Best FiveM server tools in 2026: what to run next to txAdmin

txAdmin comes with FXServer and runs the machine: it starts and restarts the server, shows the live console and keeps track of bans and warnings. Everything around it is up to you: where screenshots and clips go, how the database gets backed up, how staff find out what a player did, and why the server stutters at ten in the evening. This guide takes each of those jobs, the tools servers use for it and what we would pick in 2026. We make FiveDock, so it comes up in most sections; prices and features of other tools come from their public pages on 23 October 2026.

txAdmin: keep it

txAdmin is free, ships inside FXServer and is the standard way to run a FiveM server. Its web panel has the live console, scheduled restarts, the player list with warnings, bans and a whitelist, and recipes that deploy a fresh ESX or QBCore server. It doesn’t host files, back up the database or tell you which script errors hit the most players. The tools below fill those gaps and run beside it.

File hosting for screenshots and clips

MDT mugshots, phone photos and evidence clips need a host whose links keep working for years. The options servers use:

• FiveDock. 100 GB of traffic a month on Free, 1 TB for €12 on City and 5 TB for €39 on Metro, a hard spend cap on every plan and a page where players upload their own clips. It answers Fivemanage’s upload API, so existing scripts move over with a new URL and key.
• Fivemanage. The host lb-phone uses by default: 20 GB of bandwidth free, 1 TB for $24, 5 TB for $79 and $4 a TB past that. Its player upload portal is on the $79 plan only.
• Discord webhooks. Free, but attachment links expire, so a link saved in a database stops working.
• Your own R2 or S3 bucket. The cheapest raw storage, if you write and maintain the upload code yourself.

The full comparison, with monthly bills worked out, is in FiveM image hosting compared.

Database backups

The database holds every character, car and bank balance. txAdmin doesn’t back it up, and a hosting provider’s snapshot of the whole machine is usually a day or more old and can only restore everything at once. What servers use instead:

• A nightly mysqldump from cron or Task Scheduler. Free and much better than nothing, but every run is a full dump, it stays on the same machine unless you copy it off, and nobody checks that it restores until the day it has to.
• FiveDock. Incremental backups encrypted on your machine with a key FiveDock never sees, daily on Free and City and hourly on Metro. Restore the whole server, or on Metro one table or one player, and Metro restores each backup into a throwaway database to prove it comes back whole.

mysqldump --single-transaction --routines --triggers -u fivem -p fivem > fivem-$(date +%F).sql

How to back up a FiveM server database covers both, step by step.

Logs, reports and evidence

When a player appeals a ban, staff need to show what happened. Most servers start with a Discord channel per log type, which works until someone has to dig through three weeks of messages for one license.

• Discord webhooks. Free and familiar. They can hit Discord’s rate limits when a busy server logs every event, and finding everything about one player means searching each channel by hand.
• ox_lib’s logger with Fivemanage. Structured logs, kept 15 days on the free and $8 plans and up to 180 days on the $79 plan.
• FiveDock. Takes the same ox_lib logs and files each line under the player it is about, next to script errors and in-game reports the agent records by itself. Metro builds a timeline per player, to the second, and turns a slice of it into an evidence package you can hand to the banned player.

FiveM logs beyond Discord webhooks shows the ox_lib setup.

Script errors

The server console prints every SCRIPT ERROR, and on a busy server nobody reads it. txAdmin shows the console but doesn’t group or count what it prints. The FiveDock agent reads the console as it prints, masks player names and identifiers, and groups each error by resource, file and line. On Metro, Error Hunter lists the groups with a count, the players hit and when each was first and last seen, with anything new since the last restart on top.

How to read a FiveM SCRIPT ERROR explains the messages and their usual fixes.

Lag

FXServer’s profiler and resmon are built in and free, and hard to read. fivedock perf, free on every FiveDock plan, reads the same profiler and names the resources, loops and commands behind a stutter, down to the file and line. The agent also records the next ten seconds by itself whenever the server thread stalls for 150 ms or more. Find what lags on a FiveM server walks through both.

Staff permissions

ACE permissions in server.cfg decide which commands each group can run, and txAdmin has its own admin permissions for its panel. FiveDock gives every staff member an account with every action logged under their name, and on Metro adds roles per command and a second person’s approval for dangerous ones. FiveM ACE permissions for staff shows the server.cfg side.

A setup that covers it

1. txAdmin for the process, restarts, bans and the whitelist.
2. The FiveDock agent, one resource started before your framework, for files, backups, reports, script errors and lag checks.
3. ox_lib’s logger pointed at FiveDock for structured logs.
4. A Discord channel for the alerts FiveDock posts.

set fivedock_key "fda_live_…"
ensure fivedock
ensure ox_lib
ensure qb-core

Free covers a small server. City adds 1 TB of traffic, 30 days of backups and 10 staff accounts for €12 a month. Metro adds player timelines, single-player restores, Error Hunter and unlimited staff for €39. Every new workspace starts with 14 days of Metro.

Common questions

What is the best tool for managing a FiveM server?

Use txAdmin to run the server process, because it ships with FXServer and handles restarts, the console and bans. For the jobs txAdmin leaves out, such as file hosting, database backups, evidence and script errors, FiveDock covers them with one resource and a free plan.

Does txAdmin back up the database?

No. txAdmin manages the server process, restarts and bans, and leaves the database to you. Run a scheduled mysqldump at the very least, or an agent like FiveDock that takes encrypted incremental backups and can restore one table or one player.

Is there a free alternative to Fivemanage?

FiveDock’s Free plan has 10 GB of storage and 100 GB of traffic a month, five times the 20 GB on Fivemanage Dev, and answers the same upload API. It stops at a hard cap, so it never sends a bill.

Can FiveDock replace txAdmin?

They do different jobs. txAdmin runs the machine: the process, restarts and console. FiveDock runs the city: players, evidence, rollbacks and files. Most servers use both.