Forge
The loader classic modded Minecraft is built on — long mod lists and heavyweight packs live here. Pick the version your mods expect, from 1.12.2-era classics to the current release, and the matching server build installs itself.
Modded hosting
Modded Minecraft server hosting, from a search box to a running pack.
Modded Minecraft server hosting runs a mod loader in place of Mojang's server jar, so mods and whole modpacks load server-side for everyone who joins. On Pixly you pick a loader, search CurseForge and Modrinth from the panel — or paste a link, or upload a .mrpack — and the server assembles everything itself the next time it boots: the correct server build, the Java it needs, the pack's own configs. You pay from $0.07/hr, and only for the hours the server is online.
~10 hours to try · no card · instant setup
Read this first
Do my friends have to install the mods too?
Usually yes, and it is the single most common surprise in modded multiplayer. A mod that adds blocks, items or mobs has to be installed on each player's own game as well as on the server, at the same version, on the same loader — the server can serve that content, but only a player's own copy of Minecraft can draw it.
Which mods need both sides
Modrinth labels every mod by where it runs: server-side only, client-side only, or required on both. Anything adding blocks, items or entities falls in the third group — Modrinth's own example is Cobblemon, which "needs to be on both the client and server to work". Quality-of-life mods that only change server behaviour do not. If you install a modpack, the simple version is that everyone runs the same pack.
Plugins ask nothing of your friends
If you want a richer server and no homework for anyone else, run the Paper family instead of a mod loader. Plugins run entirely server-side — claims, homes, economies, minigames, moderation — and players join with a completely stock Minecraft. The trade is real: plugins can't add new blocks or mobs, and the two systems don't mix. PaperMC says it won't run Fabric or Forge mods, Fabric says you can't mix mods, and PaperMC calls hybrids that attempt both "fundamentally flawed".
Versions have to match, not just names
The classic first-week failure is a mismatch error where both sides swear they have the same mods. Two causes cover most of it: one side updated a mod and the other didn't, so the names match and the builds don't; or a client-only mod such as OptiFine or Sodium was uploaded to the server, where it crashes the load instead of helping. Pin the pack to one exact build and the server's half stops moving underneath you.
Changing the server's mods locks people out
Add or remove a mod server-side and every player still on the old list is refused, usually with nothing on their screen explaining why. It is a coordination problem, not a hosting one — so treat a pack update like a game night and announce it. On Pixly nothing changes until you save and restart, which means you pick the moment.
The install
How a CurseForge or Modrinth pack gets onto the server
There's no file-manager step and nothing uploads from your PC. The dashboard is where you decide what runs; the server itself does the downloading.
Pick mods in the dashboard
Every server has a Mods tab — labelled Plugins on the Paper family. Search CurseForge and Modrinth together, or paste a link or slug from either, and Pixly previews the project against your loader and Minecraft version before anything installs. A mod that won't fit is flagged at that moment, not discovered as a crash later.
The server installs at startup
Your selection is saved as a list, and on the next boot the server fetches each project straight from its catalog, matched to the pinned version and loader, and places it where that loader expects — the mods folder for mod loaders, plugins on the Paper side. Adding or dropping something later is the same loop: save, restart, done.
Whole modpacks, pinned to a build
A modpack is one entry, not eighty: the pack's full mod list and its configs arrive together. Track its release channel, or pin one exact build so the pack only changes when you decide — and per mod, a release/beta/alpha channel plus an optional flag give individual installs the same control.
One honest limit on the CurseForge side: a project author can switch third-party downloads off, and CurseForge honours that switch over the project's licence. When it's off, no automated installer — including this one — can fetch the file, and the way around it is to upload the jar or the pack yourself, which the Mods tab also accepts.
Every loader, ready to go.
Pick one — setup comes with it.
Choose the server type your mods or plugins need and set any Minecraft version — snapshots, betas, even old alphas — with the right Java build picked automatically.
NeoForge
Forge's actively developed successor, where most new Forge-style mods land on Minecraft 1.20.1 and later. If a modern pack lists NeoForge in its requirements, this is the one to pick.
Fabric & Quilt
Lightweight and usually first to support each new Minecraft release — snapshot servers welcome. Quilt, the Fabric-compatible fork, is available as its own server type when a mod calls for it.
Paper & plugins
Paper runs plugins rather than mods: everything installs server-side, so players join with a completely stock client. Prefer a fork? Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, and Folia are here too.
Versions & Java
Any Minecraft version, and the Java to match
Modded Minecraft lives across a decade of game versions, and each era expects a different Java underneath. Pixly treats both as part of the server, not homework for you.
