Make your own Minecraft server

What is a Minecraft server, and which one do you need?

When you play alone, your game calculates the world for you. A server is that same calculation, done by a separate program that stays switched on and that other players can join. You connect to it with its address, the way you type the address of a website. The server keeps the world, the inventories and the rules. You and your friends are only visitors.

There are two Minecraft games, and that changes everything. Minecraft Java is the original PC version. It is the one that accepts plugins, mods and the Paper server software, so it is the one behind everything Minax does. Minecraft Bedrock is the version for consoles, phones and Windows 10 and 11. A Bedrock server runs on the Bedrock Dedicated Server software from Mojang, or through Realms, and it accepts no Java plugin at all.

This guide is about Java servers. If your friends play on a phone or a console, there is a bridge: free plugins let them walk into a Java server, without needing a Java account. Minax builds plugins for Java servers only, and says so plainly.

• Java (PC): plugins, mods, Paper, an address and a port to connect with
• Bedrock (consoles, phones, Windows 10 and 11): no Java plugins
• Friends on phones or consoles: a free plugin lets them into your Java server
• The detail lives on its own page: create a Minecraft Java server, and welcome Bedrock

The four ways to host a Minecraft server

The first question is not technical: where is your server going to run? There are four answers, and each one has a hidden cost, in money or in constraints.

On your own PC, it is free and you control everything. But the machine has to stay on while the others play, you have to open port 25565 on your router (a port forward: you tell the router to let connections from outside through to your computer), and your public address changes now and then. Tunnel tools such as playit.gg or ngrok avoid the port forward by routing connections through a relay. Hamachi is an older method, and it forces every player to install something.

Free online: free services exist, and Aternos is the best known. The server shuts itself down when nobody is playing, you wait in a queue to wake it up, and performance is shared with a lot of other servers. Above all, Aternos only installs plugins from its own catalogue: it refuses the ones you upload yourself, for security reasons, so the ones Minax builds too. It is great for trying the game with friends, not for a server with your own plugins.

With a paid host, you pay every month, the server stays online, and you choose the RAM (the working memory of the machine) and the region. What actually matters: RAM that is genuinely dedicated to you, a fast processor core, a machine close to your players, file access so you can upload your own plugins, backups you can download, and protection against flooding attacks, known as DDoS. If you want to stay with the Aternos team, their paid service, exaroton, accepts your own plugins. Brands and prices move too fast to be written here, so the hosting page explains what to look at before you pay.

Realms, the Mojang service, is simple and paid, but it accepts no Java plugin. If you want a server that feels like yours, it is not the right door.

• You want to try tonight: your PC, or a free service
• You want a server that stays up without you: a paid host
• You want your own plugins: your PC, or a host with file access
• You only want plain survival with nothing to configure: Realms, without plugins

Why Paper, and not the official Minecraft server?

The server software is the program that runs the world. The official Mojang server, usually called vanilla, accepts no plugin at all: only rule packs, which are far more limited. Paper is the most used server software. It is much faster than vanilla and it accepts plugins written for Bukkit and Spigot, its ancestors. It is the one Minax targets first, and the one to pick by default.

Spigot and Bukkit are older, work with the same plugins, and are slower than Paper. Purpur is a Paper variant with more settings to play with. Folia is another variant, which spreads the world across several processor cores: some plugins are not compatible with it, Minax can generate ones that are, but as of 24 July 2026 Folia had no published build for 26.2, so there was nothing ready to download.

Fabric and NeoForge are a different family: they are for mods, not plugins. A mod changes the game itself, so a modded server requires every player to install exactly the same mods. A plugin server asks nothing of your players: they join with their normal game. If you want to play with friends without making them install anything, plugins win almost every time.

One last word: Velocity. It is a proxy, an entry server that links several servers into one network, for example a hub and two mini games. Waterfall and BungeeCord, the ones that came before it, are at the end of their life. You do not need any of this to start.

