Host Havoc4.8★ Trustpilot · Own hardware · Altis Life one-click
from £14.82/mo
- ✓ One-click Altis Life, Antistasi, Exile, CUP
- ✓ Own hardware, no throttle during AI spikes
- ✓ Sub-10-minute support
GTX Gaming4.7★ Trustpilot · London + Stockholm · Workshop installer
£9.27/mo
- ✓ Running Arma servers since the Arma 2 era
- ✓ Scheduled restarts handle the memory leak automatically
- ✓ 7-day refund, most generous in our top 3
4.8★ Trustpilot · Own hardware · Isolated sandboxes
$20.99/mo
- ✓ Isolated architecture, no neighbour eating your AI-thread CPU
- ✓ 100% human support, no AI-assisted replies
- ✗ Higher entry floor than most
Not sure which fits? See the full comparison ↓ or jump to the cheapest option ↓
Arma 3 is 13 years old and Bohemia Interactive is openly working towards Arma 4, but the game isn’t coasting. Update 2.20 shipped a genuine technical overhaul of the engine’s multithreading code, focused specifically on cutting lag spikes and raising minimum FPS during AI-heavy missions, not just cosmetic patches. The update also revised the game’s official system requirements, worth knowing before you size a server plan.
The community shows no sign of slowing either: nearly 2 million unique players logged over 48 million hours in 2025, and the Steam Workshop has crossed 165,000 mods, a net gain of 15,000+ in the last two years alone. For a 2013 title, that’s a genuinely active mod ecosystem, and it’s exactly why mod support, disk space and FTP access matter as much as raw hardware when picking a host.
What makes Arma 3 hosting technically demanding
All AI processes on a single thread. During a large Antistasi or Zeus operation with 80+ AI units, that thread is the bottleneck. High single-core clock (5GHz+) matters more than core count. Headless clients are the only way to offload AI beyond what the server CPU alone can handle.
A typical milsim modpack (CUP, ACE3, TFAR, RHS, ACRE2, terrain packs) runs 40–80GB or more. Some managed plans with fixed small disk allocations become a real problem once you add a third terrain pack. Confirm allocation and whether it’s expandable before ordering.
At 20ms from a London server, you hear a shot and respond cleanly. At 90ms from a US server, there’s a visible disconnect, you’re already dead before you see the bullet. In milsim ops, latency isn’t comfort, it’s the difference between an operation feeling real or broken.
Top picks: Best Arma 3 server hosting UK
Ranked by UK/London node, CPU for Real Virtuality single-thread AI, mod support depth, headless client capability and GBP value. DatHost does not offer Arma 3.
LOW.MS
Gold Pick
LOW.MS earns the top UK spot for Arma 3 through hardware architecture, London node consistency and the admin tooling long-term Arma 3 communities actually need. Full FTP access for server.cfg, basic.cfg and .Arma3Profile editing, file manager for MPMissions .pbo management and mod key handling, and Steam Workshop support for both automatic and manual mod installation. BattlEye and verifySignatures both confirmed, essential for any server that wants to stay moderated and cheat-free.
For milsim units running headless clients, LOW.MS’s configuration flexibility allows the setup Bohemia Interactive’s own wiki recommends, headless client on the same machine as the server, whitelisted via headlessClients[] and localClient[]. Corero inline DDoS protection matters here specifically, a DDoS mid-operation is more disruptive in Arma 3 than most games, since reconnections mean AI respawn calculations restart and scenario state breaks.
- ✓ Ryzen 9 9950X, high single-core for AI-heavy missions
- ✓ London UK, sub-20ms for UK milsim communities
- ✓ Full FTP + server.cfg/basic.cfg edit access
- ✓ BattlEye + verifySignatures confirmed
- ✓ Headless client support + Workshop mods
- ✓ 5-day refund · 4.8★ Trustpilot · Corero DDoS
- ✗ No one-click Antistasi/Altis Life installer, unlike Host Havoc
- ✗ Fewer global locations than the largest providers
Host Havoc
Silver Pick
Host Havoc is the only provider on our UK panel offering one-click installation for the most popular Arma 3 community game modes, Altis Life (both 4.4 and 5), Antistasi, Exile, Wasteland and CUP terrain packs. For communities who want a populated public server built around a specific game mode rather than managing their own mission files, that’s a real operational advantage. One-click installers handle mod load order, dependencies and mission .pbo placement automatically.
Own physical hardware means no CPU throttling during the spike moments that define Arma 3 performance, specifically the frame drop when a large Zeus composition spawns, or when Antistasi’s dynamic AI repositioning triggers across multiple zones at once. Entry is $20/mo for 40 slots (£14.82/mo), premium-priced but justified for communities running complex modded scenarios.
