How to Make a Free Terraria Server (Vanilla, tModLoader, TShock)

A free Terraria server lets your friends play the same world without waiting for one player to host it. On our Terraria server page you can create one at no cost with 2 GB of RAM for up to 4 players, on vanilla 1.4.5.8 or tModLoader. This guide covers that route, self-hosting, mods and TShock.

• Fastest way: create a free server on 1up, pick Vanilla or tModLoader, share the address. No port forwarding.
• Free plan: 1 server, up to 4 players, 2 GB RAM, 5 GB disk.
• Self-hosting: download the dedicated server from terraria.org, forward TCP port 7777 and keep your PC on while people play.
• Versions: vanilla is on 1.4.5.8. Stable tModLoader still runs Terraria 1.4.4 content.
• TShock: version 6.2.1 supports 1.4.5.8 and adds permissions, anti-cheat and server-side characters. We do not offer it as a template yet.

1. Host & Play or a dedicated server?

Terraria gives you two ways to play together, and the difference matters more than it looks.

Host & Play is the button in the Multiplayer menu. One player starts the world on their own machine and the others connect to them. The official wiki is blunt about the catch: the world runs entirely from the host's device and shuts down when the host leaves. If the host goes to bed, everyone stops. The host's internet upload and router also decide whether anyone outside the house can connect at all.

A dedicated server is a separate program, TerrariaServer.exe on Windows or TerrariaServer.bin.x86_64 on Linux, that holds the world on its own. Nobody has to be logged in for it to keep running, and players join and leave whenever they want. That is what you want for a group that plays at different hours, or for more than two or three people.

Quick comparison:

• Host & Play: free, nothing to install, but the world lives and dies with the host's session and their network.
• Your own dedicated server: free, full control, but your PC stays on, you open a port on your router and you handle updates.
• A hosted server: the world stays on a machine in a data centre, you manage it from a web panel, and nobody's PC needs to be on.

2. Vanilla, tModLoader or TShock: pick your server type

Before creating anything, decide what kind of server your group needs. You can change your mind later, but worlds do not move freely between all three.

Vanilla is the official server from Re-Logic. The current line is 1.4.5, «Bigger and Boulder», released on 27 January 2026, and the latest dedicated server build listed on terraria.org is 1.4.5.8, a hotfix from 23 August 2026. Pick vanilla if you want the newest content and your friends play the normal game.

tModLoader is the community mod loader. It is free on Steam, but you need to own Terraria on Steam, and every player must run it too. Its stable release is still based on Terraria 1.4.4 content: the team says on GitHub that porting to 1.4.5 "will take many months yet", and that 1.4.4 mods will stay available as a legacy version. We will track the port in an upcoming monthly tModLoader 1.4.5 status post. Pick tModLoader if your group wants large content mods and does not mind staying on 1.4.4 for now.

TShock is a server toolbox built on top of the vanilla server. Its README lists anti-cheat tools, server-side characters, groups, permissions, item bans and a long list of commands. TShock 6.2.1, released on 27 September 2026, supports Terraria 1.4.5.8. Pick TShock for public or semi-public servers where you need to know who did what.

A note on platforms: officially, players on different platforms cannot play together. The wiki adds that desktop and mobile can meet on a dedicated server when versions match, probably by accident. Our upcoming Terraria crossplay post will cover what works today.

3. Create a free Terraria server on 1up

This is the route we built for groups that just want to play. It takes about a minute and you do not touch your router.

1. Create an account on the Free plan. It asks for no card.
2. Choose Terraria in the new server wizard.
3. Pick a region, London or Paris. The wizard measures your ping and suggests the nearest one.
4. Pick a template: Vanilla (recommended, Terraria 1.4.5.8) or tModLoader (the stable release we run, v2026.07.3.0 today).
5. Set the world options (next section), create the server and wait for it to come online. The panel shows the address and the port your friends need. The port is not always 7777, so copy it from the panel.
6. In Terraria, go to Multiplayer → Join via IP, pick a character, type the address, then the port and the password if you set one. This is the same path the wiki's server guide describes.

The Free plan gives you 2 GB of RAM. Our Terraria catalog entry asks for 1 GB minimum and recommends 2 GB, so a vanilla world for four players has headroom.

4. Set world size, difficulty and password

Our panel exposes the settings that matter for a first world and writes them into serverconfig.txt for you. Here is what each one maps to in the official server configuration keys:

• World size (small, medium, large) → autocreate=1|2|3. Medium is our default.
• Difficulty (Classic, Expert, Master, Journey) → difficulty=0|1|2|3. Classic is our default.
• Seed → seed. Leave it empty for a random world, or paste a seed you found.
• Password → password. Empty means anyone with the address can join.
• Max players → maxplayers. The game accepts 1 to 255; your plan caps it, at 4 on Free.

Three things to know before you click save:

• Size, seed and difficulty only apply to a new world. autocreate creates a world when none exists, so changing them on a running world does nothing until you generate a new one.
• Every change needs a restart. The panel says so next to each field.
• Journey mode is locked down. We set every journeypermission_* key to 0, which the wiki defines as locked (1 is host only, 2 is everyone), so nobody can freeze time, change the weather or turn on god mode. We chose the most restrictive default on purpose.

For every other key in the file, our serverconfig.txt explainer goes through them one by one.

