How to Make a Minecraft Server
There are three ways to end up with a Minecraft server of your own, and the honest differences between them are not the ones the internet usually lists. This page walks all three, says what each one costs you in something other than money, and then goes through the choices that actually change how your server plays: which edition, which server software, how much memory, and the four settings worth touching on day one.
The three routes, and what each really costs
Every guide to this question picks one route and pretends the other two do not exist. They all work. Which one fits you depends on how often your group plays, at what hours, and whether you are willing to leave a computer running for people who are not in the room.
| Route | What it costs in money | Who can join | What it costs in something else |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your own computerFree to start | Nothing, until you count electricity | Only people you open your home connection to | Your machine stays on, your upload is shared with the rest of the house, and your home address is what people connect to |
| A free hostNo card needed | Nothing in money | Anyone, while the server is awake | The server sleeps when nobody is on it, you wait in a queue to wake it, and what you may install is decided for you |
| A host you payFrom €6.99 a month | €6.99 a month on a two year term, €8.49 month to month | Anyone, at any hour, without waking anything | A monthly bill, and a choice of size you have to make yourself |
The pattern we see is that people start on their own machine, discover in the second week that nobody can play while they are asleep, and then choose between a free host and a paid one. If you already know that your group plays at different hours, you can skip the first two weeks.
Route one: on the computer you are sitting at
This is free and it works. You download the official server file for the version you want, put it in a folder of its own, run it once so it writes its files, open the file it leaves behind and accept the licence, then run it again. The world appears next to it. On the same machine you join at localhost; on the same house network, at the machine’s local address.
Getting anyone outside the house in is where it gets real. Java Edition listens on port 25565 and Bedrock on 19132, and your router has to be told to send that port to the machine running the server. That done, the address your friends type is your home connection. Three things follow from that and none of them are in the usual tutorial: the computer has to stay on for the server to exist, everything anyone does on that server rides your household upload speed, and the address you are handing out points at your front door. For a weekend with people you know, fine. For a public server, no.
The electricity is easy to underestimate too. A desktop left running around the clock for a month is not free, and on most tariffs it lands in the same range as the smallest plan on this page. That is not a sales line, it is just what a machine that never sleeps costs.
Route two: a free host
Free hosts are real and they are not a scam. What they sell is the gap: your server exists, but it is asleep unless somebody is on it, and waking it puts you in a queue behind everyone else waking theirs. The size of that queue is the product. What you may install is also decided for you, because a free host cannot let thousands of anonymous servers run arbitrary code.
That trade is perfectly good for a world you visit on Saturdays with the same four people who all get on at the same time. It falls apart the moment somebody wants to log in alone for twenty minutes, or your group grows past the point where a queue is funny. We keep a page per free host with what each one actually gives, taken from their own published pages rather than from our opinion of them.
How Aternos compares and how Minehut compares are the two most people are choosing between, and the full comparison list has the paid ones next to them.
Route three: a host you pay, step by step
This is the route where the decisions matter, because you are choosing a size and a place rather than accepting whatever is free. Eight steps, in the order they actually come up.
Pick a size before anything else
Memory decides what your server can hold, and everything after this follows from it. Two to four gigabytes carries vanilla survival for a handful of friends; a modpack of three hundred mods wants twelve or more. The table further down maps player counts and pack sizes to a size, and our four question size picker does the same in about a minute.
Pick where it stands
Distance is the one part of lag you cannot fix later with settings. Pick the region closest to the people who will play, not to you, and if your group is split across two continents pick the one with the most players in it. We run 9 regions and each has its own page with what it costs there.
Pick the edition your friends actually own
Java Edition and Bedrock Edition are two different games that cannot join each other's servers on their own. Console and phone players own Bedrock; most PC players own Java. If your group is mixed, you want a server that carries both rather than two servers.
Pick the server software
Vanilla is the game as it ships. Paper is the same game with the rough edges taken off and support for plugins, which is what most public servers run. Forge and Fabric are for mods, and a modpack decides that choice for you. You can change this later without starting a new world.
Install it and let it generate the world
In our panel you pick the software and the version from a list and it installs itself, including a whole modpack from a link if that is what you are running. The first start writes the world, and that takes longer than every start after it.
Set the handful of settings that change how it plays
Difficulty, whether players can hurt each other, how far they can see, and how many may join at once: four settings out of 63 that decide most of what the server feels like. Every one of them is listed with its default and its range.
Give your friends the address
A server is reachable at an address and a port. Java players type the address into Multiplayer; Bedrock players add it as an external server with the port in its own field. Both are on the page about your play address.
Make sure a bad day is recoverable
Someone will eventually blow up something that mattered. Every server here keeps 10 backup slots, and a backup that rolls out of the last slot stays recoverable for another 7 days after that.
How much memory you need
Memory is the one decision that is annoying to get wrong, because it is the one that shows up as lag rather than as an error. The mapping below is the same one our size picker uses, and it is built from what these workloads actually take rather than from what sounds generous.
| What you are running | Memory | Plan | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla 1-5 playersLightweight survival or creative with friends | 2-4 GB | Mini | €6.99 a month |
| Vanilla 10-20 playersSmall community with plugins like EssentialsX | 4-8 GB | Starter | €8.79 a month |
| Light modpack (50 mods)Create, Cobblemon, or similar packs | 4-6 GB | Starter | €8.79 a month |
| Medium modpack (100-200 mods)All the Mods Lite, Better MC | 6-8 GB | Starter | €8.79 a month |
| Heavy modpack (300+ mods)All the Mods 10, RLCraft, Enigmatica | 8-12 GB | Standard | €13.59 a month |
| Large community (50+ players)Networks, events, or public servers | 16+ GB | Premium | €23.99 a month |
Two things to know before you pick. Going up a size later keeps your world, so starting one step below your ambition costs nothing but a later click. And memory is not the only limit: view distance and the number of loaded chunks can cost more than the players themselves, which is why reducing lag is worth reading before you buy more of anything.
