How Much RAM Is Good for a Minecraft Server? Is 1GB Enough?

howtogeek.com:

Hosting a Minecraft and playing with friends is fun—but not if the experience is a laggy mess. Here’s how to calculate how much RAM your Minecraft server needs.

Before we dive into the details, let’s start with the golden rule for selecting how much RAM you need for your Minecraft server.

You don’t need how much RAM somebody tells you that you need. You need how much RAM it takes for a smooth player experience.

For most players goofing around with a few friends, 1GB of RAM for their Minecraft server is more than sufficient—especially if they optimize their server experience.

But if you search for information about how much RAM a Minecraft server needs the answers you get can feel, well, a little all over the map. A lot of the results you find are recommendations provided by Minecraft server host providers. Hosting packages scale in expense based on factors like how much RAM, processing power, and disk space the package offers.

So there’s a bit of an inherent bias in recommending you buy a bigger hosting package. Not only does the provider make a little more money but there’s a good chance you won’t need to file support tickets or require extra help if the server is oversized for your needs.

“How much RAM do I need for my Minecraft server?” is a question akin to “How big of a vehicle do I need?” in that you can’t effectively answer the question without considering how the server (or vehicle) will be used. So a blanket “Everybody should have 4GB of RAM for their Minecraft server,” statement is about as useful as “Everyone needs a cargo van.”

Let’s dig into some of the major factors that contribute to RAM usage and lead to server lag when there is insufficient RAM.

In the Minecraft world, by the way, server lag is often referred to