What We Know About Hytale Server Hosting (And What We Don't)

In April 2020, Hytale was acquired by Riot Games. There were multiple delays, until it was eventually canceled in June 2025. In November 2025, Hypixel Studios bought it back from Riot Games and immediately got to work. Early access launches January 13, 2026. Pre-orders open December 13.

If you’re planning to run a server, you’re probably seeing a lot of confident hosting recommendations already - specific RAM amounts, player counts, hardware specs. Here’s the thing: nobody outside Hypixel Studios has run a production Hytale server yet. Those numbers are educated guesses.

We’ve been getting questions about Hytale hosting lately, especially since the reacquisition. This post separates what’s actually confirmed from what’s speculation, explains why some common assumptions don’t apply, and covers what you should look for in a host regardless of exact specs.

What’s Confirmed About Hytale’s Server Architecture

Hypixel Studios has been unusually transparent about what they’re building. Here’s what we know for certain from their official blog posts.

The server runs on Java, not the C++ engine that was in development before the reacquisition. That decision matters for hosting because server plugins will be Java-based (.jar files), similar to Bukkit, Spigot, or Paper plugins for Minecraft. If you’ve worked with those, the experience will transfer.

Hypixel Studios has committed to releasing the server source code within 1-2 months of early access launch. They’re calling it “shared-source” rather than open source - the code will be readable for learning and reference, but with some legal constraints. This is specifically to help modders understand the system when documentation is incomplete.

Everything runs server-side. This is where Hytale differs from Minecraft in a way that affects hosting. When you connect to a Hytale server, your client doesn’t download mods separately. The server sends everything it needs - blocks, items, NPCs, UI changes, all of it. Players keep one clean client, and servers provide the customization.

Even singleplayer technically runs as a local server. The modding model is the same whether you’re playing alone or hosting 50 people. Content that works in singleplayer will work in multiplayer, unlike Minecraft, where you need to ensure you’re not uploading client-side mods to a server.

How Hytale’s Modding System Affects Hosting

Modding isn’t an afterthought in Hytale - it’s the foundation. Hypixel Studios built the game with the same tools they’re releasing to modders. Anything they can do, you’ll be able to do.

There are four types of mods:

Server plugins (Java) - the most powerful option. These let you fundamentally change how the game works: custom economies, commands, minigame logic, new asset types. Requires programming knowledge, but gives you deep control.

Data assets (JSON) - blocks, items, NPCs, loot tables, world generation rules. You can add substantial content by editing text files without writing code.

Art assets - models, textures, animations created in Blockbench. The game officially supports the industry-standard tool.

Save files - entire worlds or “prefabs” (pre-built structures) that can be shared and used in world generation.

The server-side architecture means your server handles more processing than a traditional Minecraft server. When a player connects, the server is doing the work for blocks, NPCs, UI, everything. That’s why “just copy Minecraft specs” doesn’t work as a planning strategy.

View Distance Is the Performance Variable

Hypixel Studios has been direct about this in their hardware requirements post: view distance is the biggest factor in both client and server performance.

View distance controls the radius of world loaded and simulated around each player. Doubling it (say, 192 to 384 blocks) quadruples the amount of data the server must handle - 4x more blocks, entities, calculations.

The game is designed around a 384-block view distance, but you can adjust this. For hosting, this means the same server specs will perform very differently depending on how you configure view distance. A 4GB server might handle 15 players fine at 192 blocks, but struggle with 8 players at 512 blocks.

The Hosting Requirements Nobody Actually Knows Yet

This is where honesty matters. Several hosting providers are publishing specific RAM recommendations and player counts. The truth is nobody outside Hypixel Studios has run production Hytale servers yet.

No official server specifications have been published; What exists right now are educated guesses based on similar games.

Without production data, we’d suggest starting in the 4-6GB range for small groups (under 20 players) and 8-12GB for larger communities. But treat these as starting points, not gospel. Monitor actual usage once the game launches, and scale based on what you observe.

The nice thing about good hosting is that scaling up should be easy. If you start at 4GB and find you need 8GB after a week of play, that should be a quick change, not a migration project. At WinterNode, upgrading is a simple process, and we cover it in our Help Center.

What We Can Say With Confidence

NVMe storage is non-negotiable. Hytale worlds are procedurally generated and designed to feel alive - dynamic structures, evolving biomes, event-driven encounters. Loading chunks from an HDD or even a SATA SSD will cause rubber-banding for your players. If your host is still running game servers on spinning drives in 2026, that’s a red flag. NVMe should be standard, not an upsell.

