How to create a private Minecraft server: closed, protected, open only to your friends

Private server, LAN world or Realms: how do you play Minecraft with friends?

There are three ways to open a game to your friends, and they are not equal. The simplest is the LAN world: from your single player game, you open it to the other players in the house. Nothing to install, but it only works on the same network, at your place, and the world closes the moment you quit the game. Perfect for one evening, useless for an adventure that runs for weeks.

Next comes the real private server, the one this guide teaches you to set up. It runs either on your PC or at a host, a company that rents out machines that stay on around the clock. On your PC it costs nothing, but the server shuts down with the computer and you have to open a passage to the internet, or use a tunnel tool like playit.gg or ngrok that skips that setting. At a host you pay every month, the server stays online while you sleep, and you pick the memory and the region.

Finally, Realms, Mojang's own service: simple, paid, but with no Java plugins at all. If you want homes, an economy or events of your own, that is the wrong door. Minax, for its part, does not host any server: it builds the plugins you then drop onto the server of your choice.

Step 1: the version, Java and Paper, what you need before you start

Start with the Minecraft version. Take the one your group already plays, not the newest one on principle. Most servers still run 1.21, and 26.2 is the latest release: since 2026, versions carry the year number, so 26.2 is not a typo.

Then Java. A Minecraft server is a Java program, so the machine needs Java installed. You get it from adoptium.net, which hands out Temurin, a free version of Java, with no account to create. A 26.x server needs Java 25, a 1.21.x server is happy with Java 21. If in doubt, launch Paper: it tells you in plain text at startup which Java version it expects.

Paper is the server software to pick. Mojang's official server, called vanilla, accepts no plugins at all, only datapacks. Paper is the most used, much faster, and it takes Bukkit and Spigot plugins, so everything Minax builds. You download its file from papermc.io, on the Downloads page, taking a build marked stable, meaning one that has already been tested, and run it once: it writes its files, including the plugins folder and server.properties, the one that keeps every server setting, then it stops and asks you to accept the Minecraft terms of use in eula.txt. Change eula=false to eula=true, run it again, and the world generates. server.properties is where you will come back for the whitelist and online mode.

• Version: the one your group plays. A plugin compiled for 26.x needs a 26.x server
• Java 25 for a 26.x server, Java 21 for a 1.21.x server
• Paper by default: Bukkit and Spigot plugins accepted, nothing to install on your friends' side
• Fabric or NeoForge are for mods: every friend has to install the same ones, so skip them for a server with friends

Step 2: the Minecraft whitelist and online mode, so your private server stays private

The whitelist is the list of usernames allowed in. When it is on, a player who is not on it is turned away before they even see the world. It is setting number one for a private server, and the one people forget most often. Turn it on in server.properties (white-list=true) or with the /whitelist on command in the console, the window where the server prints what it is doing and where you type commands at it, then add each friend with /whitelist add followed by their exact username, the one on their Minecraft account and not a nickname.

Online mode does the rest. When it is on, the server checks with Mojang that the player really owns the account behind that username. Offline mode (online-mode=false) exists and plenty of servers use it, but it opens the door to impersonation: anyone can log in with your best friend's username and walk through the whitelist in their place. On a server for friends, leave online mode on. Everyone has an account, there is no reason to switch it off.

One last setting: the operator. The /op command followed by a username grants every admin right, including the right to wreck everything. Keep it for yourself, and at most for one person you trust. An operator friend who plays around with commands is a damaged world in no time.

• Whitelist on: only the usernames on the list get in
• Online mode kept on: nobody can pass as one of your friends
• The username has to be spelled exactly, otherwise the friend is refused with no explanation
• Operator rights stay in your hands

Step 3: how to invite friends to your Minecraft server, and which address to give them

This is where most servers for friends get stuck. A Java player joins a server with an address and a port, a kind of door number on the machine. The default port is 25565. The trap is that your PC has two addresses: a local address, valid only inside your house, and a public address, the one your router shows to the internet. The local address works for you and for your brother in the next room. It never works for a friend at their place.

If the server runs on your PC, you therefore give out the public address and open port 25565 on your router, what is called port forwarding: the router learns to send Minecraft connections to your computer. Every router has its own menu for that, look for port forwarding in its settings. And know that the public address changes sometimes: if your friends cannot get in one morning, check it before anything else.

If you would rather not touch the router, a tunnel tool like playit.gg or ngrok gives you a ready made address your friends type in as is, with no port forwarding. Hamachi is an old method that forces every friend to install the same program: leave it aside. At a host, none of these worries: the address is written in your panel and it never moves.

• Local address: your house only. Public address or tunnel address: for your friends
• Port 25565 has to be open on the router, unless you use a tunnel
• At a host, the address sits in the panel and never changes
• Your friends open Multiplayer, then Add Server, and paste your address

How much RAM does a multiplayer Minecraft server for 3 to 10 friends need?

RAM is the working memory, the place where the server keeps the pieces of world loaded around each player. For a few friends in survival with a few plugins, count on 2 to 4 GB. Above that come servers of 20 to 30 players, or stuffed with plugins, that climb to 6 or 8 GB. Your group of 3 to 10 people sits in the first range, a bit more if you explore far away from each other, because each of you loads their own area.

What actually makes a server lag is rarely RAM. It is the processor: one fast core counts more than many slow cores, because the world is computed on a single thread. Smoothness is measured in TPS, the number of calculation ticks per second, with 20 as the target. If TPS drops, adding memory changes nothing. On your PC, the server and your game share the same processor: if it stutters with three friends online, that is usually where it pinches.

Which plugins make a real Minecraft server for friends, with no code?

A bare Paper server is vanilla survival with more people. What turns it into your group's server is the plugins: small Java programs dropped into the plugins folder that add commands and rules without asking anything of your friends. Four families show up on almost every private server: homes and teleportation (/sethome, /home, /tpa to join a friend), build protection (nobody breaks someone else's base), a small economy (a currency, a shop, rewards), and events (a boss on Saturday night, a treasure hunt, a leaderboard).

Minax builds them from a description in plain English. You write what you want, it generates the Java code, compiles it into a .jar, and lets you try the plugin in game on an online test server, before you have even set up your own. A bot player can also play through the scenario and check that the plugin does what you asked. Then you drop the .jar into your plugins folder and restart. To create, a credit pack paid once, with no subscription: 50 credits for €17.99. The plans are detailed on the pricing page.

Here are three requests ready to copy. Change the names, the numbers and the rules: it is your server, not ours.

The mistakes that waste an entire evening

Almost every failure of a server for friends comes from the same handful of mistakes. They have nothing to do with how powerful the machine is, and each one takes a few minutes to fix once you have spotted it. Before you dig any deeper, run through this list in order.

• Giving out the local address instead of the public one: it works at your place, never at your friends' place
• Port 25565 closed on the router: the server runs, but nobody can get in. A tunnel skips that setting
• Forgetting the whitelist: your private server is open to anyone who stumbles on the address
• Switching to offline mode to "fix" a connection problem: you open the door to username impersonation
• A username misspelled in the whitelist: the friend is refused while everything else is right
• A plugin compiled for 26.x on a 1.21 server: it will not load, the plugin version follows the server version
• The wrong Java version: Paper refuses to start and says so in the console, read the first message
• Turning off the PC thinking the server keeps going: on your PC, it stops with the machine

Frequently asked questions