RedM vs FiveM

The short answer

FiveM is a modification client for Grand Theft Auto V. RedM is a modification client for Red Dead Redemption 2. Both are made by Cfx.re, both need you to own the game on PC, both connect you to servers other people run, and both are dominated by roleplay communities. If you understand how one works you understand how the other works.

The differences that matter are not technical. They are the pace of the world, the size of the ecosystem, and what a server is therefore able to be.

What is genuinely the same

If you already play FiveM, none of this will need learning again.

• The connection model. A client that launches your own installed copy of the game, a server list, and a direct connect address. Joining a server downloads that server's resources to a local cache, so the first join is slow and later joins are not.
• Server ownership. Anybody can run one. Nothing is hosted by Rockstar and nothing you do on a community server touches your Rockstar progress.
• Every server is its own game. Two servers can share nothing beyond the map. This is more true on RedM, not less.
• Discord as the front desk. Rules, support, appeals, applications where there are any, and announcements live in Discord on both. If a server's Discord is dead, so is the server.
• Two ways in. Allowlisted servers on both sides make you apply and wait, which is the most reliable filter either community has. Open servers let you connect and do the same work through moderation afterwards. Both are common and neither is a mark of how serious a server is.
• Cache trouble. The same class of problem and the same fix. When something is inexplicably broken on one server and fine on others, clear the cache.

The difference that decides it: pace

Everything else on this page is detail. This is the part that determines whether you enjoy RedM, and it is not a matter of taste in the way people usually mean.

In Los Santos, distance is close to free. If somebody says there is a situation at the docks, you are at the docks. The result is that a FiveM session can contain several unrelated things, and a server can run a plot that assumes people can be assembled at short notice.

In 1899 the fastest thing you own is a horse. Valentine to Saint Denis is a real ride. That single fact rewrites what roleplay is:

• Travel becomes content, or it becomes tedium. There is no third outcome. On a good server the ride is where conversations happen, where you get robbed, where you find something. On a thin server it is a loading screen you have to steer.
• Plans replace impulses. Meeting someone in the next town is arranged, not decided. Groups matter more, because riding somewhere alone to find nobody there is an expensive mistake.
• Geography becomes real. Towns develop characters, because the people in them are the people who live there. A regional identity is something FiveM servers work hard to fake and RedM servers get for free.
• Consequence carries weight. Losing your horse, your kit or your standing costs hours, not minutes. Servers lean on this, and it is why RedM roleplay has a reputation for being slower and more serious.
• Crime is different work. There is no getaway car. A robbery is planned around escape routes, terrain and how fast the law can ride, which makes it more interesting to plan and much harder to improvise.

Ecosystem size, and what it actually costs you

FiveM has had a decade and an enormous player base. RedM has neither. That gap shows up in ways worth knowing about before you switch, and it cuts both ways.

What the smaller scene costs

• Fewer servers to choose from. If a RedM server is not for you, the next option may not be a close substitute. On FiveM there is always another server doing roughly the same thing better.
• Fewer ready-made scripts. A RedM server wanting a system nobody has published has to build it. That means slower development and more bugs that are unique to that server, because nobody else has hit them.
• Smaller development pool. Fewer people know the RedM natives well. Servers lose a developer and feel it for months.
• Thinner documentation. When something breaks, the forum thread that solves it may not exist. On FiveM it almost always does.
• Population risk. A RedM server with thirty regulars is doing well. Lose ten of them to a game release and the world feels empty in a way a large FiveM server does not.

What the smaller scene buys

• Servers differ from each other. The FiveM market has so many good public scripts that a lot of servers are the same server with a different logo. RedM servers are forced to build, so what they build is theirs.
• Communities are smaller and know each other. Thirty regulars who all recognise each other's characters produces continuity that a two hundred player server cannot.
• Less of the ambient nonsense. The barrier to entry, buying a large single player game and installing a second client for it, filters out a lot of drive-by behaviour before it arrives.
• Staff are reachable. On a small server the people who wrote the systems are in the Discord and will answer you. That is rare and worth something.

The right way to weigh this is not "which is bigger". It is whether you want a wide choice of similar servers or a narrow choice of distinct ones.

Mechanical differences you will notice in the first hour

• Your horse is a character. It has stamina, health, a bond level, a temperament and a saddle that holds your things. It can be scared, injured and killed. Servers treat it closer to a second character than a vehicle, and losing one lands differently to losing a car.
• Weapons need maintenance and reload slowly. Firearms degrade and foul. A gunfight is a handful of deliberate shots and a reload you have to survive, not a magazine dump.
• Deadeye exists. Servers handle it very differently, from disabled outright to fully in play. Ask, because it changes combat balance completely.
• Carrying capacity is physical. The base game already models satchels, weight and horse storage, so RedM servers lean into inventory constraint far more than FiveM servers usually do. Hauling anything bulky is a logistics problem.
• Interaction is prompt driven. Red Dead Redemption 2's own prompt and greeting system is used heavily. It feels more diegetic and slower than a FiveM radial menu, which is the point.
• Money is small. Two dollars is a real amount in 1899, and servers that respect that get economies where the numbers mean something. A server where a day's work pays four hundred dollars has thrown that away.
• The map is quieter. Fewer scripted distractions, longer sightlines, and weather that matters. Whether that reads as atmosphere or emptiness depends on how much the server has put into it.

Requirements and performance

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the heavier of the two games, and it was heavier at release than Grand Theft Auto V was at its own. A machine comfortable on a busy FiveM server is not automatically comfortable on a busy RedM one.

• Disk. Both games are large, and both clients keep a per-server cache on top. Assume tens of gigabytes for the game and several more for the client and its cached server content.
• Graphics settings. Red Dead Redemption 2's defaults target single player. On a populated server with custom assets, turning down the expensive settings, particularly the volumetric and water options, buys back more than it costs to look at.
• Both are Windows only for players. Servers run on Linux. There is no console version of either, and there is no supported way around that.
• Latency hurts more here. Not because the netcode is worse, but because a horse under load and a slow deliberate gunfight both punish a late correction. If you are in Australia, the main site's guide covers what distance actually costs you, and this site covers how to measure your own route.

If you build servers: what carries over

For a FiveM developer the move is much smaller than it looks from outside.

Which one should you play

Both, if you have the games. They are not competing for the same evening as directly as they look, and plenty of people keep a character in each.

If you have to pick one:

• Pick FiveM if you play in short sessions, you want a large choice of servers, you like modern settings and fast action, or you want to be able to leave and come back to a scene that has not moved without you.
• Pick RedM if you want a slower world where travel and consequence matter, you prefer a smaller community that knows your character, you like trades and economies more than car chases, or you have bounced off FiveM because every server felt like the last one.
• Pick neither yet if you do not own the game. Buying a sixty dollar single player game to try a multiplayer mod is a real decision, and Red Dead Redemption 2 is worth playing on its own terms first. Play the story mode. If the world holds you for thirty hours it will hold you on a server.

One more thing if you are in Australia

The FiveM scene has established Australian servers and finding one is straightforward. The RedM scene does not, and that is the practical difficulty facing an Australian player considering the switch. Most RedM servers are hosted in North America or Europe, and the pace of the game does not make the latency forgivable in the way people assume.

Which server to choose is covered on the main site, in Australian RedM servers. How to measure the route to one before you commit an evening to it is the other guide on this site. If you have not installed the client yet, the install guide is the shorter read.

Common questions