How to host a Minecraft server with friends.
Nothing gets installed on anyone’s machine and no router setting is touched. The world runs at its own address, your friends wake it by connecting, and you pay by the hour only while it is online.
~10 hours to try · no card · instant setup
Signing in and naming a world takes about thirty seconds; the rest of this page is what happens after. Everything but the region — size, type, version — can be changed later.
Create a world: pick a region, change the rest later
The world runs in the region you pick, so choose the one nearest the people who will play. Name, size, server type, Minecraft version and every gameplay setting can be changed afterwards; only downgrading a version or leaving the Paper family resets the world, and a backup comes first.
From signed out to a running world
- Sign in with Google. You confirm you are at least 13 and accept the Terms, Acceptable Use and Privacy policies. New accounts start with about ten hours of server time to try, no card needed.
- Choose Create world. The name becomes part of your address. The create screen picks the fastest region by a live ping from your device — switch it if most of your players are elsewhere — and you choose a size to start on. Live per-region prices show as you choose, and every world runs on NVMe SSD storage.
- Walk the setup wizard. Type (server software plus Minecraft version), then Owner, Friends, Mods and Share. Pick Vanilla, Paper, Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, Folia, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge, or Quilt on any version, or Skip for now and come back to it from the server page.
Size is the choice people agonise over and shouldn't. It is a Settings change afterwards, applied on the next start, and because the bill is hourly a bigger size only costs more for the hours somebody is actually on it.
Join and invite: one address, one whitelist
Your world gets a permanent address — something like cozyglade-7x.pixly.gg — and it survives restarts, resizes and version changes. The Connection card on the server page shows it with a one-click copy button. In Java Edition it goes in once under Multiplayer → Add Server and it is good from then on. Own a domain? Point a subdomain at the world — mc.yourdomain.com — and hand that out instead; it is a switch in Settings and it costs nothing extra.
For Java, phone and PC players, the address is the whole invitation.
Worlds are private from the first second: add friends by username in the Players tab. Names are checked against Mojang as you type, so a typo is caught there rather than at the door, and the same tab promotes operators and lifts bans — whitelist, op and ban changes apply without a restart.
Add mods, Bedrock crossplay and voice chat
All three are set up from the dashboard, and all three apply on the next start of the world.
Mods and plugins
On any moddable type — Paper, Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, Folia, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge, or Quilt — the Mods tab searches CurseForge and Modrinth together, takes a pasted link from either, or takes a .jar or .mrpack upload. Pick a release channel, pin an exact version, or mark a mod optional, then save. It is labelled Plugins on the Paper family, which runs plugins instead of mods. Minecraft modpack hosting covers whole packs and the loaders they name.
Bedrock crossplay
Flip Bedrock cross-play in Settings and the server installs Geyser and Floodgate itself on the way back up. It runs on Paper, Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, and Folia and on Fabric, NeoForge, and Quilt; where it cannot run, the switch is disabled with the reason spelled out rather than failing after a restart. Java and Bedrock crossplay hosting explains what the bridge carries across.
Proximity voice chat
One switch in Settings sets up Simple Voice Chat or Plasmo Voice on any type except Vanilla. Each player adds the matching mod to their own game, and nearby players hear each other in-world with no Discord call running.
With crossplay on, the Connection card grows a second row: a Bedrock address with a port beside it. Phone, tablet and Windows players add that pair under Servers → Add Server, and console players join through a companion server-list app or a DNS option such as BedrockConnect. Java friends keep using the plain address, and everyone lands in the same world.
Run it day to day: console, backups, players
The server page is tabs plus a row of quick actions — Start, Stop, Restart, Backup, and the live console — so the things you do most never need digging for. DDoS protection is included on every plan with nothing to set up, and questions go to the Pixly Discord, answered by the people building it, or to support@pixly.gg.
- Overview and console. Status, who is on, and the connection address, with a live console underneath. Logs are readable at any time; the command input is active while the server is running.
- Settings. Server type, Minecraft version, MOTD, max players, difficulty, game mode, online mode and the rest. Some changes apply on the next restart and the page says which. The Minecraft MOTD generator previews the two lines players read in their server list.
- Backups. Daily, on every size, with a seven-day history. Restore a day, export a world to keep, or upload a save you already have to bring it in.
- Players. Everyone currently online, the whitelist, operators and bans, in one place.
- Danger zone. Reset world — which backs the old one up first, and is what you use when downgrading a Minecraft version or switching to a loader the world was not built for — and deleting the server outright.
Hamachi vs a server with its own address
Before hosted servers, a group shared one world by turning somebody's PC into the server. Hamachi existed to make that PC reachable without touching the router. It still works, and it still asks a lot of whoever hosts.
