Starbound is a sandbox adventure featuring exploration, base building, crafting, and travel between different planets. On your own server, you can play with friends in a persistent world, save your progress, and expand the game with mods.
Mods are especially appealing for Starbound because they add new content, quality-of-life features, or alternative playstyles. Save files help you transfer existing progress to the server or back it up for later.
For private groups, a server password is also useful. Admin rights let you manage the server and step in when problems arise.
At 4Netplayers, you can rent your own Starbound server and configure it for friends or community players. This wiki helps you with mods, save files, password protection, and admin rights.