- ✓ Altis Life 4.4 + 5, Antistasi, Exile, CUP, one-click
- ✓ Own hardware, no throttle on AI spike events
- ✓ London UK, custom Arma 3 TCAdmin template
- ✓ 4.8★ from 1,515 reviews · <10 min response
- ✗ Higher entry price ($20/mo, 40 slots)
- ✗ 72h refund window
GTX Gaming
Bronze Pick
GTX Gaming is the most established managed provider for Arma 3 specifically, they’ve been running Arma servers since the Arma 2 era and the panel has features reflecting years of community feedback. Their Workshop mod installer solves the most common headache for admins, getting mods onto the server without manual SteamCMD work. Scheduled restarts specifically handle Arma 3’s known memory leak, set-and-forget rather than a manual task.
Their standard UK location runs Ryzen 9 5950X; the “extreme” tier upgrades to Ryzen 9 7950X, still strong single-core performance for AI-heavy operations. At £9.27/mo for a 10-slot entry server, they’re competitive for smaller communities and clan servers, and the 7-day refund is the most generous in our top 3.
- ✓ Established Arma 3 provider since the Arma 2 era
- ✓ Workshop installer, scheduled messages + restarts
- ✓ London + Stockholm, 7-day refund
- ✓ 4.7★ (1,386 reviews) · competitive £9.27/mo entry
- ✗ Standard tier uses older Ryzen 9 5950X (upgrade for 7950X)
- ✗ No one-click Altis Life / Antistasi like Host Havoc
Every provider we checked
GBP ($1=£0.741). ✅ UK = confirmed London node. HC = headless client support confirmed. DatHost does not offer Arma 3.
No shared-tenant CPU competition, so your single AI thread never fights a neighbour’s mission for cycles. Higher entry floor than most.
Beginner-friendly panel with one-click modpacks. A solid first-server pick if you want a guided setup experience.
A UK company billing natively in pounds. Good pick if you’d rather deal with a British company for invoicing and support.
Cheapest confirmed London node on the list. Headless client support isn’t explicitly confirmed, worth checking before ordering.
Budget EU option with unlimited slots. Not a London node, so latency-sensitive milsim units should look elsewhere first.
Pay-as-you-go flexibility on EU nodes. Reasonable for casual or short-term sessions rather than a long-running community server.
Pay-as-you-go on a Frankfurt node. Fine for EU-wide communities, adds latency for players specifically wanting UK-only.
Confirmed UK node with a custom launcher for setup. Cheapest confirmed-UK option after GGServers.
Good hardware at a low entry price. Headless client support isn’t explicitly confirmed, worth a quick check first.
One of the few providers with a published headless client config guide specifically for Arma 3. Location needs verifying.
Uncapped RAM is useful for large modpacks, but the Germany-only location adds latency for UK-specific milsim units.
The cheapest per-GB rate on the panel, but no UK or EU location makes it a poor fit for UK-latency-sensitive milsim.
Cheapest raw hardware on the list, but you’re setting up Arma 3, SteamCMD and the headless client yourself. See our budget section below.
All servers require SteamCMD App ID 233780. Ports: UDP 2302 (game), 2303 (query), 2305 (Steam). Prices GBP, verify directly with providers before purchasing.
Hosting Arma 3 on a budget
If price is what matters most, a couple of managed options are worth looking at first, before you consider the VPS route.
~£4.45/mo, the cheapest London-node option on the whole panel. Headless client support isn’t explicitly confirmed, worth a quick check with support before ordering if HC matters to you.
~£5.93/mo with a confirmed UK node and a custom launcher for setup. A close second to GGServers if you want a bit more panel hand-holding.
Hostinger’s VPS comes in at £7.03/mo for genuinely strong AMD EPYC hardware, but there’s no managed panel doing the Arma 3 install, headless client setup or mod deployment for you. That’s a real amount of manual work for a game with Arma 3’s config complexity. Worth mentioning as an option, but we’d point most people to GGServers or ScalaCube above unless you’re already comfortable running a server yourself. See our VPS hosting guide if you want to weigh that trade-off properly.
Arma 3 game modes, and what each demands from your server
Arma 3 is a sandbox, the game your group plays depends almost entirely on which missions and mods you run. Each mode has different server requirements. Understanding what you’re actually running helps you choose the right plan.
