How to Install Mods on a Factorio Server

Factorio has one of the largest modding scenes in gaming — over 22,000 mods on the official mod portal, from quality-of-life tweaks to total overhauls. This guide covers installing mods on a dedicated Factorio server and what your players need to do (almost nothing).

How server mods work

A Factorio mod is a single modname_version.zip file. The server loads every mod that sits in its mods/ folder and is enabled in mods/mod-list.json. There is no load order to manage — the game resolves dependencies from each mod's own metadata.

Installing mods

1. Get the mod zip. Either download it from the mod portal (a factorio.com login that owns the game is required), or install the mod in-game through the Mods menu and copy its zip from your local mods folder (%APPDATA%\Factorio\mods on Windows).
2. Upload the zip to your server's mods/ folder — on a SurvivalServers control panel use the File Manager or FTP.
3. Open mods/mod-list.json and add an entry for the mod: { "name": "modname", "enabled": true } — the internal name is the zip filename without the version number.
4. Check the mod's portal page for required dependencies and upload those the same way.
5. Restart the server.

Pick the release of each mod that matches your server's Factorio version — a mod built only for 1.1 will not load on a 2.0 server.

What your players do

Nothing, mostly. When someone joins a modded server, Factorio prompts them to sync mods automatically and downloads the matching set from the mod portal. Mod sets must match the server exactly, and the built-in sync handles that on its own.

Mods and achievements

Playing with third-party mods disables Steam achievement progress — Factorio keeps a separate in-game achievement list for modded play instead. The official Space Age expansion mods do not count as mods for this rule.

Want a modded megabase without babysitting the host machine? Factorio server rental from SurvivalServers comes with FTP, a file manager and automated backups out of the box.