Guides

Minecraft server guides

Written for whoever ends up running the server: the friend who was asked to set it up, the one who keeps it going on weeknights, and the admin of a community that outgrew its first world. Each guide sticks to one job and says what to type, where to click and what should happen next.

Plan your server

Before the first player joins: how much memory to buy, which server software or mod loader to run, and how to bring a world over from another host. Once one server is not enough, a network puts several of them behind one address. And the Java version a server needs, and how friends get in once it runs mods. Then what a server costs per month, next to the free ways to run one.

Minecraft-style illustration of two RAM sticks and a server on a grass block

How much RAM does a Minecraft server need?

Compare RAM starting sizes, understand Java's memory limit and check whether an upgrade would help your server.

Family tree of Minecraft server software with Spigot, Paper and Purpur

Paper vs Purpur vs Spigot: which one should your server run?

How Spigot, Paper and Purpur are related since the hard fork, what each one adds, and which fits a plugin server.

Three paths from one Minecraft server to three different sets of mods

Fabric vs Forge vs NeoForge: picking a mod loader for your server

Why the mods pick the loader, how NeoForge split from Forge, and which loader suits which kind of modded server.

A world folder moving from one Minecraft server to another

How to move your Minecraft server to a new host

Which folders to copy, which settings have to match, and the order that keeps every build and inventory intact.

One entrance leading to three Minecraft servers: lobby, survival and creative

One address, several servers: a lobby and survival network with Velocity

Put a lobby, survival and creative server behind one address, and know what a proxy joins and what it leaves alone.

Minecraft version ranges lined up against Java 8, 16, 17, 21 and 25

The right Java for your Minecraft server, from 1.0 to 26.2

Java 8, 16, 17, 21 or 25: match the runtime to your Minecraft version and decode the two numbers in a class file error.

A server and three player computers, each holding an identical stack of mod boxes

Getting your friends into a modded Minecraft server

Match the pack version, keep screen-only mods off the server, and read what NeoForge, Forge and Fabric say when a player is refused.

A price tag with a euro sign and a green tick standing on a grass block next to a chest

How much does a Minecraft server cost?

Every server size with its monthly price, what pushes the price up, and what a server on your own PC really costs.

A small camp on a floating grass island with a tent, a campfire, a bed and a chest

A free Minecraft server, or one that stays online?

Open to LAN, a server on your own PC, a free host or a rented one: what each costs you and who can join when.

Players and access

Who gets in and what they may do: Bedrock friends in the same world, the whitelist, and operator levels that fit the job someone has. Then protection against griefing, and the description, icon and resource pack players meet when they join. After that the everyday tools: bans and kicks, homes and warps, a player economy, chat bridged to Discord, players on other game versions, and how chat reporting works. And for the players themselves: how to find a server's address, and how to join on PC, phone or console.

A PC, a phone, a tablet and a game console all connected to one Minecraft server

How to play Minecraft with friends on Java and Bedrock

What Java and Bedrock players each type to join, how consoles get in, and which features stay on one side.

A door with a guest list next to a cabinet with four numbered keys

Whitelist and operator levels: who gets in and who gets power

Keep strangers out with the whitelist, and give each helper the operator level that fits, from spawn builder to owner.

A shield over a small village of player builds

Stop griefing on your Minecraft server, and undo it when it happens

Account checks, claims, a block log and two game rules: stop griefing early and undo whatever gets through.

Set the MOTD and the icon players see in their server list

Colors, a second line and a 64 by 64 icon: everything players see of your server before they join.

A resource pack travelling from a download link to the games of several players as they join

Send a resource pack to every player who joins your server

A direct link, a checksum and a prompt: send one resource pack to every player the moment they join.

A closed door with a no entry sign, next to a list of names with one crossed out

Remove troublemakers from your Minecraft server: kick, ban, unban and mute

The console commands and the Players tab for kicks and bans, plus the plugin you need for timed bans and mutes.

A small survival town with a house, a signpost and a chest connected by teleport lines

Set up EssentialsX homes, warps, kits and spawn on a survival server

Get EssentialsX running on the right build, hand out its permissions, and set up home ranks, warps, timed kits and a first-join spawn.