Which server software to run
The word “server” covers half a dozen different programs here, and picking the wrong one is the single most common reason a plugin or a mod does nothing at all. The rule is short: plugins need Paper, Purpur or Spigot, mods need Forge or Fabric, and neither works on the other.
| Software | What it takes | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Vanilla | Nothing added | The game exactly as it ships, and the reference every other option is measured against |
| Paper | Plugins | The same game with plugin support and years of performance work, which is what most public servers run |
| Purpur | Plugins | Paper with several hundred extra switches, for a server that wants to change rules the game does not expose |
| Fabric | Mods | The lighter of the two mod loaders, quicker to start, with a smaller catalogue of mods behind it |
| Forge | Mods | The older mod loader, and the one nearly every large modpack is built on |
| Bedrock | Add-ons | The console and phone edition, which uses add-ons rather than the plugins or mods above |
If a modpack is why you are here, the pack decides this for you: it is built for one loader and one version. Everything about each option is on the server types overview, and you can move between them later without starting over.
The four settings worth touching on day one
A new server has 63 settings and you do not need most of them. These four change how the server feels more than the rest put together, and the defaults below are the real ones the game ships with.
| Setting | Default | What it accepts | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| difficulty | easy | peaceful, easy, normal, hard | How hard the game is. On peaceful, hostile mobs do not spawn at all and hunger does not drain. |
| pvp | true | true or false | Whether players can damage each other. |
| view-distance | 10 | a whole number | How far, in chunks, the server sends the world to a player. This is the single biggest knob for both RAM and CPU: every step up costs roughly the square of it. |
| max-players | 20 | a whole number | How many people can be online at the same time. More players need more RAM and more CPU, not just a bigger number here. |
View distance is the one to be careful with. Raising it makes the world feel bigger and costs memory and processor time on every player at once, so it is the first thing to lower when a busy evening starts to stutter. The complete list, with the range and the default of every key, is on the server settings page.
Getting people in, and keeping it alive
A server nobody can reach is a folder on a disk. Java players add the address under Multiplayer; Bedrock players add it as an external server, with the address and the port in separate fields, which is the step people most often miss. Your play address covers both, including what to hand out if you would rather not give anyone a number to remember.
After that, the two things that decide whether a server is still running in three months are backups and permissions. Backups because somebody will eventually break something that mattered, and permissions because the moment you hand a friend the ability to help, you have also handed them the ability to delete. Both are worth ten minutes on day one: how backups work here and setting up permissions.
Questions people ask before they start
Can I really make a Minecraft server for free?
Yes, in two ways, and both cost you something other than money. On your own computer the server is free but your machine has to stay on, your upload speed is shared with everyone in the house, and the address your friends connect to is your home connection. On a free host the server sleeps when the last player leaves and has to be woken again, usually behind a queue, and the software you may install is chosen for you. Both are fine for a weekend with three friends. Neither survives a group that plays at different hours.
How much memory does a new server need?
Start from what you are going to run rather than from a number. Vanilla survival for up to five people fits in two to four gigabytes. Ten to twenty players with plugins wants four to eight. A light modpack of about fifty mods is four to six, and the heavy packs of three hundred mods and up ask eight to twelve or more. The table on this page has the full mapping, and Mini at 4 GB is where the ladder starts.
Do I have to open a port on my router?
Only on the route where the server runs on your own machine. Java Edition listens on port 25565 and Bedrock on 19132, and for anyone outside your house to reach either one you have to forward that port on your router to the computer running the server. That also means the address people connect to is your home connection, which is the part most guides leave out. On a host the port is already reachable and there is nothing to forward.
Can Java and Bedrock players join the same server?
Not on their own: they are two different games and neither can see the other's servers. It can be bridged, so that one server accepts both, and that is worth setting up when your group is split between PC on one side and console or phone on the other. The alternative is two servers with two worlds, which in practice means the group splits as well.
How do I add plugins or mods afterwards?
Plugins go on Paper, Purpur or Spigot and mods go on Forge or Fabric, and the two are not interchangeable: a plugin dropped into a mods folder simply does nothing. Our panel installs from a catalogue of 510 plugins, and a whole modpack goes in from a link without a browser upload.
Can I change the software or version later?
Yes, and you do not lose the world doing it. Moving between vanilla, Paper and Purpur keeps the same world files. Moving to Forge or Fabric adds blocks and items that vanilla does not know, so a world that has been played on with mods cannot go back cleanly; that is the one direction to think about first. Going up a version is normally safe, going down a version is not.
How many players can one server hold?
The player limit in the settings is a number you choose, not a number the hardware gives you. What actually decides it is memory and how far each player can see: twenty people spread across a world cost far more than twenty people standing in one town. As a rule of thumb, count on doubling memory before you double the player count, and lower the view distance before you buy anything.
What does a paid server cost per month?
The ladder here starts at €6.99 a month for 4 GB on a two year term, or €8.49 if you pay by the month and want to be able to stop at any time. Every size and both rates are on the page about what a server costs, next to what each one actually carries.
Every price, size and setting on this page is read straight from the files this site runs on, so a change there changes this page with it. The player counts and memory ranges are the same table our size picker uses. The port numbers and the licence step are how Minecraft itself works and are not ours to change.