7 Days to Die

7 Days to Die server requirements

Two kinds of current evidence, shown separately: what the game publishes as its system requirements, and what the current server configuration documentation says you can set. They answer different questions, and mixing them is how bad advice gets made.

The memory figures are not a dedicated-server sizing table

You will see 8 GB and 12 GB below. Those are the game's published minimum and recommended memory — the requirements for playing 7 Days to Die. They are not “8 GB for a small server, 12 GB for a big one”. Nobody published that table, and turning two tiers for the game into two tiers for a server would be us making it up with somebody else's numbers on it.

The store page proves the point itself: it notes that running the dedicated server and a client on the same machine doubles the RAM requirements. That note only makes sense if the plain figures already include a client. It is shown with the memory figure below, because a figure separated from its qualifier is worse than no figure at all.

Current published system requirements

Published on the game's Steam store page as a current system requirement. These are the figures the game is sold against, covering the game as it is normally played. They are not a dedicated-server sizing table, and the store page's own note about running a server and a client together is the clearest sign of that.

Scope: Applies to the game as a whole, client included — not to a dedicated server on its own.

Current published requirementMemory (RAM): Minimum 8 GB RAM; recommended 12 GB RAM
Two tiers for the game, not for a server. The gap between them is the difference between the game running and the game running well — it is not a sizing table where 8 GB is a small server and 12 GB is a bigger one. See the note below about running a server and a client on the same machine, because it changes both numbers.
Published qualifierRunning the server and playing on one machine: Running the dedicated server and a client on the same machine doubles the RAM requirements
Published alongside the memory figures, and the single most important thing on this page. If the machine hosting the server is also the machine you play on, the published RAM requirement doubles. We are passing on that relationship and not the numbers it would produce, because the doubled figures are not published anywhere. It is also proof that the plain 8 and 12 GB figures were never dedicated-server-only numbers: a figure that already covers a client is not a server sizing figure.
Current published requirementProcessor: Minimum 2.8 GHz quad core; recommended 3.2 GHz quad core or faster
Stated as a clock speed and a core count, which is unusual enough to be worth taking at face value: four cores in both tiers, with the recommended tier asking for more speed rather than more cores. No processor model is named, so compare against the figures rather than looking for a part.
Current published requirementStorage: 15 GB available space
The published figure for installing the game. Saved worlds grow on top of whatever the install takes, and no figure is published for that, so we are not adding one.
Current published requirementInternet connection: Broadband internet connection
Stated as a type of connection rather than a speed. No megabit figure is published, and one person's broadband is another person's struggle, so treat it as the floor it is.
Current published requirementOperating system: Windows 10 or newer, 64-bit
What the current store page lists. Anything else you may have read about other platforms is outside what this page documents, so we are not extending it.

Current server configuration facts

Documented in the current serverconfig.xml reference on the Official 7 Days to Die Wiki. These are the settings a server is actually configured through, with the values they arrive set to. A default is a starting point somebody chose, not a ceiling the software enforces.

Scope: Documented settings and their defaults — what a server ships with, not what it is capped at.

Current server configurationServer port: ServerPort defaults to 26900
The setting people outside your network connect through, and 26900 is what it arrives set to. It is a configurable value rather than a fixed one. We list the one port the current documentation gives for this setting and add nothing to it.
Current server configurationPlayer slots: ServerMaxPlayerCount defaults to 8 concurrent players
A default, and worth reading as exactly that. It is the number a fresh server config comes with, not a limit the software imposes — the setting exists precisely because it is meant to be changed.
Documented setting optionsThe player options the game settings expose: Max Players options are 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16, with 8 as the default
This is here for one reason only: it shows that the current game settings expose a 16-player option, so the default of 8 cannot be read as a limit. It does not establish 16 as a dedicated server's supported maximum — a list of options in the game settings is not a statement about what a dedicated server will carry, and the two pieces of documentation do not settle each other. What a server's real player ceiling is remains genuinely unresolved in the current material, and we would rather leave that open than close it with the largest number we can find.
Current server configurationGenerated world size: WorldGenSize accepts 2048 to 16384, in multiples of 2048
A range with a step, so the valid sizes are 2048, 4096, 6144 and so on up to 16384. This is about the size of the map you generate, and the documentation gives no memory or disk figure for any point in the range.
Current server configurationWhat a bigger map costs you: Larger maps take longer to generate, download and load
Three costs, all of them time: time to make the world, time for players to pull it down, and time to load it. Notice what is not on that list — no amount of memory, processor or disk is attached to it, so a bigger map is documented as slower rather than as heavier.

Sources, last checked:

7 Days to Die on Steam — System requirements — 29 September 2026
Official 7 Days to Die Wiki — Game Settings — 29 September 2026
Official 7 Days to Die Wiki — Serverconfig.xml — 29 September 2026

What we will not infer from this

Both sets of figures above invite a conclusion they do not actually support. These are the ones we are deliberately not drawing:

That 8 GB and 12 GB are a dedicated server's minimum and recommended memory. They are the published requirements for the game, and the store page's own note about running a server and a client together only makes sense if they are. Presenting them as a server sizing table would be our invention with somebody else's numbers on it.
That 8 players is the maximum a server supports. It is the default value of a setting, and the Game Settings page lists options of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 — so the default is plainly not a ceiling. Nor does that make 16 the ceiling: it is the largest option on a settings list, which is not the same claim as a dedicated server's supported maximum. The current material does not settle what that maximum is, and we are leaving it unsettled rather than picking the biggest number available.
How much memory a given number of players needs. No source we are using connects the two, so there is no figure to pass on and we do not calculate one.
How much memory or disk a larger generated world needs. The documentation gives a valid range and says bigger maps take longer to generate, download and load. Time is what it names; we are not converting that into gigabytes.
Anything drawn from Alpha-era wiki pages — extra ports, different memory or processor figures, or player limits. Those pages describe builds that have moved on, and being on an official wiki does not make an old figure a current one.

What we left out, and why

This game has been documented for longer than most, and a lot of that documentation describes builds that have moved on. Being on an official wiki does not make an old figure a current one, so these omissions are decisions rather than gaps:

Alpha-era wiki server pages. They carry hardware figures, port lists and player guidance from builds that have since changed, and nothing on them has been used here.
Older Linux server instructions. Where they name ports or requirements that the current serverconfig.xml documentation does not, we have not carried them across.
Any figure whose currency we could not establish. If we could not tell whether something still holds, it is absent rather than hedged.

Where to take this next

Server Planner — three questions, and a reading of the documented relationships that apply to how you play. It awards no tier and adds no figure to the ones above.
Self-host or rent — four operational questions. The figures above cannot decide that one, and the page explains why.

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