A shop chest with a price sign, coins running into a ledger and a few draining out

Set up money, sell signs and player shops on your Minecraft server

Balances, sign shops and player chest shops for a survival server, with a plan for where money enters and leaves.

A game chat box and a Discord channel joined by a small bridge

Bridge your Minecraft chat and a Discord channel with DiscordSRV

Make a Discord bot, hand DiscordSRV its token and a channel ID, and keep the console channel away from the wrong people.

Three Minecraft launchers on different versions connecting to one server through a translation layer

Outdated client, outdated server: letting other Java versions in

Read the version message, pick the right Via plugin for players who are ahead or behind, and know what older games lose.

A speech bubble with a seal on its corner beside a small server and a switch

Signed chat and player reports: what your Minecraft server decides

What a chat signature proves, the exact errors players get when one fails, and what switching signed chat off really changes.

A wooden signpost with a green location pin on a grass block

How to find a Minecraft server IP address

Find the address of a server you joined, of a public server, of a server on your own PC and of a LAN world.

A gaming PC, a controller and a console side by side with a crossing arrows icon

How do I join a Minecraft server? PC, phone and console

Join step by step on Java and Bedrock, what works on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch, and why a server turns you away.

World and settings

The world itself: the settings file line by line, game rules for survival, seeds and world types, data packs, and starting the Nether or the End over without touching the rest. Also hardcore worlds, the spawn point, several worlds on one server, WorldEdit, anti-xray, resetting a single player, and farms that keep running.

A settings file with lines of keys and values, three of them highlighted

server.properties explained: what each line of your Minecraft server does

Line by line through server.properties: the settings that matter, their defaults, and the ones that moved to game rules.

A row of switches for survival game rules, some on and some off

Game rules for a survival server: keep inventory, sleeping, mob griefing and more

Keep inventory, sleeping, phantoms and mob griefing: the rules that decide how forgiving your survival world is.

One seed number growing into the same landscape twice

Choose the seed and the world type of your Minecraft server

Pick a seed and a world type that actually take effect, and see why Java and Bedrock seeds only partly match.

A datapack zip going into the datapacks folder of a Minecraft world

Add datapacks to your Minecraft server, and know when they need a restart

Put a datapack in the right folder, see when reload is enough, and start a new world for packs that change terrain.

The Nether layer of a world being rebuilt while the overworld and the End stay untouched

Reset the Nether or the End, and keep your overworld as it is

Delete one dimension folder, keep the overworld, and know what players lose before the Nether or the End comes back new.

A single heart with a padlock beside a server, and a spectator eye floating above it

Run a hardcore Minecraft server: one life, hard difficulty and fresh seasons

Why the hardcore switch needs a fresh world, what happens to the first player who dies, and how to start season two.

A welcome hall with a marker on the exact block where new players appear

Choose where players appear: world spawn, respawn radius, beds and plugin spawns

The setworldspawn command, the respawn radius, beds and anchors, and why a spawn plugin can quietly overrule all of them.

One server holding a survival world, a creative world and a resource world side by side

Several worlds on one Paper server with Multiverse-Core

Create, import and remove extra worlds with the Multiverse 5 commands, and tell when a second server would serve you better.

A block region marked by two corner points, with a copy of it turned beside the original

Build faster with WorldEdit on your Minecraft server

Mark two corners, reshape the region, move builds as schematic files and cap how much one edit may change.

A cutaway of underground rock where the ores are disguised as plain stone

Hide your ores from X-ray cheaters with Paper's built-in anti-xray

Turn on the anti-xray that Paper ships switched off, pick an engine mode, and give the Nether a list of its own.

One player file lifted out of a folder full of identical player files

Reset or repair a single player without touching the rest of the world

Find a player's UUID, clear their inventory or wipe their files with the server stopped, and leave everybody else untouched.

A grid of chunks with a small highlighted block of squares kept alive around a farm

Keep your farms running with nobody nearby: forceload, and what it really does

Mark farm chunks to stay loaded, learn which farms still need a player close by, and check what it adds to every tick.

