pixly.
Create world
Play together on PC, console & mobile

Minecraft Server Hosting

Pixly is a pay-as-you-go Minecraft server hosting that charges from $0.07/hr (see prices) for the time your server is online.

Your friends wake it themselves just by joining — 15 to 30 seconds for a world played recently — so nobody has to ask you to start it. When the last player leaves it sleeps again: the hourly charge stops, and only a small storage fee for your world’s data carries on.

Create my world
No credit card. About 10 hours to try.

Built for the way
you actually play.

Your world runs while friends are online and sleeps when it's empty — here's how that works, and who it's for.

A server for every crew

Keep a separate one for each group or game — no per-server fee and no subscription to manage.

Online while you play

It runs the whole time anyone's on, and picks up right where you left it next time.

Pay for minutes online

Empty for a few minutes and it goes to sleep — hourly charges run only while it's online.

Weekend & evening crews

You and a few friends play in bursts — a weekend, an evening — then nothing for days.

Made for stop-and-start play — pile in for a weekend, vanish for two weeks, and nothing is lost or wasted in between.

Twitch

Streamers & community events

A subscriber night, a Discord event, or a launch brings a crowd for a few hours.

Hand a single address to your whole stream or Discord, let the crowd pour in for the night, then shut the event server down when it's over.

Cobblemon

Modpack & modded crews

You want a specific modpack or mod list — without editing config files or hunting for the right loader.

Bring the exact pack your crew's been arguing about — the modded setup is handled, so you just play.

PC, console & mobile together

Some friends are on Bedrock, some on Java — and getting everyone onto one server is the hard part.

Everyone piles into the same world — phone, console, or PC, nobody left out.

Solid where it counts
done right, done for you

The unglamorous parts of running a Minecraft server, handled — so you get straight to the game with your friends.

Performance that's all yours

A server close to your players for low latency, with dedicated CPU, RAM and disk that are never shared with another world — so it runs smoothly with no lag, even on a big modpack.

Free daily backups

Every world is backed up automatically each day, with the last seven a single click from restored — a weekend of building is always safe.

Real support in Discord

Get help from a real person in our Discord — usually the founder himself.

Join the Discord

Locked to your crew

Decide exactly who gets in with a whitelist — your world stays yours and your friends', and nobody else's.

One person
behind the lantern.

aleksei · running pixly

Every host handed me the same bad deal: rent muscle that idles all week — or save money and play through the lag.

I wanted to stand up a world for my friends in a few minutes — on whatever version we felt like that night, with whatever mod list we'd been arguing about — and change a setting from a screen instead of editing files over SSH at midnight. What I kept being sold was one side of that deal or the other. I refused to pick.

So I built the thing that didn't exist — hosting that's genuinely yours while you play, then gets out of your way (and stops charging you) the moment everyone logs off.

It's me running this — no support desk between us. If something rubs you the wrong way, find me in our Discord or write to me directly. I read every message myself, and the ones that point out what's broken are the ones that built this.

— Aleksei
founder · pixly

Console and phone friends,
playing right alongside you.

Pixly is Minecraft hosting with a Java server and Bedrock crossplay built in — so friends on console, phone, or tablet join the same world as everyone on Java, with no extra account or computer needed.

pixly.gg/world/cozy-glade · settings

Turn it on with one switch.

It lives in your server settings.

Bedrock cross-play
Let console & mobile players join

Flip it on and we set up Geyser and Floodgate for you — no second server to run, and nothing for your friends to download.

One Java server, Bedrock crossplay on.

Java friends paste the plain address — cozyglade-7x.pixly.gg. Console and phone friends paste the Bedrock one — …pixly.gg:25571.

That’s the only difference. Everyone spawns into the exact same world — same builds, same chat, same evening — whatever they’re playing on.

Plays on
  • Switch
  • PlayStation
  • Xbox
  • iPad
  • Android
  • Windows

Find a mod. Add it.
It's running next time you play.

Modded Minecraft hosting that stays out of your way: paste a Modrinth link or pick one of the popular ones, and a mod or plugin lands on your server in a click. It downloads and sets itself up the moment the server starts — nothing to unzip, drop into a folder, or match up by hand.

Cobblemon
Cobblemon
by Cobbled Studios
Adventure
34M ↓
Create Fabric
Create Fabric
by tropheusj
Engineering
10.3M ↓
Biomes O' Plenty
Biomes O' Plenty
by Forstride
World gen
34.8M ↓
Terralith
Terralith
by Stardust Labs
World gen
22.4M ↓
BlueMap
BlueMap
by BlueColored
Live map
475.5k ↓
Simple Voice Chat
Simple Voice Chat
by henkelmax
Voice chat
67.2M ↓
paste a Modrinth link to add any other

Or grab a whole modpack.

Browse the popular packs, or paste a link to the one you have in mind. We set up the full pack — every mod and config it ships with — and lock in the exact build, so a surprise update never breaks the world you’ve been playing.

