How to install mods for your Valheim server

Valheim's modding ecosystem runs on BepInEx, a generic Unity mod loader. Most popular mods are distributed through Thunderstore at thunderstore.io/c/valheim.

Valheim 1.0 lands on 9 September 2026 and will break most mods

Iron Gate's own 1.0 FAQ is blunt about it: "Since we don't have any official mod support, we cannot guarantee that any mods will be functional when 1.0 releases." A release the size of 1.0 — the Deep North biome, plus PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 joining the platform list — changes enough of the game that essentially every BepInEx plugin needs recompiling against the new build.

Plan for it: back up your world before you patch, expect to run vanilla for a few days, and re-download each mod rather than assuming the copy on your server still works. Iron Gate has also confirmed there is no public test branch for 1.0, so no mod author gets an early build to test against — updates start landing after release day, not before.

Step 1: Install BepInEx on the Server

Your Valheim game server has a Startup variable for the install type, Modding Framework (MOD_FRAMEWORK), with three values:

Set Modding Framework to BepInEx and restart. The values are capitalised exactly as shown — the panel rejects anything else. The egg pulls the latest BepInEx Pack for Valheim. After boot you should have a BepInEx/ folder in the server root with plugins/, config/, and core/ subfolders.

Older guides call this "Server Type"

Including, until recently, this one. The field is Modding Framework, and there is no SERVER_TYPE variable on a Valheim server — nor a bepinex-vanilla value. Verified against the egg on 11 September 2026.

The canonical package is denikson/BepInExPack_Valheim, which Thunderstore pins to the top of the Valheim listing. If you ever install it by hand, that is the one to take.

Step 2: Understand Server vs Client Mods

• Server-side only: Affect game rules without players installing anything. Example: instant respawns.
• Client and server: Both sides must have the mod. Examples: build cameras, extra equipment slots.
• Admin client: The admin installs it on their own game and no one else has to. Server Devcommands is the one you are most likely to want, and it is covered in Valheim Console Commands.

Each Thunderstore page notes which kind a mod is, in the category tags near the top of the listing.

Prefer server-side mods where you can

Server-side mods are the easiest to run because you do not have to coordinate player installs.

Jotunn and other dependencies

Most Valheim mods are not standalone. They are built on top of a shared library, and if that library is missing they fail to load with an error that mentions a type or assembly rather than the mod's own name.

The library you will meet first is Jotunn (ValheimModding-Jotunn). At roughly 4 million downloads it is the most-downloaded Valheim mod on Thunderstore after BepInEx itself and the r2modman manager, and a large share of the ecosystem lists it as a hard dependency — EpicLoot, to take one example, will not start without it. Jotunn is client and server: install it on both sides, exactly like the mod that needed it.

Other libraries that show up as dependencies include ValheimModding-JsonDotNET and ValheimModding-YamlDotNet.

Read the Dependencies box before you download

Every Thunderstore page lists its dependencies with the exact version each mod was built against. Install those too, at those versions. "Mod will not load" is a missing dependency far more often than it is a broken mod — and BepInEx/LogOutput.log will name what is missing.

The r2modman mod manager resolves dependencies automatically on the client side, which is the main reason to use it rather than dragging .dll files around by hand.

Step 3: Install a Mod

1. Download the mod's .zip from Thunderstore.

2. Extract locally. You typically see a BepInExPack folder or a single .dll.

3. Upload the .dll files to BepInEx/plugins/. If the mod ships a folder structure with plugins/ and config/, preserve it.

4. Repeat for every dependency the mod lists.

5. Restart the server.

6. Check the console for the load line, e.g. Loaded plugin: ....

For client and server mods, send players the same download.

r2modman handles the client side

The mod manager r2modman (also from Thunderstore) makes client installs trivial.

Check a Mod Is Still Maintained

Valheim modding has been going since 2021 and a lot of once-standard mods have been abandoned. Thunderstore marks these itself: an abandoned package carries a Deprecated banner on its page, and a deprecated mod compiled against a 2021 build of the game will not survive 1.0.

Before you install anything, look at two things on the Thunderstore page:

• The Deprecated banner. If it is there, find a maintained fork instead. Search the mod's name — successors usually keep it, with a new author's handle in front.
• The last-updated date. Anything that has not been touched since the Ashlands update (May 2024) is a gamble on a game that patches regularly.