• Vanilla: official, no plugins, limited rule packs only
• Paper: the most used, fast, accepts Bukkit and Spigot plugins, the default choice
• Purpur and Folia: Paper variants, one with more settings, one that spreads the world across cores
• Fabric and NeoForge: for mods, which every player has to install

Which Minecraft version, and which Java version?

Since 2026, Minecraft Java is numbered by year: 26.1, then 26.2. That is not a mistake, and 26.2, released on 16 June 2026, is the latest version. The last one of the old series was 1.21.11. Minax targets 1.12.2 to 26.2. Versions 1.0 to 1.15 are no longer followed by Paper, so do not pick one for a new server.

Which version should you take? The one your players are on. Most servers still run 1.21, and 26.2 has had stable Paper builds since 29 August 2026. A simple rule: if your friends are up to date, take 26.2. If you are joining a group already on 1.21, stay on 1.21. A plugin compiled for 26.x needs a server on 26.x. ViaVersion lets players on a different version connect, but it never changes the version of the server itself.

Java is the language the server and the plugins are written in, and it has to be installed on the machine running the server. A 26.x server needs Java 25. A 1.21.x server is happy with Java 21 (from 1.20.5 onwards you need at least Java 21, and from 1.18 to 1.20.4 it is Java 17). When in doubt, install the Java version your Minecraft version asks for: Paper tells you at startup.

• 26.2: the latest version, Java 25
• 1.21.x: the most common, Java 21
• From 1.18 to 1.20.4: Java 17
• A 26.x plugin will not run on a 1.21 server, and the other way round is just as true

How to set up a Minecraft server, step by step

Here is the route on your own PC, the one that teaches you the most. With a paid host, steps 1 to 3 are done for you in a control panel, the management page for your server on their site, and you pick things up at step 4. Take an empty folder, and do things in order.

• 1. Install Java. Take the version your Minecraft version asks for: Java 25 for 26.x, Java 21 for 1.21.x. You download it from adoptium.net, which hands out Temurin, a free version of Java you can get without making an account. If you get it wrong, Paper says so at startup, in a message that names the version it wanted.
• 2. Download Paper for your version from papermc.io, on the Downloads page, and take a build marked stable, meaning one that is finished and tested. It is a single .jar file, just like your plugins. Put it in your empty folder.
• 3. Run it once. The server writes its files, including server.properties (its settings) and a plugins folder, then stops and asks you to accept the Mojang terms of use in the eula.txt file. Accept, then start it again.
• 4. Watch the console, the window where the server writes what it is doing. When it says it is ready, you can join from the same PC: in the Multiplayer menu, add a server with the local address localhost.
• 5. Add your plugins. Every plugin is a .jar file: put it in the plugins folder and restart the server. The console tells you whether it loaded, or why it refused.
• 6. Open it to your friends. An address and a port, 25565 by default. On your PC: a port forward on your router, or a tunnel. With a host: the address is in your panel.

Add what will make your server unique: its plugins, without coding

Two brand new Paper servers are identical. What brings people back to yours is what they live through on it: a welcoming spawn point, ranks, an economy, PvP rules (fighting between players), a mini game, an event on Saturday night. All of that is plugins. Plenty of ready made ones exist, to download from Hangar, the plugin catalogue run by the Paper team, or from SpigotMC, and sometimes they are enough. Mods live somewhere else, on Modrinth and CurseForge: they are a different kind of program, and they do not go in the plugins folder. But the moment you want exactly your rule, someone has to build it.

That is where Minax comes in. You describe your plugin in plain English, the AI writes the Java code, compiles it into a .jar, then lends you an online test server so you can try it in game, before you even have a server of your own. A robot player can also play the scenario you described and check that the plugin does what was asked. Once you are happy, the .jar is yours: you drop it into your plugins folder, on your PC or at your host. Minax does not host your server, and never pretends to.

Your account is free. Credits paid once, no subscription: 50 credits for €17.99 VAT included. Credits from a pack stay valid for 36 months. The plans and top ups live on the pricing page. Here are four requests you can copy straight into the field at the top of this page, for a server that starts off well:

Which game mode for your server?

