The fastest way to get a Palworld 1.0 server running for you and your friends is to rent one that installs itself, then share the address. No SteamCMD, no port forwarding, no leaving your own PC on all night. Here is the whole process, start to finish.
Rent a server or self-host?
You have two real options for an always-on Palworld world.
Self-hosting means running the dedicated server app (Steam app id 2394010) on a spare machine, forwarding ports on your home router, and keeping that PC powered on 24/7 so friends can join while you are asleep or at work. It is free if you already have the hardware, but you inherit the whole job: firewall rules, a public IP that changes, no protection when someone points a DDoS attack at your home connection, and a server that goes dark the moment you shut the lid.
Renting skips all of that. The host runs the dedicated server in a data center on a fixed address, keeps it online around the clock, and absorbs DDoS attacks before they ever reach you. Palworld leans hard on RAM and single-thread CPU speed, so the hardware matters more than people expect. If you want to weigh both paths in detail, we wrote a separate guide on how to choose a Palworld host. For most groups who just want to play tonight, renting is the shortcut.
Set up a Palworld 1.0 server in minutes
Renting a server sounds technical, but there is almost nothing to configure to get moving.
- Open the Palworld 1.0 hosting page and pick your RAM. Servers start at 6 GB, which comfortably holds a group of friends. Palworld is memory-hungry, so give yourself headroom if you plan on a big guild or a busy base.
- Deploy. The panel installs the Palworld 1.0 dedicated server for you automatically, pulling app id 2394010 with an anonymous login. There is no SteamCMD to run by hand.
- Wait for setup, which is instant, then hit start. Your world boots on Ryzen 9 class hardware.
That is the entire setup. No router changes, no config files to hand-edit before your first launch, no command line. When it finishes you get an IP and port to share, plus a control panel for everything else.
Connect and invite your friends
Once the server is running, there are two ways in.
The simplest is the in-game community server list: open Palworld, choose to join a multiplayer server, and search the community browser for your server name. The other way is a direct connect by IP. Grab the address and port from your panel and hand them to your friends, who enter them under the direct connection option. Either way, everyone lands in the same persistent world.
Because the server lives in a data center, it stays online whether or not your own PC is on. That is the whole point: your friends can log in and keep building at 3 a.m. while you sleep.
Turn on crossplay
Palworld 1.0 supports crossplay across Steam, Xbox, PS5, and Mac, so your whole friend group can share one world regardless of platform. Crossplay is controlled in your server configuration through PalWorldSettings.ini, which you can edit right from the control panel without touching FTP. Save the change, restart the server so it reloads the config, and players on every supported platform can join the same address.
Dial in your world settings
Defaults are fine for a first session, but Palworld rewards tuning. In PalWorldSettings.ini you can adjust experience gain (ExpRate), capture odds (PalCaptureRate), egg hatch time (PalEggDefaultHatchingTime), day and night length, Difficulty, and the death penalty. You can turn on player-versus-player damage with bEnablePlayerToPlayerDamage, raise the player cap with ServerPlayerMaxNum (up to 32), and size your guilds with GuildPlayerMaxNum.
You do not have to memorize any of it. Edit the file from the panel, restart, and the new rules apply. For sensible starting values and the combinations we recommend, see our best Palworld server settings guide.
Keep it on 1.0 and up to date
Pocketpair ships patches often, and 1.0 will keep getting fixes. On a rented server, staying current is simple: a restart auto-runs SteamCMD, so the server updates itself to the latest 1.0 build every time it boots. There is nothing to download or validate by hand.
If you are moving an existing pre-1.0 world up to the full release, that is a slightly different job, and we cover the safe order of operations in our update to Palworld 1.0 guide. One note worth repeating: 1.0 does not wipe your saves, but Pocketpair suggests starting a fresh world to see everything new, from the Sky Islands to the World Tree endgame.
Ready to play?
Setting up a Palworld 1.0 server really is a five-minute job when the host does the heavy lifting. Pick your RAM, deploy, share the address, and you are exploring the Sky Islands with friends tonight.
Rent a Palworld 1.0 server and use code SUMMER26 for 50% off your first month.
