Factorio server RAM: how much do you need?
Factorio starts lower than any other factory game here, which says a lot about how efficiently it is built — but it grows with your factory, not with your player list.
Recommendation
You need a server with at least
3GB
- Engine / Base OS:
- 2 GB
- Player Overhead:
- +1.0 GB
- Estimated Raw Usage:
- 3 GB
- Suggested cores:
- 4
- Disk to allow:
- 5 GB+
Update rate, not memory, is what fails first on a large factory. Single-thread clock is everything here.
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What uses the memory in Factorio
The engine is remarkably frugal with memory, so a small base barely needs any. What climbs is the entity count: each belt segment, inserter, machine and item on the move is tracked, and a megabase holds millions. Big overhaul mods multiply that with new items, recipes and surfaces to simulate.
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Where people get it wrong
Watching the wrong number. As a Factorio base grows it will almost always run short of CPU — you will see it in UPS — long before it runs short of memory. If the game slows, check the update rate before buying gigabytes that will make no difference.