Valheim dedicated servers with PlusMod and BepInEx support and persistent world backups.
The rankings are warming up.
Valheim is surprisingly RAM-heavy (4 GB minimum for 5 players, 8 GB for 10+) because the entire world stays loaded. Single-threaded CPU is fine. BepInEx + Valheim Plus is the de-facto standard for modded servers. Automatic backups are essential (the world format can corrupt). Specialised hosts offer one-click mod installs and world-seed management.
Multiplayer games are mostly single-thread - favour a high CPU clock (4 GHz+) over a high core count. RAM depends on the game: 2-4 GB for 10 Minecraft players, 8-16 GB for 50 Rust players.
A game host bundles panels (Pterodactyl, TCAdmin), mod management, calibrated anti-DDoS and backups - hours of setup saved. A VPS costs less but expects sysadmin skills.
L4/L7 DDoS protection is mandatory - check the absorption capacity in Gbps the host advertises, and favour those who filter upstream without rerouting.