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# Cost of hosting a Minecraft server on AWS?

To those that run servers on AWS, how much more do you save (or pay) relative to standard hosting companies? I’d reckon that AWS is more price efficient since you’re not paying for the full amount of ram during times when the server is not at peak capacity (i.e. overnight or during periods of low activity) rather than having that RAM/CPU dedicated and being unused. So, how much do you pay (monthly), how much RAM do you use (mean; low; high), how many players, how much storage and how much was an equivalent hosting provider charging to accomodate your needs? Thanks
Also note that AWS is also pay as you go, which means that you get charged for the amount of data that gets sent rather than a fixed price. For example, if I wanted to run a Node.js or a ASP.NET app, it wouldn't cost much at first. But the more and more data that gets used, the prices increase a lot
You are true in saying its pay as you use - but the cost-saving element is for the EC2's that are used for development/Lambdas, if you wanted to run an MC server (Which is not what they are aiming for) on it you would need to go for one of the better EC2 like a mx.large , which will probably set you back 7-10 cent an hour-ish if you do the maths even if your saving some RAM usage at night (Let's imagine 50% since 1.18 is more resource-intensive - so 3-5cent in the 12 hours at night time), your costs are still going to be way more than paying let's say $7-10 for a third party host - at the same time your paying less, probably get to run on better hardware and get a support team that can help if anything goes wrong or you face any issues which in itself is valuable. This is coming from someone that uses AWS daily

As for storage, you dont need a lot if it's not modded or not your not going HAM, probably 5-10GB maximum. As for equivalent hosting providers, at the moment i pay $14/mo for a 4GB server with PiglinHost and i also have a 6GB Modded (Runs me $21 although i get a discount for having two services with them) and it serves me well, our modded server is quiet intensive and its been fine

TLDR: Works out more expensive than third party hosting, which would be a managed service so its less headache - but if your not too fussed about budget and want to learn about ec2s etc its a great way to learn


I host a Minecraft server on AWS. I use a Minecraft Server to generate server stats (CPU load, network traffic, costs) so that I can talk about how AWS works in my day-job (I teach AWS training courses)

This server is used by me playing Minecraft on my own or with 2 or 3 other people. Through 2021, I ran Minecraft version 1.17.x on an m6g.medium EC2 instance (ARM Graviton2 processor, 1 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM). The bulk of the cost is when the server is running, and there is a bit on top of that for data transfer out, the cost of the EBS volume (virtual disk) and some other minor costs around monitoring

When the server is running permanently, the monthly cost is around US$35.00. The cost is less when I have stopped the server for a few days or weeks

If you want more than a handful of users, you probably need more memory, hence a larger EC2 instance. The larger instances have more memory, but also more vCPU - most of which will be wasted on Minecraft. I am pretty sure I'll need a bigger machine for 1.18

OP said "
*more price efficient since you’re not paying for the full amount of ram during times when the server is not at peak capacity*" - AWS doesn't work like that for EC2 instances. You pay the hourly EC2 price when the EC2 is running, even if the server load is zero. If you want to save money (and stay on AWS), you need to stop the machine, then have some mechanism to start it when people want to play

Hope that helps. Happy to discuss further or send more stats

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