How to create a free Minecraft server, and what free really means

What does a free Minecraft server actually mean?

A Minecraft server is a program that runs a world other people can join. Someone has to run that program on a computer that is switched on. That is the whole question behind the word free: whose computer, and who pays for it to stay on.

There are two honest answers. The first is your own PC. The server software costs nothing, so the only thing you spend is electricity, plus the fact that your computer has to stay on while people play. The second is a free online service: a company runs the server on its machines and gives it to you for nothing, in exchange for limits. You wait in a queue before it starts, it shuts down when nobody is playing, the power is shared with many other servers, and you often only get plugins from a catalogue the service chose.

Then there is the answer that looks free and is not. Realms is the official Mojang service. It is simple and it works, but you pay for it every month, and it accepts no Java plugins at all. If you want your own rules, your own commands, your own game modes, Realms is the wrong door.

One more thing before you start: plugins only exist on Minecraft Java Edition, the version for PC. Bedrock is the version on phones, consoles and the Windows app from the store. A Bedrock server cannot load Java plugins. Every route on this page is a Java route. Your friends on Bedrock can still join a Java server later, through a bridge plugin called Geyser. More on that further down.

• Your own PC: free, but the PC stays on and friends need a way in
• Free online service: free, but with a queue, a shutdown when empty and shared power
• Realms: paid, and no Java plugins
• Everything here is Java Edition, the PC version, because that is where plugins live

Step 1: how to make a free Minecraft server on your own PC

This is the route that gives you the most control, and it costs nothing at all. You need three things: Java, the program that runs the server, Paper, the server software, and an empty folder to put it all in. Careful with that word: Java is also the name of the PC edition of the game. Here it means the program. Paper is the one most people run: faster than the official server from Mojang, and able to load the plugins written for Bukkit and Spigot, the two older families of server software.

Start with Java. Each Minecraft version asks for a specific Java version: a 26.x server needs Java 25, and a 1.21.x server runs on Java 21. If you are not sure, install the one your version asks for: Paper tells you at startup when it is the wrong one. You get Java from adoptium.net, where it goes by the name Temurin: it is free and there is no account to create. Then download Paper from papermc.io, on the Downloads page, for the Minecraft version you play, picking a build marked stable, meaning one that has already been tested, and put the file in your empty folder. You start it from a terminal, the window where you type commands: open one in that folder and run java -jar followed by the name of the Paper file. The first start stops almost at once, because Paper has just created a small text file called eula.txt and wants you to accept the Mojang rules written in it. Open that file, change eula=false into eula=true, save, and run the command again. This time the world generates in front of you.

Now connect. Open Minecraft, go to Multiplayer, add a server, and type localhost as the address: that word means your own machine. You are in. Your friends are not yet, because so far your server only exists inside your home network.

To let friends in, you have two options. The classic one is port forwarding: you open a door on your router, the box that connects your home to the internet, so that traffic on port 25565 reaches your PC. A port is just a numbered door, and 25565 is the one Minecraft uses by default. Every router does it differently, so look up the guide for yours. Your public address can also change from time to time, so you may have to send a new one. The simpler option is a tunnel tool, such as playit.gg or ngrok: it gives you an address that leads to your server without opening anything on the router. Hamachi is an older method that works too, but every friend has to install it.

• Java 25 for a 26.x server, Java 21 for 1.21.x: Paper tells you at startup if it is wrong
• Paper, not the official server: the official one takes no plugins, only datapacks, the small packs of rules and recipes the game reads on its own
• localhost to join from your own PC, a port or a tunnel for your friends
• Type stop in the server window to shut it down: closing the window can cost you the last minutes of your world
• The server stops when your PC does, and so does the game for everyone on it

Step 2: free Minecraft server hosting online, and what you trade for it

If your PC is not powerful enough, or you do not want to leave it on, a free online service runs the server for you. Aternos is the best known one. The idea is the same everywhere: you create an account, you create a server, you pick the server software and the Minecraft version, and you press start. Choose Paper if you want plugins, and the same Minecraft version as the plugins you plan to install.

Now the honest part. Free online hosting has four limits, and you meet all four the first evening. There is a queue: when you press start, you wait your turn behind the people who pressed start before you. There is an automatic shutdown: when nobody is online for a while, the server stops, and someone has to go back to the panel, the control page of the service, to start it again. The power is shared: many servers run on the same machines, so a fight with lots of mobs can feel slow. And the plugin catalogue is limited: you pick from a list the service curates. Aternos, the best known, refuses plugin files you upload yourself, so the ones Minax builds too; other services accept them, not all of them, so check before you count on it.

None of that makes free hosting bad. It makes it a great place to learn, to try a plugin with two friends, or to run a server that only lives on weekend evenings. It is a poor place for a server you want people to find online at any hour.

• Queue before start, shutdown when empty, shared power, curated plugin list
• Uploading your own plugin file: never on Aternos, only on some services, check first
• Pick Paper and the same Minecraft version as your plugin
• Great for learning and for evenings with friends, not for a public server

Can a free Minecraft server run 24/7?

Not really, and it is better to know it now. A server that runs around the clock needs a machine that never switches off, and someone paying for that machine. On your PC, around the clock means your computer stays on day and night. On a free online service, the shutdown when nobody plays is exactly the thing that makes the service free. Nobody gives away a machine that runs all day for nothing.

