The current hosting plan I have gives me 1.5gb of ram, and I know 100 player sounds like a lot, but I was thinking to set the viewdistance for each to 6 and have a world border of either 5k or 7k - square. It's also going to be a faction server so groups of players will be together most of the time. Would this run fine? also any tips for optimizing the server would be great
4gb of ram would be a better choice for nearly 100 people. I recommend flipside tech. Very affordable, very good control panel. You can find the packages here: https://flipsidetech.com/minecraft_pricing.html
I doubt you'll be able to sustain eighty people with that little memory.