Cobblemon Official Modpack [Fabric]
Cobblemon Official Modpack [Fabric]
by Cobbled Studios
Pokémon
10.4M ↓
Vanilla Perfected
Vanilla Perfected
by demonjoeTV
Vanilla+
2.4M ↓
The Pixelmon Modpack
The Pixelmon Modpack
by Pixelmon
Pokémon
2.1M ↓
Zombie Invade 100 Days
Zombie Invade 100 Days
by FlameFire
Survival
14.1M ↓
Prominence™ II: Hasturian Era
Prominence™ II: Hasturian Era
by ElocinDev
RPG
1.9M ↓
COBBLEVERSE - Pokemon Adventure [Cobblemon]
COBBLEVERSE - Pokemon Adventure [Cobblemon]
by LUMYVERSE
Pokémon
6.5M ↓
All the Mods 10 - ATM10
All the Mods 10 - ATM10
by ATMTeam
Kitchen sink
20.8M ↓
Better MC [FORGE] BMC4
Better MC [FORGE] BMC4
by LunaPixelStudios
Adventure
17.8M ↓
All the Mods 9 - ATM9
All the Mods 9 - ATM9
by ATMTeam
Kitchen sink
13.6M ↓
DawnCraft - Echoes of Legends
DawnCraft - Echoes of Legends
by bstylia14
RPG
10.4M ↓
Vault Hunters Third Edition
Vault Hunters Third Edition
by Iskall85Team
Adventure
5.8M ↓
SkyFactory 5
SkyFactory 5
by darkosto
Survival
1.5M ↓

Mods run on Fabric, Forge, NeoForge, and Quilt; plugins run on Paper, Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, and Folia. Pick one when you create the world, set any Minecraft version, and the matching server build and Java version install themselves — which loader to pick for your pack.

Pay by the pixel.
Cheap hosting that bills only for the time you play.

The rate below is the real one — today’s live price for the size and region you choose, the same from your first minute to your thousandth. The monthly figures are estimates from how much you play: you’re billed per hour only while players are online. For the numbers behind both billing models, see how much a Minecraft server costs per month.

FROM
$0.07/hr
per hour online
Ashburn, Virginia…

Servers run in United States — Portland, Oregon and Ashburn, Virginia; Europe — Frankfurt, Germany.

Pick a size
No player limit on any size — the counts show what plays smoothly, and you set your own max.

No “upgrade for backups.”
You get the whole thing.

  • No player limit — sizes set CPU & RAM, not a cap — you choose max players
  • No storage cap — disk grows automatically with your world, pay only for what you use
  • NVMe SSD storage — worlds live on fast NVMe SSDs — quick chunk loads and saves
  • Full mod & plugin support — every loader, every version — CurseForge and Modrinth mods in one click
  • Any modpack supported — whole packs from Modrinth in a click, or hand-pick your own
  • Daily backups, free — restore any of the last 7 days
  • One-switch crossplay — Java, console & mobile friends in one world
  • Bring your existing world — drag in your save and it loads on your next start, free
  • Your own address — name.pixly.gg, yours to keep
  • DDoS protection — always on, so a flood can't knock your world offline
Trial hours
Your trial: about 10 awake-hrs on Meadow. Top up to pick a bigger size.
Pick the region nearest your friends — pricing updates live above.
Questions?
ESTIMATED BILLMeadow · Ashburn, Virginia
~$0.99/ mo
Estimated for weekend play · ~10 active hrs/mo
If you play more
Weekend
~5 hrs a session, a weekend or two a month
$0.99/mo
10¢/hr
Regular
~5 hrs a session, a few nights a week
$2.99/mo
7¢/hr
Every evening
~4 hrs a session, just about nightly
$8.49/mo
7¢/hr
All figures are estimates — you pay per hour your world is awake, not a fixed monthly plan, so your real cost tracks your uptime.
Try it for ~10h
WHEN YOU LEAVE
No hourly charge.

Just a small storage fee for your server's data while it sleeps.

WHEN YOU COME BACK
Back the moment they join.

A friend joins and you're playing again — no new charge until someone's on.

AN “ACTIVE HOUR”
Only hours with players.

Charged by the minute, totted up by the hour. No surprise math, no add-ons.

Switching from another host?

Side-by-side comparisons with current prices and honest trade-offs.

No waiting line

Your server wakes on join in under half a minute when it's been played recently, on hardware that's yours alone.

Pixly vs Aternos →
Mods, and more than 10 friends

Run modded, set your own max players, and keep Java + Bedrock crossplay on.

Pixly vs Minecraft Realms →
No monthly bill

An hourly rate metered to the minute — when your server sleeps, the hourly charge stops with it.

Pixly vs Apex Hosting →
Nothing renews

Top up a balance when you choose. No renewal invoices, no cancellation flow.

Pixly vs Shockbyte →

Every host above and more, on one page: the full Minecraft hosting comparison — entry prices, downgrade policies, and idle costs for ten hosts.

