Installing Valheim mods with BepInEx and Thunderstore

Install Valheim mods through the dashboard's Thunderstore browser, with BepInEx already in place: search, click, restart, and you're modded.

How Valheim mods work on Hostd

Installing Valheim mods on a Hostd server is a Thunderstore-and-click affair: open the dashboard's Mods tab, search Thunderstore, click Install, restart. BepInEx (the mod loader every Valheim mod needs) is already in place, overlayed by us on every boot, so you don't install it and you don't update it.

That last part trips up people coming from other hosts. You won't see BepInEx in the mod browser, you won't find it in the install list, and you don't need to. It's part of the image.

The Thunderstore browser

The Thunderstore Valheim community is where the modding scene lives. Our dashboard wires straight into it.

  1. Open Dashboard → your server → Mods.
  2. The browser shows the live Thunderstore catalogue. Search by name (ValheimPlus, EpicLoot, Jewelcrafting), filter by category, or toggle the Hide deprecated switch (on by default).
  3. Click any mod for its description, dependencies, and version history.
  4. Hit Install. The server flags it for the next boot.
  5. Restart from the dashboard. The mod's downloaded, unpacked, and active.

A few things the browser does for you:

  • Filters out denikson/BepInExPack because that's the loader we already ship. Listing it would just be a footgun.
  • Resolves dependencies at install time. If a mod needs Jotunn or a Common library mod, those come along automatically.
  • Caps each server at 30 mods. That's a high ceiling for Valheim, where mod count multiplies conflicts. If you're bumping it, you're probably running too many.

Where mods land on disk

If you ever need to peek behind the curtain:

  • BepInEx itself lives at /data/BepInEx/ (overlayed read-only by Hostd).
  • Mods land in /data/BepInEx/plugins/.
  • Config files for each mod live in /data/BepInEx/config/.

You can browse and edit any of this through the dashboard's Files tab. Useful when a mod's config file needs a value the in-game settings don't expose.

Installing a mod manually (when you need to)

99% of the time, the dashboard browser is what you want. But sometimes you've got a hand-built mod, a beta release that hasn't hit Thunderstore yet, or a custom fork. The manual route:

  1. Download the mod's .zip or .dll to your local machine.
  2. Open the Files tab on your dashboard and navigate to /data/BepInEx/plugins/.
  3. Upload the contents there. Most Thunderstore mods unpack to a single folder; keep that folder structure intact.
  4. Restart the server.

Mods installed this way won't appear in the dashboard's installed list (it tracks Thunderstore installs), but the loader will pick them up on boot just the same.

Client-side too, please

This is the bit new modders forget: most Valheim mods need to be installed on every client, not just the server. ValheimPlus, EpicLoot, Jewelcrafting, almost all of them. Players use r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager on their own PC, install the same mods, then connect.

A server-only install will either kick clients on join ("mod mismatch") or behave very oddly. Match your client mod list to your server's.

Triaging mod conflicts

When a mod stops working or the server won't start cleanly after an install, the playbook is short:

  1. Remove the most recent mod you installed. Dashboard → Mods → uninstall.
  2. Restart. Watch the boot log for the Loaded N plugins line.
  3. Check the console output in the dashboard for red lines. BepInEx is loud when something's wrong; the offending mod name is usually in the first or second error.
  4. If two mods conflict with each other (rare but real), check each mod's Thunderstore page for an incompatibility note before reinstalling.

The 30-mod cap is partly there to make this easier: with 30 plugins, the offender is findable in five minutes. With 80, you'd be there all evening.

Popular mods worth knowing about

These come up in nearly every Valheim modded group:

  • ValheimPlus (the Grantapher rewrite) for tunable game settings, building tweaks, and inventory QoL.
  • EpicLoot turns the loot tables into a Diablo-style rarity system. Genuinely changes how the late game plays.
  • Jewelcrafting adds sockets, gems, and effects that stack neatly with EpicLoot.
  • Better Trader for a smarter Haldor stock.

There are hundreds more on Thunderstore; the browser's "Most downloaded this week" tab is a good place to wander.

Before risky mod work, back up

Major mod updates and big config rewrites are the most common cause of "my world won't load" calls. Take a manual backup before each round of changes. See Manual backups for the dashboard button.

Next steps

Last updated 2026-05-20. Notice a mistake? Tell us.

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