Performance and fixes

When something is slow or broken: distances that cost too much, terrain generated ahead of time, and servers that will not start or will not let anyone in. And when the cause is unclear, a profiler that shows where each tick goes. Then the settings and mods that save ticks, crash reports and logs, the overloaded warning, players kicked for flying, a full disk and plugins that will not load. And which port a server uses, and when players have to type it.

Two rings around a player: a wide ring of visible terrain and a smaller ring where the world is simulated

View distance vs simulation distance: what each one costs

How far players see against how far the world stays alive, what each step costs and what farms and AFK spots need.

A map of Minecraft terrain filling in from the centre outwards

Pre-generate your Minecraft world with Chunky

Do the heaviest work once, before anyone explores: choose a radius, check the disk space and let Chunky run overnight.

A Minecraft connection error message with its reason line highlighted

Can't connect to your Minecraft server? What each error means

Read the exact line under “Failed to connect to the server” and go straight to the fix: address, version, whitelist or account.

Console output of a Minecraft server with one error line highlighted

Minecraft server not starting? Find the line that explains it

The console line behind a failed start, from an unaccepted EULA to a mod built for the wrong loader, and what to do about each.

A row of tick bars with one long spike under a magnifying glass

Find out what is lagging your Minecraft server with spark

Tell server lag from connection lag, profile the lag while it happens, and see which plugin or game system eats the tick.

Three stacked configuration files with sliders beside a tick timer

Tune bukkit.yml, spigot.yml and the Paper config without breaking your farms

Every lag key in bukkit.yml, spigot.yml and the Paper config, with its default and the farm or redstone build it can upset.

A modded server split into five parts, each with the mod that speeds it up

Server performance mods for Fabric and NeoForge that support Minecraft 26.2

Lithium, FerriteCore, ScalableLux, Moonrise and a few specialists: what each speeds up, which ones collide, and how to check the result.

A crash report with its header, description and stack trace marked in different colours

Make sense of what your Minecraft server writes down when something breaks

Where the logs and crash reports live, which lines of a stack trace matter, what a watchdog stop means, and what to strip before posting a log.

A timeline of ticks sliding past a row of deadlines, with a gap marked as two seconds behind

What the Can't keep up line in your console is telling you

Read the two numbers in the overload warning, tell a one-off stall from a server that is always late, and find the cause.

A player marker hovering above empty air with a stopwatch counting next to it

Players kicked for flying: what the server saw, and what to change

Read the kick and the warnings next to it, then decide between Allow flight, fixing lag or tuning an anti-cheat.

A storage bar filled to the top, with folders for the world, logs and plugins overflowing it

Your Minecraft server ran out of disk space: find the cause and make room

Read the failed save lines, find the heavy folders, delete only what is safe and keep the world from filling the disk again.

A plugins folder with several jar files, one of them marked red

A plugin that will not load: what Paper says, and what it wants from you

Red names in the plugins list, missing dependencies, API versions and jars that were never plugins: find why one did not load.

A dark server block with green lights and a yellow lightning bolt on a grass block

Minecraft server ports: which one, and when you need to type it

The default ports for Java and Bedrock, when players have to type one, port forwarding at home and what port errors mean.

FAQ

About these guides

Do these guides work for servers hosted somewhere else?

Mostly, yes. Commands, settings and server files are the same wherever a server runs. Where a step uses our panel, the guide says so and names the command or file behind it, so you can do the same by hand.

Which Minecraft version do the guides cover?

Java Edition 26.2, the current release at the time of writing, and the 1.21 releases before it. Where a newer version renamed or moved something, such as the game rules or the folders of the Nether and the End, the guide gives both.

What if a guide does not match what I see on my server?

Then something on your server is set up differently, and that is worth a look. Customers can ask our team and send the lines from the console; that is usually enough to see where it goes wrong.

Put a guide to work on your own server.

Every plan comes with the panel these guides point to, daily backups where the plan has backup slots, and a file manager in the browser.

See the plans