How to start a FiveM roleplay server in 2026: steps, costs, pitfalls

01Before the machine: the idea of your city

The first mistake is to start with scripts. A roleplay server is defined by its tone first: serious, with long scenes and a justice system that follows up on cases, or more relaxed, where a car chase can turn into a night at the club. That choice drives everything else, from the jobs you open to the rules you write.

• What roleplay do you want to see? Police and justice, crime, businesses, public services: a city only holds if every side has something to play.
• How many players at first? Thirty active players in the evening make a living city; two hundred empty slots make a dead one.
• Open access or an application-based whitelist? A whitelist filters better, but it slows growth.
• Who decides? Two or three founders who agree on the direction beat a council of ten.

02Step 1: the Cfx key and your accounts

FiveM is the Cfx.re platform, and every server needs a license key. You create it on portal.cfx.re with your Cfx.re account: "Servers" section, "Generate Key" button, then copy the key that starts with cfxk_. Most servers also ask for a Steam Web API key, used to recognise players by their Steam account. The documentation on the Cfx key explains what to do if it is refused.

03Step 2: pick a framework, ESX, QBCore or QBox

The framework is the backbone of the server: it holds characters, money, jobs and inventory, and every script plugs into it. Three open source families share the roleplay scene.

There is no wrong choice, but there is no mixing: a script written for ESX does not run on QBox without being adapted, and the reverse is true too. Decide before you buy a single script. The comparison ESX vs QBCore vs QBox goes into detail, and the guide migrating from ESX or QBCore to QBox covers what carries over.

04Step 3: hosting

A mid-sized roleplay server needs a CPU with strong single-core speed (the FiveM server leans on it heavily), enough memory, an NVMe drive, a MariaDB or MySQL database, OneSync turned on for busy cities, and above all an anti-DDoS that filters game traffic, not just web traffic.

1. Your own machine (VPS or dedicated server): the most freedom, and the most work. Operating system, database, firewall, backups and updates are all on you.
2. A bare game host: the machine is ready, but the server is empty. Framework, scripts and settings are still yours to do.
3. A hosted roleplay server with the framework included: the city arrives installed, and the host keeps the core up to date.

05Step 4: scripts and configuration

A complete roleplay city brings together dozens of resources: inventory, phone, jobs, police and MDT, EMS, garages, dealership, housing, banking, clothing, HUD, targeting, radio. Put together one by one, they come from different authors, each with its own dependencies, its own config files and its own update schedule.

• Pirated scripts, or "leaks": free on the surface, they often hide a backdoor that hands someone else control of your server. The guide FiveM server packs covers the risks.
• Duplicates: two inventories or two phones installed side by side step on each other, and the bugs they cause are among the hardest to track down.
• Config files: one missing comma in a Lua file is enough to stop a resource from starting.
• The economy: salaries set too high or prices too low drain every stake out of the city within two weeks.

Test with a few people before opening: one job from start to finish, an arrest, a car purchase, a payday. That is where scripts that do not talk to each other show up.

06Step 5: rules and staff

Write the rules before launch, post them on your Discord and keep them short. They set out the core roleplay rules (no killing without a scene, no information taken from a stream or a voice channel, no actions impossible in real life, value your life), the out-of-character rules (respect, cheating, advertising), and the ladder of sanctions, from a warning to a ban.

• Clear roles: founders, administrators, moderators, and leads for each area (police, crime, businesses).
• A written process: who sanctions what, how a player appeals, where the record is kept.
• Coverage at peak hours: a city with no moderator online in the evening settles things with grudges.
• Action logs: knowing who gave what to whom heads off half of all staff disputes.

07Step 6: launch, then keep the city running

1. A Discord that is ready: rules, announcements, applications, support, and a channel for reports.
2. A closed beta over a few evenings, with a small group that actually plays and reports what breaks.
3. The launch, with a carefully written name and description in the FiveM server list.
4. Regular events in the first weeks, so the city has a story.
5. Updates you keep up with: FiveM releases new game versions, and a script that worked yesterday can break tomorrow.

The work does not stop at launch. Backups, updates, new jobs, economy tuning: that maintenance, month after month, is what separates the cities that last from the ones that close after one summer.

08What a GTA RP server costs

The hidden cost of a do-it-yourself server is not the machine, it is time: installing, fixing, then updating everything again, or paying a developer to do it. The guide what a FiveM RP server costs runs the numbers over twelve months.

With Nova, one subscription per server covers hosting, updates and support: NOVA at €99 a month for 64 players, NOVA+ at €149 for 128 players, NOVA INFINITY at €229 for 256 players, which grows up to 1,024 players with extra slots. Yearly billing charges ten months for twelve, and the pricing page shows which plans can be bought today.

09The Nova route: what we handle, what stays with you

Nova Studio takes care of steps 3 and 4 and all the technical maintenance. Your server runs on OVH Game dedicated servers, behind their anti-DDoS tuned for FiveM, with OneSync and NVMe drives. The FiveM server base arrives installed: the QBox core and 67 modules shipped together, updated by us at your server's next restart, database migrations included. Everything about the game is set in game with /admin, and the panel shows the players affected before a change is saved.

• Staff ranks come from the roles on your Discord: remove the role and the rank goes with it.
• A whitelist by Discord account, if your city runs on applications.
• Staff action logs, posted in the Discord channels you choose.
• An in-game staff menu for quick interventions, and a server-side anticheat with a suspicion score and graduated sanctions.
• Your own scripts in the resources/[client] folder, uploaded from your account area (how-to), and your managers invited from NOVA+ upwards (team).

To get going, pick a plan and follow the getting started guide: a name, your Cfx.re key and your Steam key, and the city installs in a few minutes. If you first want to know what "managed" means here, read managed FiveM server.

Frequently asked questions