CPU matters for world generation. When players explore new areas, the server generates terrain in real-time. That’s CPU-intensive work, and it happens in bursts. You want modern processors with high single-core speeds. A pile of slow cores won’t help as much as fewer fast ones.

Plan for change, not just launch day. A server might start as simple survival and later add custom progression systems, new mobs, world events, or minigame hubs. Each addition changes the hosting load profile. Assume mods will multiply your workload over time.

What Early Access Really Means

The Hytale team have been direct about expectations. From their official announcement: “This is true early access, meaning it’s still very much unfinished and will be buggy for a while.”

They’ve acknowledged the modding tools are uneven, documentation is incomplete, and crashes should be expected. Technical director Slikey was particularly blunt in the modding update: “Stability is a priority, but currently, data integrity cannot be guaranteed. Backups are mandatory.”

This isn’t a polished 1.0 release. It’s a raw build that works well enough to play while development continues. Updates will be frequent. Things will break. Saves might be affected. Servers may not work entirely.

Plan for troubleshooting, and more importantly, choose hosting that can handle this instability. You need automated backups running frequently, not once a day. You need the ability to roll back to a working version when an update breaks something at 2 AM. And you need support that responds with humans who can help you debug, not canned responses from a ticket system that takes 48 hours.

What to Look for in a Hytale Host

Since exact specs are unknowable right now, focus on the attributes that matter regardless of the numbers.

NVMe as standard, not optional. If it’s listed as an upgrade or premium feature, keep looking.

Modern hardware with high clock speeds. Look for recent AMD Ryzen or Intel processors. The specific generation matters less than knowing they’re not running servers on 5-year-old chips.

No CPU throttling or artificial limits. Some hosts cap CPU usage per server or limit thread access. For a game with burst performance needs (world generation, complex mod interactions), those limits will hurt.

Transparent pricing. If the advertised price doesn’t include basic features other hosts bundle in, you’re looking at nickel-and-diming. Storage caps, CPU limits, backup costs - these shouldn’t be surprise charges.

Quick scaling options. You should be able to change RAM allocation without migrating to a new server or waiting for manual provisioning.

Actual human support. During early access, you’ll run into issues that aren’t in any knowledge base yet. A ticket system staffed by people who understand server hosting makes a difference. Bonus if they’re available on Discord for real-time help.

Honesty about unknowns. If a host is making very specific promises about Hytale performance before the game exists, that’s a yellow flag. Nobody knows yet. The honest answer is “we’ll find out together and adjust as needed.”

WinterNode’s Hytale Plans

We’re obviously biased, but we’ve been through this before with Palworld, Vintage Story, and Enshrouded - games that launched with hosting unknowns and required quick adaptation. We’ll have Hytale available at launch.

Our hardware won’t hold you back. Modern AMD Ryzen processors at high clock speeds, NVMe across all nodes, no CPU throttling. When Hytale demands burst performance for world generation or complex mod interactions, you’ll get it.

All our game servers are priced at $1.99/GB of RAM. We don’t charge extra for CPU usage, storage space, or NVMe - those are standard. We take backups twice daily at 2AM and 2PM Central Time, automatically and free of charge with no storage cap. No tiers of quality, no hidden fees. You pick your RAM allocation, and that’s your price.

Scaling up or down is quick and doesn’t require migration. We’re also planning to publish real resource usage data from our production servers within the first few weeks - actual benchmarks, not speculation.

We’ve had some clients ask about Hytale support over the last few weeks after the reacquisition announcement. The interest is there, and we’re ready for it. Everything’s backed by our 48-hour refund policy if it’s not working for you.

Got questions before launch? Our support team responds to tickets with actual humans, and we’re active on Discord if you prefer real-time chat. We’ll also be updating this guide with concrete performance data in late January once we have it.

What Happens After Launch

Hypixel Studios has said modding is central to Hytale’s long-term survival. Community servers and modded content are explicitly part of the early access vision. From their announcement: “Modding: Available at launch. Run your own servers and create custom content.”

The first few weeks will be chaotic. Servers will crash, mods will conflict, performance will be unpredictable. That’s the nature of true early access, especially for a game this ambitious.

What matters is having hosting infrastructure that can adapt quickly. We’ll be monitoring our nodes closely, publishing usage data transparently, and adjusting recommendations based on what we actually observe. No guessing, no speculation - just real numbers from real servers.

If you’re planning to run a Hytale server, start conservative with RAM allocation. Monitor your actual usage. Scale based on what you see, not what some spec sheet claims. And choose a host that makes scaling easy, because you’ll probably need to do it at least once in the first month.

The game launches January 13, 2026. We’ll see you there.