Pin the version your pack expects
Mods are built against specific Minecraft releases, so the version picker isn't biased toward the newest one. Set the exact release your pack calls for — whether it shipped years ago or this week — and every catalog install resolves against that pin instead of whatever happens to be current.
Java resolved from the version
The Java that Minecraft requires has stepped up several times over the game's history, and a wrong pairing refuses to boot at all. Pixly reads the version you pinned and starts the server on the matching Java build automatically, so the compatibility table stops being your problem.
Overridable when a mod insists
Auto is the default and the safe pick, but Settings carries a Java selector that can force a specific build — useful for the rare mod that demands one Java and refuses anything newer. Choose it and restart; the server comes back on that runtime.
Sizing
How much RAM a modded server actually needs
Modded is where hosting gets oversold, and the honest starting point is that the primary sources disagree with each other by up to twenty times — none of them publishes a benchmark. So here are the numbers that do have a source behind them, and the one that doesn't.
What the pack authors themselves say
Minecraft's own wiki puts a five-player vanilla server at 2 GB. The All the Mods team tells players to allocate 8 GB, and no more than 12 GB, for a pack of roughly 500 mods — while their trimmed edition of the same pack says it "loads and plays well with only 4gbs". That six-to-ten-times multiplier for a heavyweight pack is the most defensible figure in the category, and plenty of packs publish no figure at all.
There is no RAM-per-player rule
The "1 GB per player" line has no primary source anywhere behind it. Minecraft's wiki puts a connected player at roughly 50-100 MB, and PaperMC's tuning guide sets its floor without reference to player count at all. PaperMC also says buying 32 GB "will only waste your money with minimal returns" — memory stops helping well before you run out of budget.
Memory sized to the plan
A plan's memory is the whole machine and it is yours alone, from 2 GB on the smallest to 64 GB on the largest. Most of it runs the server, set from the plan automatically with no launch flags to edit; the rest is reserved for the operating system, exactly as PaperMC's own tuning guide tells you to — a pack handed every last megabyte is the one that crashes mid-session.
Resize instead of guessing
Start small, watch the dashboard's memory readout, and move the plan up — or back down — when the pack asks for it; the world and its address stay put. Because billing is hourly, a bigger size only costs more for the hours someone is actually playing on it.
The grid below is the live price list for every size and region — modded carries no surcharge, from $0.07/hr like any other world; a heavy pack simply wants a size with enough memory behind it. The pay-per-hour Minecraft server hosting page explains the billing model itself, the cost guide works out what a Minecraft server costs per month at real play patterns.
Performance
Why a modded server lags, and what actually fixes it
Lag on a modded server is rarely a memory problem, and the primary sources are unusually clear about what it is instead.
The tick is the whole story
A Minecraft server runs at a fixed 20 ticks per second, one every 50 milliseconds, and ticks can't run in parallel — a tick that overruns delays the next one and the backlog compounds. That is what server-side lag is. Minecraft's own requirements page says the server wants strong single-core performance and typically uses no more than three cores, so clock speed matters more than core count.
View distance is the lever you control
View distance is a radius in chunks, so the work grows quadratically: 10 loads up to 441 chunks per player, and 16 loads 1,089 — about two and a half times the work. Dropping from 10 to 7 takes it to 225 with no hardware change at all. Simulation distance should sit lower than view distance, because ticking entities costs more than sending chunk data.
Then the usual suspects
Mob farms, dense entity clusters, hoppers and villagers are recognised lag sources — Paper and Spigot both ship throttles aimed at exactly those. The flip side: beyond simulation distance nothing moves at all, no redstone, no fluid flow, no crop growth, which is why a farm appears to stop while nobody is standing near it.
Honest limits
What changing your mind actually costs
Mods write into the world itself, and no host can undo that with a toggle. Rather than hide the sharp edges, the dashboard names them and hands you the recovery tool at the moment you need it.
Switching loader keeps your world
Server type is a Settings dropdown, not a new server, and changing it applies in place — your world stays where it is. Mods built for the old loader stop loading, so pick the loader early and change it deliberately.
Version downgrades are guarded
Raising the version is an ordinary save; lowering it isn't, because worlds can't be opened by an older Minecraft. A downgrade is made explicit: it requires a reset, asks for confirmation, and snapshots the current world automatically before anything is touched.
Removing mods leaves files behind
The server-side installer adds mods to the world volume but never deletes them when a list is cleared — orphaned jars would keep loading forever. Pixly watches for exactly that and pins a banner offering a one-click reset, so a clean break is one confirmation away and the old world stays in backups.
