diff --git a/crates/udp/src/config.rs b/crates/udp/src/config.rs
index b25eae9..ae97a4f 100644
--- a/crates/udp/src/config.rs
+++ b/crates/udp/src/config.rs
@@ -11,7 +11,9 @@ use aquatic_toml_config::TomlConfig;
 #[derive(Clone, Debug, PartialEq, TomlConfig, Deserialize, Serialize)]
 #[serde(default, deny_unknown_fields)]
 pub struct Config {
-    /// Number of socket workers. One per virtual CPU is recommended
+    /// Number of socket workers
+    ///
+    /// 0 = automatically set to number of available virtual CPUs
     pub socket_workers: usize,
     pub log_level: LogLevel,
     pub network: NetworkConfig,
diff --git a/crates/udp/src/lib.rs b/crates/udp/src/lib.rs
index e91027e..b1215c1 100644
--- a/crates/udp/src/lib.rs
+++ b/crates/udp/src/lib.rs
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ pub mod config;
 pub mod swarm;
 pub mod workers;
 
-use std::thread::{sleep, Builder, JoinHandle};
+use std::thread::{available_parallelism, sleep, Builder, JoinHandle};
 use std::time::Duration;
 
 use anyhow::Context;
@@ -22,9 +22,13 @@ use workers::socket::ConnectionValidator;
 pub const APP_NAME: &str = "aquatic_udp: UDP BitTorrent tracker";
 pub const APP_VERSION: &str = env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION");
 
-pub fn run(config: Config) -> ::anyhow::Result<()> {
+pub fn run(mut config: Config) -> ::anyhow::Result<()> {
     let mut signals = Signals::new([SIGUSR1])?;
 
+    if config.socket_workers == 0 {
+        config.socket_workers = available_parallelism().map(Into::into).unwrap_or(1);
+    };
+
     let state = State::default();
     let statistics = Statistics::new(&config);
     let connection_validator = ConnectionValidator::new(&config)?;