To manage your server hardware you also need an operating system. The CS:GO server software ‘SteamCMD’, which incidentally also enables hosting of various other Steam games, is basically available for all three major systems - Windows, macOS and Linux. However, there are always problems when installing on macOS, which is why we recommend using the server systems from Microsoft (Windows Server 2016 or 2019) and UNIX/Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, openSUSE).
Keep in mind that you also need to budget hardware resources for the operating system.
For Windows Server 2016, for example, Microsoft recommends at least:
- a 1.4 GHz processor (64-bit)
- 512 MB or 2 GB of RAM (without or with graphical user interface, respectively)
- 32 GB hard disk space
For installing Ubuntu, which is popular among Linux fans, the developer Canonical recommends the following minimum values (version 20.04):
- a 2 GHz processor (64-bit)
- 4 GB of RAM
- 25 GB hard disk space
Alternatively, the Ubuntu Server Edition, which does not have a graphical user interface by default, is a much neater edition that is fine with a 1 GHz processor (64-bit), 1 GB of RAM and 2.5 GB of hard drive space.