Top up only what you'll use No credit card to try Pause anytime — one click No setup fee
Meadow, Village, Town, Kingdom, Realm

Real questions
from real players.

If it isn't here, email us — we actually reply.

New to Pixly? Read the step-by-step setup guide.

Billing counts the minutes your server is actually up, at the per-hour rate shown above. Once the last player leaves it goes to sleep on its own and the hourly charge stops; while it sleeps you pay only a small storage fee for your world's data. There's no monthly fee ticking away whether you play or not.

Yes — joining is the start button. Whoever tries to connect first wakes the world, so you don't have to be online or anywhere near a dashboard, and nobody has to text you to turn it on. That first person gets a short "waking up" message, tries again 15 to 30 seconds later and they're in — a couple of minutes if the world had been asleep for days — and everyone after them joins straight away. If you'd rather be the only one who can start it, auto-start is a switch you can turn off.

The plans above price three real patterns — a weekend or two a month, a few nights a week, and just about nightly — so you can read your month off the one that matches your group instead of guessing. Watch out for the sum most people do first: multiplying an hourly rate by every one of the month's ~730 hours. Almost nobody plays 730 hours. Count your own sessions instead, and use the calculator above to price your world and play pattern. Cheap Minecraft hosting usually means a low monthly price you pay in full whether anyone logs in or not. A world that genuinely never empties is better off on one of those; for a group playing a few evenings a week, the cheaper option is the one that only counts the hours you actually use.

Not here. You top up your Pixly Wallet when you want to — $5 minimum, $100 maximum in one payment, by card or crypto — and the balance draws down as you play, so your budget is whatever you decide to put in. There's no subscription, no renewal price hike, and nothing to remember to cancel.

No card needed to start. Every new account comes with about 10 hours of play on a small server to try — enough to spin one up and get a few friends in straight away. When the trial hours run low, top up from $5 at a time.

Sign in with Google and give your world a name — that's the setup. You get an address that never changes, like cozyglade-7x.pixly.gg, to drop into Minecraft and share with your group. Keep one world or several, for different groups or games — you're only charged for the one people are on.

No — and nothing happens to it either. A sleeping world isn't running, so no time passes inside it: crops don't grow, farms don't tick, mobs don't move and nothing decays. It picks up exactly where it stopped the moment someone joins. Every world is also backed up automatically once a day, and you can roll back to any of the last seven days if a build goes wrong or a mod misbehaves. If you want a farm running while you're away, keep one player connected — the world stays awake as long as somebody is on it.

Your world stays put. If the balance runs down mid-session the server stops rather than charging on, and when you top up again the world is exactly as you left it. Two boundaries worth knowing before you rely on that: starting a server, taking a backup or downloading your world all need a balance above $0.10, and if the balance sits at zero for seven days the server is removed — topping up again before then cancels it. Once you've topped up at least once, a world is never deleted for sitting unplayed. Before that first top-up, a world nobody joins for 14 days is removed, with a week's warning in the app, and any player joining resets the clock.

Yes — an SMP (survival multiplayer) is exactly what Pixly hosts best. Start a private SMP for your crew with the whitelist on, or open it to your community, Discord, or viewers. Daily backups cover the whole season.

Yes — Java and Bedrock crossplay works on Pixly. Pick a world on any loader Geyser supports — every Paper-family type, plus Fabric, Quilt and NeoForge — then flip the Bedrock cross-play switch in Settings and Pixly auto-installs the Geyser crossplay bridge for you. Bedrock players join from the Servers screen on their device using the Bedrock address and port shown on the Connection card.

Pick any loader when you make the world (Vanilla doesn't take mods), and run the version your pack needs — the picker greys out combinations a loader can't boot. Add mods or plugins from the Mods tab — search CurseForge and Modrinth together, or paste a link from either — or drop in a whole modpack from either catalog the same way. They set themselves up on the next start, and the right Java version is chosen for you. Uploading the pack's files or a .mrpack works too.

Nothing to install. Your world runs on Pixly's servers, not on your PC, so friends can hop in whenever it's awake — your own computer can stay off. Share the address from your world's Connection card; they open Multiplayer in Minecraft, paste it in, and hit Join.

Yes, on every plan. Every world comes with its own pixly.gg address, and if you already own a domain you can point a subdomain at the world — mc.yourdomain.com — and hand that out instead. Turn it on in the world's Settings, type the address you want, and add the one record it shows you wherever you bought the domain. We check for that record and keep checking on our own, so you can close the page. Until it's connected your friends carry on using the address we gave you, and that address keeps working afterwards for anyone who already saved it.
~10 hours to try · no card needed

Your server is
minutes away.

Name it, pass the address to your friends, and you're all in moments later. It stays up while you're playing and winds down when everyone leaves — so what you pay tracks the time you're actually together in the game.

Create my world
~10 trial hours included