5. Run the server from the console

The vanilla server has a small set of console commands, all listed on the wiki's server page. The ones you will actually use:

• playing: who is online.
• say <message>: a yellow message from the server to everyone.
• kick <player> and ban <player>: remove someone, for this session or for good.
• password <pass>: change the password on the fly. On 1up the panel's password applies again at the next restart.
• save: write the world to disk now.
• dawn, noon, dusk, midnight: jump the clock.
• settle: settle all water, useful after a big build.
• exit: save and stop. exit-nosave stops without saving.

In the 1up console, say, kick, ban, playing, save, the four time commands and settle are one-click buttons, and the restart macro warns players a minute before it stops the server.

6. Add mods with tModLoader

If your group wants mods, create the server with the tModLoader template. Then:

1. Upload each .tmod file in the panel's mods section. The panel writes it into the server's mods folder and enables it in enabled.json, which is the file tModLoader reads to know what to load. Uploads are part of the paid plans; on Free the template runs without extra mods.
2. Restart the server.
3. Every player installs tModLoader from Steam and the same mods.
4. Everyone runs the same tModLoader version as the server. A mismatch shows "You are trying to connect to a server that is not the correct version".

tModLoader ships a stable release every month on GitHub. When a new one is out, update players and server on the same evening.

Two habits that save trouble. Mods add memory use, so watch the RAM graph in the panel after adding a content pack. And keep a tModLoader world (Terraria 1.4.4 content) and a vanilla 1.4.5 world on separate servers instead of switching templates on the same world.

7. TShock: permissions, anti-grief and server-side characters

TShock is what you add when your server stops being "five friends" and becomes "people we met on Discord". It gives you accounts with groups and permissions, region protection for builds, item bans, server-side characters so nobody brings a cheated inventory, and an anti-cheat layer.

We are honest about where we stand: 1up does not offer a TShock template today. Our Terraria servers run vanilla 1.4.5.8 or tModLoader. If you need TShock now, run it yourself:

1. Download the release zip for your system from the TShock 6.2.1 release page. There are builds for Windows x64, Linux x64, Linux ARM and macOS, plus a Docker image, ghcr.io/pryaxis/tshock:stable.
2. Start it like a vanilla server and create or pick a world. TShock's default config listens on port 7777 with 8 slots.
3. On the first start, the console prints a line like "To setup the server, join the game and type /setup 1234567". The code is also saved in tshock/setup-code.txt.
4. Join the server and type /setup <code>. You get temporary access for one command.
5. Create your permanent account: /user add <name> <password> owner. This is the exact command TShock itself prints at this step.
6. Log in with /login <name> <password>, then type /setup again to turn the setup system off.

From there, the commands you need first are groups (/group), regions (/region) and bans (/ban). Our TShock commands cheat sheet has the full list with examples.

TShock 6 moved to .NET 9, according to the 6.0 release notes. Before upgrading an existing TShock server, the TShock team asks you to back up tshock.sqlite and the whole tshock folder.

8. Host a free Terraria server on your own PC

If you would rather not use a host at all, this is the self-hosted route. It is free and you control everything, but your PC must stay on and reachable.

1. Get the server. Either download the dedicated server zip from terraria.org, or use TerrariaServer.exe from your Steam install folder.
2. On Linux, extract the zip, open the Linux folder, run chmod +x TerrariaServer.bin.x86* and start ./TerrariaServer.bin.x86_64, as the wiki describes.
3. Answer the prompts: pick or create a world, the number of players, the port (7777 by default) and a password.
4. On your router, forward TCP 7777 to the PC running the server. Without this step, only players on your home network can join.
5. Give your friends your public IP address. They join with Multiplayer → Join via IP.
6. Leave the console window open. Closing it stops the world; type exit to save and stop cleanly.

To skip the prompts next time, put the same choices in a serverconfig.txt and start the server with -config serverconfig.txt. The keys are the ones from step 4.

The weak spots of self-hosting are the ones you would expect: your home upload speed, a dynamic IP that changes, a router that does not allow port forwarding, and a PC that has to stay awake.

9. Bring an existing world

Already have a world from Host & Play? On Windows, Terraria keeps worlds in Documents\My Games\Terraria\Worlds (wiki). Each world is a .wld file.

To move it to a 1up server, stop the server and open Files in the panel. Our Terraria servers load worlds/world.wld, so in the worlds folder rename the current file (to world-old.wld, for example), upload your .wld and rename it to world.wld. Start the server again and it loads your world; the seed, size and difficulty in Settings are not applied to it, since they only shape a new world. Keep the original file on your PC, since the Free plan has no backup slots. A world made in vanilla 1.4.5 belongs on a vanilla server; do not load it into the tModLoader template.

10. When the Free plan is not enough

The Free plan is enough for a small group on a vanilla world. These are the signs you have outgrown it, and the plan that fixes each one, with prices from our pricing page:

• More than 4 players: Casual (€3/month) allows 8 and Starter (€7/month) allows 10.
• Mods: uploading .tmod files needs a paid plan.
• Backups: Free has none. Casual includes 1, Starter 3 and Pro 5.
• A big modded world: Starter has 3 GB of RAM and Pro (€12/month) has 6 GB.

Tested on Terraria 1.4.5.8 and tModLoader v2026.07.3.0 (1up image sha256:d800f742), 2026-10-04.

Change log

• 2026-10-04: first version.