The setup is the same for every mode: Java, Paper, a machine, then your plugins. What changes from one mode to the next is the rules, and so the plugins. Start by choosing what your players will come to do.

Survival: the game as it is, together. It is the easiest to set up. Protect the spawn point, add homes people can find again, protection for builds and a small economy with somewhere to spend.

SMP and lifesteal: survival between the members of one community, with one rule that gives it its identity, like the heart you steal from whoever you beat, or limited lives. Those rules do not exist in the game: they are plugins.

PvP and factions: fighting between players at the centre, with teams, territories and often a starter kit. You need fair rules and a way to spot cheating.

Skyblock: an island in the void and a progression by levels. The mode does not exist without a plugin: it is the plugin that creates the empty world, the islands and the starter chest.

Minigames: short matches, like BedWars, manhunt or parkour, with a lobby to pick your game. Each game is a plugin of its own.

Roleplay: characters, jobs, a town. The server rests on shared rules and commands for talking in character, more than on technology.

Prison: you start at the bottom of a ladder of ranks and mine your way up. The ranks, the mines that refill and the economy are the heart of the server.

• SMP pluginsSMP servers
• Lifesteal pluginLifesteal servers
• Skyblock pluginIslands, levels, missions
• Economy pluginSurvival and prison
• Permissions pluginPrison, roleplay, moderation
• BedWars pluginMinigames
• Anticheat pluginPvP and factions

How much RAM does a Minecraft server need?

RAM is the working memory: the space where the server keeps the loaded pieces of world, the players, and whatever the plugins remember. The rough figures: 2 to 4 GB for a few friends playing survival with a handful of plugins, 6 to 8 GB for 20 to 30 players or a lot of plugins, more for worlds that have been explored a long way.

But RAM is not the whole story. A server calculates its world in small steps called ticks, and it aims for 20 ticks per second: that number is the TPS. When the TPS falls, everything slows down, mobs, redstone, crops. That calculation happens mostly on a single processor core, the CPU. So a fast core matters more than memory for smoothness. A server that stutters with three players online rarely has a memory problem.

The tool below gives you a range based on the number of players and the view distance, which is how far each player sees the world, measured in chunks, the pieces of world the server loads around everyone. It is an order of magnitude, never a guarantee.

How do you invite your friends to your server?

A Java player joins a server with an address and a port. The address is either a string of numbers, the IP address, or a domain name, which is easier to remember. The port is the door the connection goes through: 25565 by default. In game, your friend opens Multiplayer, adds a server and pastes the address. If the port is the default one, the address on its own is enough.

With a paid host, the address is in your panel and that is the end of it. On your PC there are two routes. The port forward: you tell your router to send port 25565 to your computer, then you give your friends your public address, knowing it can change. The tunnel: a tool such as playit.gg or ngrok creates a relay and gives you an address to share, without touching the router at all. Hamachi also makes the link, but every player has to install it.

One setting to know about: online-mode. When it is set to false, the server stops checking Mojang accounts. That is common, but it opens the door to name spoofing: anyone can walk in under your friend name, or yours. Do not turn it off without knowing why, and never on a server open to strangers.

Minecraft server setup: the mistakes that waste your time

Almost every server that will not start, or that nobody can join, has one of these problems. Check them in this order before you look any further.

• The wrong Java version: Paper 26.x will not start without Java 25. Read the startup message, it names the version it expected.
• A plugin compiled for 26.x on a 1.21 server: it will not load. The plugin has to match the server version, not the version of your game.
• Thinking ViaVersion updates the server: it lets players on other versions in, and nothing more.
• A closed port: your friends see the server as offline while it is running fine. A port forward or a tunnel, you need one of the two.
• Setting online-mode to false to fix a connection problem, and a stranger walks in under a friend name.
• Choosing a version between 1.0 and 1.15 out of nostalgia: Paper no longer follows them.
• Mixing mods and plugins: a plugin does not install on a Fabric server, and a mod does not go in the plugins folder.
• Adding RAM when things lag: if the TPS is dropping, it is usually the processor or one heavy plugin.