Paper Server Hosting

The most widely used Minecraft server software for a reason. Paper takes Spigot and makes it faster, more configurable, and more reliable, while keeping full plugin compatibility.

What Is Paper?

Paper is a fork of Spigot, which itself is a fork of CraftBukkit. It started as a performance-focused project and has grown into the dominant server software in the Minecraft community. The PaperMC team maintains an aggressive patch schedule, shipping performance fixes, bug patches, and API improvements on a regular basis.

At its core, Paper applies hundreds of patches on top of the Spigot codebase. These patches target the most common performance bottlenecks in Minecraft servers: chunk loading, entity ticking, hopper mechanics, redstone updates, and more. The result is a server that handles more players with less hardware compared to Spigot or Vanilla.

One of Paper's standout features is async chunk loading. In Vanilla and Spigot, loading new chunks happens on the main server thread, which means chunk generation competes with everything else the server is doing, processing player actions, ticking entities, running redstone. Paper moves chunk loading off the main thread, which dramatically reduces lag spikes when players explore new terrain or teleport across the map.

Plugin Compatibility

Paper runs every plugin that works on Bukkit or Spigot. That means the entire catalog of plugins on SpigotMC, Hangar, Modrinth, and GitHub is available to you. EssentialsX, Vault, LuckPerms, WorldGuard, WorldEdit, CoreProtect, Citizens, MythicMobs, PlaceholderAPI, they all work out of the box. Paper also exposes its own extended API, so some plugins are built specifically for Paper and take advantage of features that do not exist in Spigot.

Installing plugins is straightforward. Upload the plugin JAR file to your server's pluginsfolder using the Pterodactyl file manager, restart the server, and the plugin loads automatically. Configuration files appear in each plugin's subfolder and can be edited directly from the panel. For a detailed walkthrough, check out our plugin installation guide.

Performance Over Vanilla

The performance gap between Paper and Vanilla is significant, and it grows the more players and plugins you add. Paper ships with a built-in timings profiler that lets you see exactly where your server spends its processing time. You can identify slow plugins, heavy world regions, or entity accumulation problems before they cause noticeable lag.

Paper also includes dozens of configuration options that Vanilla does not expose. You can control mob spawn limits per world, adjust entity activation ranges, toggle hopper transfer rates, set view-distance independently of simulation-distance, and fine-tune chunk loading behavior. These settings exist in paper-global.yml and paper-world-defaults.yml, and they give server operators real control over the performance and gameplay tradeoffs of their server.

For server operators dealing with lag, our lag reduction guide covers Paper-specific configuration tweaks that make a measurable difference.

Who Should Use Paper?

Paper is the right choice for the vast majority of Minecraft servers. If you are building any of the following, Paper should be your starting point:

• Survival multiplayer (SMP), grief protection with CoreProtect, land claims with GriefPrevention, economy with Vault and EssentialsX
• Minigame servers, lobby systems, custom game modes, BungeeCord or Velocity network setups
• Economy and RPG servers, shops, quests, custom items with MMOItems or ItemsAdder, NPC systems with Citizens
• Factions and PvP, faction plugins, custom enchantments, combat mechanics
• Permission-based servers, rank systems with LuckPerms, per-world permissions, staff management. See our permissions guide for setup instructions.

The only scenarios where Paper is not the right fit are modded servers (use Forge or Fabric instead) and servers that specifically need unpatched vanilla mechanics for things like certain redstone contraptions or duplication glitches that Paper fixes by default.

Browse all server types to compare your options, or jump straight to a plan.