Rust Server RAM Calculator

How the estimate works

The calculator runs in your browser, from the numbers you pick. It adds up four parts, then follows them day by day through the wipe:

• World and map: 3 GB for the server itself, plus about 250 MB per square kilometre of map. A 3500 map is 12.25 km², so a little over 6 GB before anyone joins.
• Entities: the map starts with about 5 entities per 1,000 m² (ore, barrels, crates, collectibles, animals). Players then add up to about 1,200 each over a wipe, most of it in the first ten days. We count about 22 KB per entity.
• Players: about 10 MB per player online at peak.
• Plugins: about 200 MB for Oxide or Carbon once you run plugins, plus 8 MB for a light plugin, 20 MB for a typical one and 45 MB for a heavy one.

The "rent at least" figure takes the last day of the wipe, adds 15% for spikes, and rounds up to the sizes servers are usually rented in. It is a rule of thumb, not a measurement: your seed, your monuments, your plugins and how your players build all move the real figure.

What makes a Rust server use more memory

• The map size: a bigger map holds more terrain, monuments and room for bases, and memory grows with its area, not its width. Going from 3500 to 4500 adds about two thirds more area.
• Entities: every building block, box, deployable and dropped item is an entity, and they pile up during a wipe. That is why the chart climbs from wipe day to the last day.
• Players: more players build more, loot more and keep more of the map active.
• Plugins: each plugin adds its own data. Economy, events and large interfaces weigh much more than a chat filter.

Choosing the RAM for your server

Plan for the last day of the wipe, not for wipe day: that is when memory is highest. A monthly server needs noticeably more than a weekly one with the same players, because bases have more time to grow.

To use less memory, lower server.worldsize (try the convars reference), keep decay and upkeep on so abandoned bases disappear, and restart on a schedule (how to schedule restarts). Running several servers on one machine? Add them up, and keep a few gigabytes for the system itself.

Watching memory on your own servers

With Servycore, every server of your network reports its memory, FPS, entities and players every minute, with charts and history. You see how close you get to your limit before the end of the wipe, and your staff gets an alert on Discord if a server goes down.