder and config.
3. Set identity and access in `serverDZ.cfg`. hostname with region and map, passwordAdmin as a long random string, password or enableWhitelist for a private server, and a realistic maxPlayers.
4. Match the ports. Check that -port and steamQueryPort match the ports your host allocated. A server that is joinable by IP but missing from the launcher list almost always has the query port wrong - see game server ports explained.
5. Set the RCon password. It lives in BEServer_x64.cfg in the BattlEye folder inside the profiles directory, separate from passwordAdmin. Make it long and random, and read RCON safely. DayZ admin tools and BattlEye RCon covers the clients.
6. Turn on the logging you will need. The block after this list gives you the numbers for every sizing decision later.
7. Add mods one at a time. Upload the folder, copy its key, add it to -mod= in dependency order, restart, join, read the log. Adding twenty at once turns one mistake into an evening of guessing.
8. Schedule the restart cycle. Every three to four hours is the DayZ norm. Put a backup just before one restart a day. Restart schedules that help covers choosing the interval, and db/messages.xml can warn players before each one.
9. Watch one busy evening. Read the logged server FPS and memory across a whole cycle before you change tier in either direction.

logAverageFps = 300;logMemory = 300;logPlayers = 300;timeStampFormat = "Full";

The values are intervals in seconds. With them set, the .RPT file in the profiles folder records server FPS, memory and player count every five minutes, which is all the evidence a sizing decision needs.

FAQ#

How much does a DayZ server cost to rent?

It depends on the memory and CPU you need rather than the slot count. A vanilla or lightly modded PC server needs about 6 GB, and a heavily modded one 10 to 12 GB, so compare plans at those sizes. A cheaper plan with less memory will not run the server you want.

Can PC and console players share a DayZ server?

No. DayZ has no crossplay, so PC, Xbox and PlayStation servers are separate. Console community servers are rented through Bohemia's licensed console partner and cannot run mods.

Do I really need to give a host my Steam password?

The DayZ server cannot be installed anonymously, so a Steam account that owns the game has to log in. Give the host a spare account that owns DayZ and nothing else, never your main one, and change its password whenever admins or hosts change.

Is it cheaper to host DayZ at home?

The hardware may already be paid for, but you need a CPU with a fast core, enough memory, upload bandwidth, port forwarding through a router that is not behind CGNAT, and a machine left on. Hosting at home vs renting compares the real costs.

Can I move my DayZ server to another host later?

On PC, yes. Copy the mission folder including storage_<instanceId>, serverDZ.cfg, the keys folder and your mod list, then install the same game build and mods on the new host. Console servers cannot be moved off the partner's platform.

Should I start with the biggest plan?

No. Start with the tier that fits your mod list, turn on logMemory and logAverageFps, and measure a full busy cycle. Move up if memory is close to the limit; if FPS is low with memory to spare, a bigger plan will not help.