One player's PC, plus Hamachi
Everyone installs a virtual-LAN client and signs in, so the group looks like a single local network — the classic dodge around router port forwarding. The world only exists while that one PC is on, so every session waits on one person's schedule, and every new player is another install to talk somebody through.
A server with its own address
The world is reachable by itself. There is nothing for your friends to install, no router settings to open, and no home IP address handed out to strangers. Anyone in the group can play whether or not any particular PC is switched on — the former host's included.
Hamachi is free for small groups and works for as long as the host's PC is switched on. A pay-per-hour Minecraft server costs cents per active hour, starts whenever anyone in the group joins, and handles mods, backups and crossplay for you.
What the hours cost, and when you pay
There is no monthly plan to choose. Hours are drawn from a prepaid balance — the Pixly Wallet — at your size's rate, from $0.07, and only while the server is up. Top it up by card or cryptocurrency at any time, in whatever amount suits the group.
Servers run in United States — Portland, Oregon and Ashburn, Virginia; Asia Pacific — Singapore; Europe — Frankfurt, Germany.
Billing follows the players. A world starts when somebody connects and sleeps about five minutes after the last person leaves, with no hourly charge while it sleeps — only a small storage fee for the data it keeps. That is also the answer for an AFK farm: keep one player connected and it keeps running.
Included on every size
- Daily backups — seven-day history, whatever size you are on
- Bedrock crossplay — one switch, not an add-on
- Proximity voice chat — one switch, no voice server to run
- DDoS protection — included, nothing to configure
- NVMe SSD storage — grows with the world
- The player limit is a field you set — not a number attached to a size
What a Minecraft server costs works the arithmetic out at real play patterns, and Minecraft server hosting price comparison sets the hourly model against monthly plans.
Hosting a server: common questions
What first-time owners ask once the world is up and the group is joining.
No. Java Edition players add your address once under Multiplayer → Add Server and join from their list from then on. Bedrock players on phone, tablet or Windows need Bedrock cross-play switched on for the world, and then add the separate Bedrock address and port shown on the Connection card; console players join through a server-list app or DNS option. There is no launcher, client or account to set up beyond the copy of Minecraft they already own — the whitelist is the only thing standing between them and the world, and you add them to it by username.
No, because neither problem exists here. Port forwarding and virtual-LAN tools like Hamachi are both ways to make a game running on somebody's home PC reachable from outside their router. A hosted world runs at its own public address instead, so there is no router to configure, no home IP address to hand out, and nobody's machine has to stay switched on for the rest of the group to play.
Worlds are private from the first second, so add friends by username. Open the Players tab and enter each friend's exact Minecraft username; names are verified against Mojang as you type, which catches spelling and capitalisation mistakes before anyone is turned away. The same tab promotes operators and lifts bans, and those changes apply without a restart.
You pay per online hour against a prepaid Pixly Wallet — there is no monthly subscription. Live per-hour rates are shown when you pick a size, and a sleeping world has no hourly charge, just a small storage fee for its data. New accounts start with about ten hours of server time to try, and you can top up by card or cryptocurrency at any time.
A world starts automatically the moment a player connects — reachable in 15–30 seconds when it was played recently, or a few minutes if it has been asleep for days. When the last player leaves it sleeps after roughly five minutes, with no hourly charge while it sleeps. Nothing happens in a sleeping world, so no progress is lost. To keep a world running continuously, for an AFK farm or a build in progress, keep at least one player connected.
If your projected balance falls to about ten cents or below, running worlds auto-stop with their data retained, and they resume when you top up. If the balance stays at or below $0 for 7 days, the world and its data are deleted; any top-up above $0 before then cancels that countdown. Before the first top-up, a world nobody joins for 14 days is removed, with an in-app warning first. Once you have topped up, a world is never deleted for sitting unplayed.
Everything but the region — name, size, server type, Minecraft version and every gameplay setting — can be changed afterwards from the server's dashboard, and the address stays the same. Only downgrading a version or leaving the Paper family resets the world, with a backup first. The region is chosen once, when you create the world, and the create screen picks the fastest one for you by a live ping.
Turn on the Bedrock cross-play switch in the server's Settings tab and restart. Geyser and Floodgate are installed for you, with no manual mod setup. It works on Paper, Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, and Folia and on Fabric, NeoForge, and Quilt; the Connection card then shows a separate Bedrock address with a port. Phone, tablet and Windows players add it under Servers → Add Server, and console players join through a companion server-list app or a DNS option such as BedrockConnect.
Host your Minecraft server now
Sign in, name your world, share the address — setup is instant. Start with ~10 hours to try, then pay for the time you play.
No card to start