Panelra vs LinuxGSM for Rust Servers

LinuxGSM (Linux Game Server Managers) is the tool many Rust admins start with on their first VPS, and for good reason. This page compares it with Panelra for the job of running Rust on your own Linux machine. LinuxGSM details come from its documentation and source code as of 2026-09-28; the latest release when we checked was v26.2.0.

What LinuxGSM is

LinuxGSM is a collection of Bash scripts. You create a user for the server, download the script and let it install Rust through SteamCMD:

adduser rustserver
su - rustserver
curl -Lo linuxgsm.sh https://linuxgsm.sh && chmod +x linuxgsm.sh && bash linuxgsm.sh rustserver
./rustserver install

From then on, ./rustserver is your control panel: start, stop, restart, console, update, validate, backup, monitor, details, map-wipe, full-wipe, mods-install and more. The server runs inside a tmux session, settings live in config files under lgsm/config-lgsm/rustserver/, and the Rust start line is built from variables such as port, rconport, appport, seed and worldsize.

What LinuxGSM does better

Free, open and readable. LinuxGSM is MIT licensed and has no hosted part at all. Every command is a shell script you can read before you run it. Panelra's dashboard is a hosted service you depend on.

No root for the game server. The docs install Rust under a dedicated rustserver user. The Panelra agent installs as root, and its Rust services run as root too.

Many games, one tool. LinuxGSM covers many games with the same commands, so if you also run other game servers, you only learn one workflow. Panelra is Rust only.

More alert channels. LinuxGSM can send alerts to Discord, email, Gotify, IFTTT, Matrix, ntfy, Pushbullet, Pushover, Rocket.Chat, Slack and Telegram, for events such as monitor restarts, updates, wipes and backups, and ./rustserver test-alert checks your setup. Panelra alerts go to its in-panel inbox and to a Discord webhook.

Scriptable by design. Because it is plain commands, LinuxGSM fits into whatever you already use: cron, your own scripts or configuration management. The docs suggest this cron setup:

*/5 * * * * /home/username/gameserver monitor > /dev/null 2>&1
*/30 * * * * /home/username/gameserver update > /dev/null 2>&1
30 4 * * * /home/username/gameserver force-update > /dev/null 2>&1
0 0 * * 0 /home/username/gameserver update-lgsm > /dev/null 2>&1

That monitors the server every 5 minutes, checks for a Rust update every 30 minutes and restarts only if one is found, restarts and checks for an update every day at 4:30, and updates LinuxGSM itself every Sunday.

Careful wipes. map-wipe deletes the .map and .sav files and keeps blueprints. full-wipe also deletes the .db files but keeps player.tokens.db, so Rust+ pairings survive. If seed is empty or 0, LinuxGSM rolls a new random seed on wipe.

Oxide and Carbon. ./rustserver mods-install installs Oxide, and the source code also lists Carbon for Rust. LinuxGSM sources Carbon's environment.sh before start, so the doorstop preloader is handled for you.

Backups with retention. ./rustserver backup writes a .tar.gz of the whole server directory, with maxbackups and maxbackupdays to limit how many are kept. By default it stops the server while the backup runs, so the files are consistent.

What Panelra does that LinuxGSM does not

A web dashboard for everything. Install Rust, change settings, update, wipe, install plugins, back up, restore and restart from a browser, on a phone if you need to. With LinuxGSM each of those is an SSH session.

Team roles instead of shell accounts. LinuxGSM access means a shell account on the machine, and whoever can run ./rustserver can also wipe it. Panelra has five roles: Owner, Admin, Operator, Moderator and Viewer. A Moderator can kick, ban, write notes, handle F7 reports and broadcast without being able to stop, wipe or reconfigure the server, and every action goes into an activity log.

