Survival Game Player Counts: Which Server to Host

We log Steam's concurrent player count for every game on this page about every 10 minutes, and keep the history. Everything below comes from that log and from the public server lists of DayZ and ARK. The numbers are a snapshot from 15:27 UTC on 24 September 2026; each game name links to its live page.

Steam only counts players on Steam, so console players and other PC stores are not in these numbers. For comparing games with each other it is still the best public number there is.

Ranking by players on Steam

Valheim and Rust are far ahead of the rest. Below them the field is close: Palworld, Project Zomboid and Terraria all sit within reach of each other, and a big update can swap their order. Each game name opens its live page with the full history.

Busy hours vs quiet hours per game

In our log, the busiest reading was between 1.7 and 2.7 times the quietest one for every game here. The biggest swings were Assetto Corsa (2.7x), Eco (2.6x), Squad (2.6x) and Rust (2.6x); the flattest was Palworld (1.7x). A big swing usually means most players share a few time zones.

The log covers about 18 hours, not a full day. For ten of the 16 games, the busiest reading sits at its very start or end, so the real daily peak probably fell outside it and the true swing is bigger than shown.

For a server of your own this tells you two things. Your group will be online in the same few evening hours as everyone else, and that is when the server has to hold up. And the quiet hours, early morning in Europe for most of these games, are the time for restarts, updates and backups.

Which games have the most active community servers

Steam counts players, not servers. Two of these games publish a full server list anyone can read, so we counted them on 24 September 2026.

DayZ is a community game. Of the 2,654 servers that had anyone on, 2,502 (94%) ran their own private hive, the setup community servers use, instead of the shared official hive. 90% ran mods. Half had 3 players or fewer and nine in ten had 26 or fewer. There is room for a small, well run server with a clear idea.

ARK is the opposite. Most players we counted were on official servers, and the 4,064 community servers with players mostly had one or two people on. That fits a common way to play ARK: a private server for your own tribe, not a public one.

We could not count Rust, Valheim or Palworld servers. Their lists need an API key or a slow crawl page by page, so for those games the Steam number is all we have for now.

What each game needs on a server

The second column is the Space-Node plan we would start a small group on, checked on 24 September 2026. For most games that is the smallest plan they sell. For Palworld, Arma Reforger and Enshrouded it is one step up, because the smallest plan is below what the game needs or we could not confirm that it is enough. The notes say what the game really needs and when to go bigger, with the developer's own figure where there is one.

Disclosure: Livecounts.nl and Space-Node share an owner.

Two things matter more than the RAM number. A fast CPU core, because most of these servers run their main game loop on one thread. And fast storage, because saves and world loads hit the disk hard. If a server stutters with a lot of players on, a faster CPU usually fixes more than extra memory.

Where to host

On your own PC

Free if you already have the hardware. Every game here ships a dedicated server you can run next to the game. The catches: the PC has to stay on whenever anyone wants to play, you need to forward ports on your router, and your upload speed is shared with everyone else in the house. Fine for a weekend with friends.

A rented game server

The easiest option for a group that plays every week. The host keeps it online, installs updates and gives you a control panel for settings, mods and backups. You pay per month and can move up a plan when the group grows.

A VPS

A virtual server where you install everything yourself. Worth it if you want to run several games on one machine, or need full control over scripts and tools. It takes more work, and you are the one fixing it at midnight. Space-Node VPS plans start at €5.50 a month.