Persistent liberation campaign, players progressively capture territory from AI-controlled forces. Dozens of AI patrols, garrison management, dynamic reinforcement calls and persistent world state make this the most CPU-intensive common mode. A headless client is near-mandatory above 8 players. Saves persist across restarts, backups are critical.
⚠ Headless client strongly recommended · high RAM · NVMe backups critical
Police/civilian roleplay on Altis. Relatively few AI, but runs a full MySQL database for persistent player data, money, vehicles and property. MySQL access is a hard requirement, it’s more database I/O bound than AI-CPU bound. Host Havoc provides Altis Life 4.4 and 5 one-click installers.
MySQL required · low AI · good disk I/O critical
Three-team competitive PvP with zone capture. AI is present but player interaction dominates CPU load. KOTH servers often run 80+ concurrent players, much higher than Antistasi. Bandwidth and slot count matter more than AI CPU. DDoS protection matters, competitive public servers attract attention.
High player count · public DDoS risk · bandwidth matters
Open-world survival with base building, looting and PvP. Both require MySQL for player data and vehicle persistence. Moderate AI, custom loot tables and dynamic events add to simulation load. Host Havoc includes an Exile one-click installer.
MySQL required · moderate AI · persistence-heavy
Zeus lets one or more players create and control the scenario live, spawning units, vehicles and triggers while others play. CPU load spikes immediately when a large formation is spawned. zeusCompositionScriptLevel = 2 enables Zeus to spawn Workshop compositions. Headless clients help absorb spawn spikes.
Variable AI load · HC helps absorb spawns
Custom missions with full modpacks (ACE3, TFAR, RHS). Mission complexity and player count drive requirements more than raw player count alone. A well-scripted mission with 20 players and 60 AI using a headless client outperforms a poorly scripted one with 10 players. BattlEye and verifySignatures are standard.
Full modpacks · BattlEye + verifySignatures · disk space
Headless clients, what they are and when your server needs one
What a headless client (HC) does
A headless client is Arma 3 running without graphics or audio, connected to your server, dedicated entirely to processing AI calculations. Because Real Virtuality handles all AI on one thread, a busy mission can push that thread to 100% while other cores sit idle. An HC takes AI processing off the main server process, freeing it to handle player communication instead. The result is higher stable FPS on AI-heavy missions, noticeably improved in Antistasi with many active fronts, or Zeus during a large unit spawn.
When you actually need one
You need an HC when your server FPS drops below 10 during normal gameplay (check with #monitor in-game), when running Antistasi or persistent campaigns with 30+ concurrent AI, or when Zeus operations frequently involve large unit compositions. You do NOT need one for small friend group missions, vanilla combat, KOTH (player-heavy, low AI), or any mission with modest AI counts. HCs only help if the mission is actually scripted to distribute AI to them, not all missions support HC by default.
Add these two lines, substituting the HC machine’s IP (use 127.0.0.1 if it’s on the same machine): headlessClients[] = {"127.0.0.1"}; and localClient[] = {"127.0.0.1"};
Note: headless clients count toward your MaxPlayers limit, a 40-slot cap with two HCs running leaves 38 player slots. An HC needs a valid Steam account logged in to connect. LOW.MS, Host Havoc and GTX Gaming all confirm HC support.
RAM, CPU & disk, Arma 3 server hardware by setup type
| Setup type | Players | RAM | Disk | HC needed? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla / small missions | 4–16 | 4–6GB | 30GB | No |
| Altis Life / KOTH | 20–60 | 6–8GB | 40GB | Optional |
| Antistasi / Zeus (moderate) | 10–20 | 8–12GB | 50GB+ | Strongly recommended |
| Milsim unit (full modpack) | 20–40 | 12–16GB | 80–120GB | Yes for heavy ops |
| Public KOTH (high slots) | 40–80 | 12–16GB | 50GB | Optional |
Server ports
If you change the game port, query and Steam ports increment accordingly. Managed hosts configure these automatically. For self-hosting, forward all three UDP ports. BattlEye uses the game port.
server.cfg & basic.cfg, the key settings for a UK Arma 3 server
Arma 3 uses two main config files: server.cfg for server rules, security and player limits, and basic.cfg for network performance tuning. Both are plain text files editable via FTP or your host’s file manager.
