Source: https://gameye.com/glossary/relay-server/

---
title: "What Is a Relay Server? (vs Dedicated Servers in Games)"
description: "A relay server forwards traffic between players without game logic — solves NAT traversal but adds latency and won"
---

# Relay Server

A relay server forwards network traffic between players without running any game logic — it solves NAT traversal and connectivity problems but does not make your game authoritative or cheat-resistant.

In a peer-to-peer game, players connect directly to each other. This works in theory but breaks in practice because most players sit behind NAT (network address translation) routers that block unsolicited incoming connections. A relay server acts as a neutral middleman: instead of connecting directly, both players connect to the relay, and the relay forwards their packets to each other.

The game logic still runs on the players’ machines. The relay just moves bytes — it has no idea what those bytes mean.

## Relay vs. dedicated server

This is the most important distinction to understand when choosing your multiplayer infrastructure:

|  | Relay server | Dedicated server |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Runs game logic | No | Yes |
| Authoritative | No | Yes |
| Cheat-resistant | No | Yes |
| Solves NAT | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | Low | Higher |
| Latency | Adds a hop | Can be lower (geographically placed) |

A relay is not a substitute for a dedicated server — it’s a different tool for a different problem. Relays help P2P games connect. Dedicated servers replace P2P entirely.

## When to use a relay

Relays make sense for:

- **Casual or co-op games** where cheating is not a concern and the engineering cost of dedicated servers is hard to justify

- **Early prototypes** where you want real players to test connectivity before investing in server infrastructure

- **Fallback connectivity** — some architectures use dedicated servers as the primary path but fall back to relay when direct connection fails

Unity Relay, Photon, and Steam Networking Sockets all offer relay services. They are fast to integrate and have no per-session compute cost beyond bandwidth.

## When you’ve outgrown a relay

If your game is competitive, ranked, or large-scale, relays stop being sufficient:

- Players can still manipulate their own client state (the relay just forwards it)

- One player’s poor connection degrades everyone’s experience (no server to buffer against it)

- You have no server-side logs, no session replay, no telemetry

At that point you need a **dedicated authoritative server** — a separate machine running your game logic, managing session state, and acting as the single source of truth. That’s the infrastructure Gameye provides.

**See also:** [Dedicated server](https://gameye.com/glossary/dedicated-server/) · [Peer-to-peer architecture](https://gameye.com/glossary/peer-to-peer-architecture/) · [Authoritative server](https://gameye.com/glossary/authoritative-server/) · [Latency](https://gameye.com/glossary/latency/) · [How Gameye orchestrates dedicated servers globally](https://gameye.com/how-it-works/)

Building a multiplayer game? Gameye hosts dedicated game servers: ship your server as a Docker container and start one per match with a single API call, in a region near your players.

[See how it works →](https://gameye.com/how-it-works/)

[Back to Glossary](https://gameye.com/glossary/)

## Related terms

- ### Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is a remote machine that runs your game logic independently of any player's client — the authoritative source of truth for every match. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/dedicated-server/)
- ### Peer-to-peer architecture

Peer-to-peer designates one player as host; others connect to their machine. Client-server uses external machines to host game sessions for all players. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/peer-to-peer-architecture/)
- ### Authoritative Server

An authoritative server runs your game logic and determines match truth — no client can override it, making cheating structurally impossible. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/authoritative-server/)
- ### Latency

Latency is how fast data is moving. How quickly does it get from point A to point B? (And it’s generally measured in milliseconds.) [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/latency/)
- ### Netcode

Netcode synchronises game state between players. Poor netcode causes lag, rubber-banding, and hit registration issues in multiplayer games. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/netcode/)