Building the Ultimate Minecraft Server: A Complete Guide

Minecraft is the most popular game on our platform, and the most customizable. Whether you're starting a survival world with friends or building a minigame network, here's how to get it right from day one.

Step 1: Choose Your Server Type

Step 2: Size Your RAM Correctly

RAM is the most common bottleneck. Here's a practical guide for Paper/Spigot servers:

| Players | Recommended RAM | Notes | |---------|----------------|-------| | 1-10 | 2-4 GB | Light survival, small friend groups | | 10-25 | 4-6 GB | Active SMP server | | 25-50 | 6-8 GB | Public server with plugins | | 50-100 | 8-16 GB | Large community, minigame hub | | 100+ | 16+ GB | Network with BungeeCord, or very large single server |

Step 3: Essential Plugins

Here's the core stack we recommend for most servers:

• EssentialsX: Basic commands (/home, /spawn, /warp, chat formatting)
• LuckPerms: Permission management (replaces PermissionsEx)
• WorldEdit: In-game world editing for admins
• WorldGuard: Region protection and flags
• CoreProtect: Block logging and rollback (anti-griefing)
• Dynmap: Live web map of your world
• Vault: Economy and permission bridge (required by many plugins)

Step 4: Pre-Generate Your World

New chunks generate when players explore, and chunk generation is CPU-intensive. Pre-generating your world eliminates lag spikes:

# Install Chunky plugin, then:
/chunky radius 5000
/chunky start
/chunky confirm

This generates all chunks within a 5000-block radius. Start this overnight; it can take hours depending on your world size.

Step 5: Configure Backups

Step 6: Optimize Your Config

These server.properties and Paper config tweaks make a measurable difference:

• view-distance: 8 (down from default 10): reduces chunk loading by 36%
• simulation-distance: 6: entities only process within this radius
• max-tick-time: 60000: prevents watchdog restarts from transient lag
• network-compression-threshold: 256: compresses packets >256 bytes
• Enable async-chunks in Paper config for multi-threaded loading

Step 7: Monitor and Iterate

Use your server console and a plugin like Plan to watch:

• TPS (Ticks Per Second): Should stay at 20.0. Below 18 = lag.
• MSPT (Milliseconds Per Tick): Should stay under 50ms. Over = lag.
• RAM usage: Should stay under 85% of allocated. Near 100% = stop adding players.
• Chunk loads/s: Spikes during exploration. Stabilizes after pre-generation.

Ready to deploy? Head to our Minecraft hosting page and get a server running in under 5 minutes.