SHSelfHostIndex

Game Servers

Host multiplayer with self-hosted game servers and browser-game platforms.

159 self-hosted apps · 59 comparisons

All game servers apps

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 467 words

Most people open this category wanting a Minecraft server for friends or kids, so here is that answer up front: use the itzg Minecraft image (14,206 stars, Apache-2.0), set a few environment variables, and you are done in 15 minutes. The image auto-downloads server jars, supports Paper, Forge, and Fabric, auto-installs plugins and mods, and has some of the best documentation in self-hosting. Everything else here is for people hosting something other than Minecraft.

How to choose a game server

First separate the three jobs on this shelf. Hosting a dedicated server for a game you already play (Minecraft, Mindustry, OpenRCT2, Unciv) is an evening of work. Self-hosting an entire game platform (Lichess) is an ongoing project. Building the backend for a game you are developing is what Nakama (13,213 stars, Go) exists for, with matchmaking, leaderboards, accounts, and realtime multiplayer, and it belongs in a different evaluation entirely.

Second, read RAM minimums as floors, not budgets. The itzg image lists 1 GB minimum, which survives two vanilla players; a modded server with a handful of friends wants 4 GB and some Java flag tuning. Mindustry's headless server, by contrast, genuinely idles happily near its 512 MB figure.

Third, check the admin surface and the fine print. Several servers here are administered through a text console rather than a web panel, including Mindustry and OpenRCT2. And OpenRCT2, faithful remake though it is, requires the original RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 assets, so each player needs a copy of a 2002 game.

Where to start

The itzg image plus Paper is the default stack: Paper (12,603 stars, GPL) is the high-performance Minecraft server fork with the massive Bukkit/Spigot plugin ecosystem, and the image handles its lifecycle for you. Mindustry (28,740 stars, GPL) is the sleeper pick: the game is free, the dedicated server is rated Easy, and co-op tower-defense-plus-factory sessions cost nearly nothing to host. Unciv (11,136 stars) rounds out the budget tier with a self-hostable multiplayer server for its Civilization V remake that runs on scraps.

Lichess is a platform, not a weekend

Lichess (18,671 stars) is magnificent software and fully open source, but self-hosting it means operating a multi-service Scala application rated Hard with a 4 GB minimum: gameplay, analysis engine, puzzles, tournaments. Deploy it because you are building a chess community with real needs, never because a private board sounded fun; for that, play on lichess.org.

Default for a first-timer: the itzg image running Paper, with 4 GB allotted and nightly world backups from day one. It is the rare self-hosted service your users will test within the hour.

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Game Servers comparisons

59 head-to-head comparisons in this category.