Wipe schedules that know the Rust calendar. Panelra schedules wipes weekly, monthly, on specific dates or on Facepunch forced wipe days, with map only or map and blueprints, and keep, random, custom seed or custom map URL. With cron, "first Thursday of the month" is harder than it looks: when both the day-of-month and day-of-week fields are set, cron runs the job when either one matches, so 0 18 1-7 * 4 fires at 18:00 on the 1st to the 7th and on every Thursday. You end up adding a date check in a wrapper script.

Updates with a warning. LinuxGSM's update command restarts the server when an update is found. Panelra shows when the next auto-update will happen, lets you update now, and gives players a single 5-minute warning before the restart.

Faster crash detection. LinuxGSM's monitor runs from cron, checks that the process is running, then queries the server, retrying every 15 seconds for 60 seconds before it restarts it and sends an alert. With the suggested 5-minute cron, a crash can go unnoticed for a few minutes. Panelra runs each Rust server as a systemd service with Restart=always, so systemd restarts it within seconds, and the agent reads the exit status to report crashes, crash loops, a server that stops responding, a server stuck while starting and a host that goes offline. If the kernel's out-of-memory killer ended the process, the crash report says so.

One-click restore. Panelra takes manual, scheduled and pre-wipe backups and restores them from the dashboard. LinuxGSM's backup docs do not describe a restore command, so restoring means unpacking the archive yourself.

RCON and moderation in the browser. Live console, player list, kicks, bans and broadcasts, with bans applied to every server in the team and enforced on join. LinuxGSM has ./rustserver send for console commands and its docs point to separate RCON tools for the rest.

Plugins from a catalog. Panelra installs plugins from the uMod catalog, edits their configs and can auto-update them. With LinuxGSM you copy plugin files into oxide/plugins or carbon/plugins yourself.

Setting up Panelra

Create an account, add a host, and run the command the dashboard gives you as root on the Linux machine:

curl -sL https://app.panelra.io/install | sudo AGENT_TOKEN=<your-token> bash

The agent connects out over HTTPS on port 443, so there is no inbound port to open for it. You then install Rust from the dashboard; the agent installs SteamCMD and its dependencies, downloads the server and creates the systemd service.

Who should NOT use Panelra

Stay with LinuxGSM if:

• You like the shell and run the server alone. If SSH and cron are comfortable and nobody else needs access, LinuxGSM already covers updates, wipes, backups and monitoring for free.
• You want no third-party service. Panelra's dashboard is hosted. LinuxGSM keeps everything on your machine.
• You want the game server to run as a non-root user. LinuxGSM's docs set up a dedicated user. Panelra runs Rust as root.
• You run other games too. LinuxGSM supports many; Panelra only Rust.
• Your machine is not Ubuntu or Debian on x86_64 with systemd. The Panelra agent needs Ubuntu or Debian (22.04, 24.04 or 12 recommended).

Either way, size the machine for Rust. LinuxGSM's Rust page lists at least 9 GB of RAM; Panelra asks for about 12 GB of RAM and 30 GB of disk per server. Players need 28015 and 28017 UDP, Rust+ uses 28082 TCP, and RCON on 28016 should stay private.

Feature comparison

"Not verified" means we could not confirm it from LinuxGSM's docs or source either way. It is not a "no".

Pricing

Sources

Checked on 2026-09-28:

• LinuxGSM Rust install page: linuxgsm.com/servers/rustserver
• Rust server docs, wipes and Oxide: docs.linuxgsm.com/game-servers/rust
• Cron jobs: docs.linuxgsm.com/configuration/cronjobs
• Monitor: docs.linuxgsm.com/commands/monitor
• Mods: docs.linuxgsm.com/commands/mods
• Backup: docs.linuxgsm.com/commands/backup
• Discord alerts: docs.linuxgsm.com/alerts/discord
• Source: wipe, mods list, Carbon start, alerts and command list: github.com/GameServerManagers/LinuxGSM
• Cron day matching: man7.org crontab(5)
• Panelra features: panelra.io/features