server.cfg, essential settings
// server.cfg, annotated for UK community servers
hostname = "My UK Arma 3 Server";
password = ""; // blank = public, add for whitelisted
passwordAdmin = "changeme"; // in-game admin access
maxPlayers = 40; // include HC slots in this count
BattlEye = 1; // always 1 for any public server
verifySignatures = 2; // 2 = strict mod key checking
kickDuplicate = 1; // kick duplicate player IDs
allowedFilePatching = 1; // 1 = allow HC, block others
headlessClients[] = {"127.0.0.1"}; // whitelist your HC IP(s)
localClient[] = {"127.0.0.1"}; // same machine as server
motd[] = {"Welcome to My UK Server", "discord.gg/yourlink"};
motdInterval = 30; // seconds between MOTD messages
logFile = "server_console.log";
verifySignatures, why it matters: setting this to 2 means players running unsigned or unknown mods can’t join. For milsim and modded servers, this protects against mismatched mods that can desync the simulation or introduce cheats. Every mod you use needs its .bikey file copied to your server’s keys/ directory.
allowedFilePatching: set to 1 to allow headless clients to connect while blocking regular clients with filePatching enabled (a cheat vector). 0 blocks everything, 2 allows everyone. For most community servers, 1 is the right balance.
steamProtocolMaxDataSize: this undocumented parameter is critical for large modpacks. With many Workshop mods active, players sometimes can’t join at all, caused by the Steam protocol packet size limit. Adding steamProtocolMaxDataSize = 1048576; to server.cfg fixes it. Not documented officially, but widely used by large milsim communities.
basic.cfg, network performance tuning
// basic.cfg, bandwidth tuning for a 40-player UK server MinBandwidth = 131072; // min bandwidth per player (bytes/sec) MaxBandwidth = 10485760; // max server bandwidth (10MB/s) MaxMsgSend = 128; // messages sent per frame per player MaxSizeGuaranteed = 512; // max size of guaranteed messages MinErrorToSend = 0.001; // lower = more frequent position updates MaxCustomFileSize = 0; // 0 = disable custom faces (security)
On a UK London server with a decent connection, the values above work for most scenarios. For KOTH servers with 60+ players, increase MaxBandwidth accordingly.
Steam Workshop mods, installation, mod keys and verifySignatures
Arma 3 has full Steam Workshop integration. Workshop mods work on managed hosting, though the exact process differs between panel installers and FTP-based manual management.
GTX Gaming, Apex Hosting and others offer a Workshop installer directly in the panel. Search by ID or name, select, and the panel handles downloading, folder structure and often mod key installation.
Easiest, no FTP or SteamCMD knowledge needed
FASTER downloads mods to a staging directory, deploys to your server structure, generates the -mod= launch parameter and distinguishes server-required, client-required and headless-client mods. Requires FTP access.
Full control, for experienced milsim admins
Most popular Arma 3 mods for community servers
Advanced Combat Environment, medical system, ballistics, interactions. Near-universal in milsim. Server and client required.
Radio comms integrating with TeamSpeak or Discord. TFAR is simpler, ACRE2 more realistic. All players need them.
Red Hammer Studios, adds high-quality USAF, AFRF and GREF factions with realistic weapons and vehicles.
Community Upgrade Project, backports Arma 2 content into Arma 3. Required for many popular missions.
The mission mod itself. Download via Workshop and place the .pbo in MPMissions, needs its own config and HC support.
Not a mod, an undocumented server.cfg parameter. Add it when a lot of mods make the server “all break” at once.
Best UK Arma 3 host for your community type
Ryzen 9 9950X, London UK, BattlEye + verifySignatures, HC support, full FTP + config access. Best single-core performance for AI-heavy missions. From £8.12/mo.
Altis Life 4.4 + 5 one-click, Antistasi, Exile, CUP, own hardware, London UK, sub-10-min support. Best for a specific popular game mode up and running fast.
From £9.27/mo, Workshop installer, London + Stockholm, Ryzen 9 7950X extreme, 7-day refund. Longest Arma track record of our top 3.
Isolated sandbox architecture, your AI thread never competes with a neighbouring customer’s mission. 100% human support. $20.99/mo.
One-click modpacks, London, beginner-friendly panel, 7-day refund, 4.8★ from 8,054 reviews. Best guided setup for first-time server owners.
UK-based, London, GBP billing, DDR5 5.0GHz+, ~£10/mo. Best for UK milsim units wanting a British company to deal with.
Arma 3 server hosting UK, FAQ
steamProtocolMaxDataSize = 1048576;. It’s not officially documented anywhere, but it’s widely known and used by large milsim communities running big modpacks.LOW.MS, Best Arma 3 Server Hosting UK
Ryzen 9 9950X · DDR5 · London UK · BattlEye + verifySignatures · Headless client support · Full FTP · From £8.12/mo
Affiliate disclosure: we earn a commission if you purchase via our links at no extra cost to you. Prices GBP at $1=£0.741. Also see: Arma Reforger hosting guide →
