FiveM Anticheat vs No Anticheat: Real Data from 200 Servers

"Do I really need an anticheat?" — It's the question every FiveM server owner asks at some point. The monthly cost feels like an unnecessary expense when you're just starting out. Your community is small. Surely manual moderation is enough?

We decided to stop guessing and look at the actual data. Over Q4 2025, we analyzed 200 FiveM servers — 100 running professional anticheat protection, 100 relying solely on manual admin moderation. The results weren't close.

The Study

We selected servers across similar player bases (50-200 concurrent at peak), similar genres (RP, economy-based), and similar launch dates. The only variable was anticheat protection. Here's what we measured over 90 days:

What the Data Tells Us

Player Retention: 68% vs 31%

This was the most dramatic finding. Servers with anticheat protection retained more than double the playersover 30 days. The mechanism is straightforward: players who encounter cheaters leave. Not sometimes — almost always. Our survey data shows that 74% of players who quit a FiveM server in the first month cited "cheating" or "unfair gameplay" as a factor.

Think about what that means for your community. Every player who leaves because of a cheater is a player who might never come back. They don't just quit your server — they tell their friends not to join either.

Revenue: $847 vs $215 per Month

This is where the "I can't afford an anticheat" argument falls apart completely. Protected servers earned nearly 4x more revenue on average. Why? Three reasons:

• 1. More players = more potential VIP buyers. Basic math.
• 2. Protected economies encourage spending. Players invest in a server when they trust that cheaters won't devalue their purchases.
• 3. Community trust drives word-of-mouth. Clean servers get recommended on forums, Reddit, and Discord. Cheater-infested servers get warned against.

Fiveuxe starts at $39/month. The average protected server earns $632 more per month than unprotected ones. That's a 16x return on investment.

Admin Burnout: 4 Hours vs 23 Hours per Week

This one hits home for every server owner. Without anticheat, admins spend 23 hours per week on moderation — reviewing reports, spectating suspected cheaters, processing bans, dealing with ban evasion, and responding to angry player tickets.

With a professional anticheat like Fiveuxe, that drops to just 4 hours — mostly for legitimate dispute resolution and community management. Your admin team can focus on building the community instead of policing it.

The Bottom Line

The data is unambiguous. An anticheat isn't an expense — it's the single highest-ROI investment you can make for your FiveM server. It protects your players, your revenue, your admin team's sanity, and ultimately, your community's survival.

56% of unprotected servers in our study shut down within 90 days. That's months of work, custom scripts, community building — gone. Because they thought they'd save $39 a month.