Two long-standing recommendations are deprecated — and one came back

If you are following an older Valheim guide — including an older version of this one — check these before you install them. Auga (RandyKnapp/Auga, last updated November 2023) and the original Build Camera (gittywithexcitement/Build_Camera, September 2021) are still flagged deprecated on Thunderstore. Replacements are in the table below.

Equipment and Quick Slots (RandyKnapp/EquipmentAndQuickSlots) used to be on that list and is not any more. Checked on 11 September 2026, it is no longer flagged deprecated and shipped version 3.1.2 that day — it was picked back up and rebuilt for 1.0. This is exactly why the check below matters more than any list: a mod's status changes, in both directions.

Popular Mods

Looking for what still works after 1.0?

Best Valheim Server Mods That Work After 1.0 tracks which mods have been rebuilt since the 1.0 release, which have not been touched since, and which are deprecated — checked against Thunderstore with dates. This section is a shorter, slower-moving starting list.

Downloads and dates below were checked against Thunderstore on 18 August 2026.

Two entries need a caveat

ValheimPlus — the original ValheimPlus/ValheimPlus package is deprecated and has not been updated since December 2022. What people mean by "ValheimPlus" today is Grantapher's fork, published as ValheimPlus_Grantapher_Temporary and describing itself as "a (not so) temporary Valheim Plus fork". It is alive and moving fast: checked against the Thunderstore package API on 11 September 2026, it is not deprecated and its latest release is 10.1.0, published that same day, depending on the launch-day BepInEx build 5.4.2350. ValheimPlus on a dedicated server covers which package to take, where the config went and the version pinning that catches people out.

Better Networking — the widely-linked CW_Jesse package is not deprecated, but it was last updated in November 2023. Several community forks track newer game builds; if it stops loading after a patch, search Thunderstore for the mod name and take the most recently updated fork rather than assuming the feature is gone.

Auga, the UI overhaul older guides recommend, is deprecated with no full replacement. ZenDragon/AugaLite is maintained but is a deliberately small subset — its own description says roughly 95% of the original functionality has been removed. There is currently no maintained drop-in for the full Auga.

FAQ

Do my mods work now that 1.0 has shipped?

Some do. Iron Gate does not offer official mod support and has said it cannot guarantee any mod will be functional at 1.0, and there was no public test branch beforehand, so no author could pre-build against it. What actually happened: BepInEx itself was rebuilt on launch day, and a large share of the ecosystem followed within days. Which specific mods have been rebuilt is a moving target, so check each one rather than trusting any list — including this page. Best Valheim Server Mods tracks what has been rebuilt since 1.0 and what has not.

Back up your world before patching, set Modding Framework to Vanilla if a plugin is stopping the server from booting, and re-add mods one at a time as they are rebuilt.

Is BepInEx safe?

Yes. BepInEx is open source under the LGPL-2.1 licence with the full code on GitHub, and it is a general Unity modding framework rather than anything written for Valheim specifically. There is no hidden payload in it.

Two things do come up, and both are worth knowing.

Your antivirus may object on the client, and it is a false alarm. On Windows, BepInEx loads by dropping a proxy winhttp.dll next to the game executable — a legitimate technique that malware also uses, so heuristic scanners occasionally flag winhttp.dll or .doorstop_version. BepInEx's maintainers have investigated those reports and closed them as false positives. None of this touches the server: the Linux dedicated server does not use winhttp.dll at all, and loads BepInEx through its launch script instead.

The loader is not the risk — the plugins are. BepInEx runs whatever .dll you put in BepInEx/plugins/ with full access to the game process, so the trust question belongs to each mod, not to BepInEx. Take mods from Thunderstore, check the version matches your Valheim build, install one at a time so you know which one broke things, and back the world up before you start. A bad plugin corrupting a save is the failure people actually hit, not malware.

Do console players need the mods too?

They cannot have them. Mods are a PC-side thing — BepInEx patches a Windows, Linux or Mac game install, and Iron Gate has confirmed there will be no mod support on consoles at 1.0. If your group includes Xbox, PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch 2 players, stick to server-side mods, which change the rules of the world without needing anything installed on the player's machine. Anything that has to be installed on the player's machine is simply unavailable to them, and a mod the server insists both sides run will stop them connecting at all.

What to Read Next

• Managing your Valheim server and always back up before installing or updating a mod, since a bad mod can corrupt the world
• Valheim Server Settings and Launch Arguments for admin setup, which pairs with Server Devcommands
• Booting your Valheim server for the first time if you have not got that far yet

---

Made with 💜 by GameServerKings