Best Lightweight Game Servers for self-hosting

The 55 best Lightweight game servers you can self-host, ranked by community traction.

At a glance

AppDeploy effortDifficultyMin. RAMLicense★ Stars
OpenRCT2Read-the-docs projectMedium512 MBGPL-3.016,427
papermc-docker≈5-minute setupEasy1,024 MBApache-2.014,419
2048Read-the-docs projectEasy64 MBMIT13,433
Paper Note - PaperMC server alt SpigotUnder-an-hour setupMedium1,024 MBGPL-3.012,731
UncivUnder-an-hour setupEasy512 MBMPL-2.011,436
OpenTTDUnder-an-hour setupEasy256 MBGPL-2.08,367
shapez.ioRead-the-docs projectEasy256 MBGPL-3.06,989
Battle for WesnothRead-the-docs projectEasy512 MBGPL-2.06,937
GeyserMCUnder-an-hour setupMedium256 MBMIT5,908
LeafRead-the-docs projectMedium256 MBApache-2.05,511

Quick picks

Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Lightweight within the game servers category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.

Keep exploring

Head-to-head: Lightweight game servers