So the day you want a server your friends can join at any hour without asking you to start it, you have reached the moment to pay a host. A host rents you a slice of a machine in a data center: you pay every month, the server stays online, and you choose the memory and the region. Before you pick one, look at the things that matter more than the big number on the sales page. Whether the RAM, the memory your world lives in, is really reserved for you. How fast a single core of the CPU is, the chip that does the calculating, because Minecraft runs most of its world on one core, and that is what keeps the game smooth. Whether the machine sits close to your players. Whether you can reach the files of the server yourself, through FTP or a file manager, to drop your own plugins in. Whether backups can be downloaded. And whether there is protection against DDoS attacks, the floods of traffic that knock a public server offline.

As an order of magnitude, a few friends in survival with a handful of plugins live comfortably in 2 to 4 GB of RAM. Twenty to thirty players, or a lot of plugins, push that to 6 to 8 GB. A very explored world needs more. But a fast core matters more than extra memory for TPS, the number of game ticks per second, which should stay at 20. The table below puts the four families side by side, without brands and without prices.

Step 3: a free Minecraft server with plugins, and which plugins to start with

Plugins are where a server stops being a copy of every other server: they bring the commands, the rules and the game modes you decide on. And the players install nothing, which is the big difference from mods. A modded server, built with Fabric or NeoForge, asks every player to install the same mods on their side. A plugin server asks nothing of anyone. That is why plugins are the right tool for a server run with friends.

Ready-made plugins live on Hangar, the catalogue run by the Paper team, and on SpigotMC. Mods live somewhere else, on Modrinth and CurseForge, and they do not install on a Paper server. Installing a plugin is the same everywhere: you get a .jar file, the compiled plugin, you put it in the plugins folder of your server, and you restart the server. On your own PC the folder is right there next to Paper. On a free online service, you use the catalogue, or the upload button if the service has one.

Which plugins make a small server feel like a real one? A welcome and spawn plugin, so that new players arrive somewhere nice with the rules in front of them. A rules and moderation plugin, so that you can warn and kick without doing it by hand. A protection plugin, so that nobody breaks your friends' houses. And later a simple economy, if you want shops and trades. Here are three requests you can paste on Minax as they are, then change to your taste.

What is free on Minax, and what needs a plan

One thing should be clear: Minax does not host servers, and it does not sell hosting. Minax builds the plugins that make a server yours. You describe what you want in plain English, Minax writes the Java code, compiles it into a .jar file, and hands it to you. Minax targets Paper first, for Minecraft 1.12.2 to 26.2.

Here is what is free and what is not, written here rather than hidden. Your account is free: use it to explore published plugins, keep your projects and download the .jar files you already made. Downloading a plugin someone already published in the gallery costs nothing either. Building your own is different. Creating or editing a plugin needs credits, in packs paid once, with no subscription: 50 credits for €17.99 VAT included. To edit a plugin you already made, there is also a pack of 15 credits for €5.99. At today's rates, we estimate that half of plugins come to between 15.4 and 30.7 credits, edits included, and that one in ten goes over 42 credits (estimate from 25/09/2026, not a guaranteed price). Credits from a pack stay valid for 36 months. Then there is the in-game test. Minax starts a real Minecraft test server for you, you join it with your own game, and you check that your commands do what you asked for. That test server gives you 5 minutes a month without a plan, 15 with a credit pack: not unlimited, and not a server to play on. It is short, but it is made for a single thing and it does that thing well, letting you watch your plugin run for real. One limit belongs here too: the test server runs one game at a time, so if someone else is testing when you press start, you take a place in the line, and Minax tells you where you are and roughly how long the wait is. A robot player can also play through your scenario and tell you whether the plugin does what you described.

Those minutes do not replace a server, and they do not pretend to: they show you the plugin works before you set anything up. Your own server is still yours to create, on your PC or at a host. Every top-up and plan is on the pricing page. We will not pretend that anything stays free without limits, because nothing does, and no server does either. What we can promise is that the plugin is yours once it is built: download the .jar and install it on your PC, on your free online server if it takes uploads, or at the host you pick later.

• A free account, and a plan to create: your first plugin with no subscription from €9.99
• At today's rates, we estimate that half of plugins come to between 15.4 and 30.7 credits, edits included, and that one in ten goes over 42 credits (estimate from 25/09/2026, not a guaranteed price)
• On the test server, 5 minutes a month without a plan, 15 with a credit pack, one game at a time: enough to watch your plugin run, not enough to replace a server
• Minax does not host: your server stays yours, wherever it runs

The mistakes that make a free server waste your evening

Most problems with a first server are not about the server at all. They come from two things that must agree and do not. Here are the ones we see the most, with the fix for each.

• A plugin built for 26.x on a 1.21 server: it will not load. A plugin follows the version of the server it was built for, so pick the same version on both sides. Most servers still run 1.21, and 26.2 is the latest version. ViaVersion lets players on another version connect, but it never changes the version of the server.
• The wrong Java version: the server refuses to start and prints an error. Paper tells you which Java it wants. Install that one, and nothing else changes.
• The official Mojang server instead of Paper: it takes no plugins at all, only datapacks. Switch to Paper and keep your world.
• Turning off online mode to let friends without an account in: online mode is the check that a player really owns the name they log in with. Many servers turn it off, but then anyone can join under any name, including yours. Do not do it without knowing that.
• Friends on a phone or a console: they cannot join a Java server as they are. Add Geyser, a plugin that lets Bedrock players in, and Floodgate so they do not need a Java account.
• Counting on uploads on a free service that only offers a catalogue: check before you build something you cannot install there. The Minax test server lets you watch it run anyway.
• Forgetting that your PC is the server: when you close the lid, the world goes dark for everyone on it.

Minax and your server, in two columns

Frequently asked questions