One more edge worth naming: Bedrock friends can join a modded world, because the Geyser bridge installs as just another mod on Fabric, NeoForge, and Quilt — though not on Forge, which Geyser publishes no build for. What reaches them is whatever runs server-side; Mojang lists mods as Java-only, so custom blocks and items show up as stand-ins on a Bedrock screen. The crossplay Minecraft server hosting page covers what translates cleanly and what stays Java-only.
Pick a size. Pay for time you play.
Pixly’s pay-per-hour Minecraft server hosting only charges you for the hours your players are actually online. For a group that plays evenings and weekends, that makes a dedicated server affordable at a fraction of a flat monthly plan.
Ashburn, Virginia…
Servers run in United States — Portland, Oregon and Ashburn, Virginia; Europe — Frankfurt, Germany.
Most popular
Meadow
Suggested for 10 players
1 vCPU · 4 GB
Estimated cost by playtime
Weekend
$0.99/mo
10¢/hr
Regular
$2.99/mo
7¢/hr
Every evening
$8.49/mo
7¢/hr
Village
Suggested for 20 players
2 vCPU · 8 GB
Estimated cost by playtime
Weekend
$1.49/mo
15¢/hr
Regular
$5.49/mo
14¢/hr
Every evening
$15.49/mo
13¢/hr
Town
Suggested for 30 players
4 vCPU · 16 GB
Estimated cost by playtime
Weekend
$2.99/mo
30¢/hr
Regular
$9.99/mo
25¢/hr
Every evening
$27.99/mo
23¢/hr
Kingdom
Suggested for 50 players
4 vCPU · 32 GB
Estimated cost by playtime
Weekend
$3.99/mo
40¢/hr
Regular
$13.49/mo
34¢/hr
Every evening
$37.49/mo
31¢/hr
Realm
Suggested for 100+ players
8 vCPU · 64 GB
Estimated cost by playtime
Weekend
$6.99/mo
70¢/hr
Regular
$24.99/mo
62¢/hr
Every evening
$70.99/mo
59¢/hr
All plan prices are estimates — you’re billed only for the hours your server is awake, so your real monthly cost follows how much you play.
No credit card to try Prepaid — top up what you need No player limit — you set the max Daily backups included
FAQ
Modded hosting questions
Usually yes. A mod that adds blocks, items or mobs has to be installed on each player's own game as well as on the server, at the same version and on the same loader, because only a player's own copy of Minecraft can draw the new content. Mods that only change server behaviour don't need anything from players, and plugins never do.
Plugins run entirely on the server, so players join with a completely stock Minecraft — that's how claims, homes, economies and moderation tools work without anybody downloading anything. Mods run in the game itself, which is what lets them add blocks, items and mobs, and that's why content mods have to be on both sides. The two systems don't mix, so pick the Paper family for plugins and a mod loader for mods.
Almost always one of two things. Mod versions have to match, not just mod names — one side updating a single mod is enough to block the connection, even though both lists look identical. Or a client-only mod such as OptiFine or Sodium was uploaded to the server, where it crashes the load instead. Pinning your pack to one exact build stops the server's half from moving, which leaves only the client side to line up.
It's hosting where the server runs a mod loader instead of the stock jar, so gameplay-changing mods and full modpacks load server-side for everyone who joins. On Pixly the loader, the server build, the Java runtime, and the catalog downloads are all part of the managed setup — your job is choosing what to run, not assembling it.
Open the Mods tab and search — it covers CurseForge and Modrinth together — or paste the pack's link. Packs from either catalog build themselves on the next start: every mod plus its configs. One pack runs at a time, and you can pin an exact build so an update never lands uninvited. Uploading a .mrpack or plain .jar files works too, which is also the way around the occasional CurseForge project whose author has switched third-party downloads off.
Every moddable type Pixly offers — Paper, Purpur, Pufferfish, Leaf, Folia, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge, or Quilt — plus stock Vanilla when you want no mods at all. The Paper family takes plugins rather than mods; the mod loaders take mods from CurseForge and Modrinth. Whichever you pick, the right server software is installed for the Minecraft version you pinned.
It depends on the Minecraft version underneath: releases before 1.17 run Java 8, 1.17 through 1.20.4 need 17, 1.20.5 and later use 21, and the newest releases step up to 25. On Pixly you don't chase that table — the server resolves Java from your pinned version, with a manual override in Settings for the rare pack that insists otherwise.
There is no honest universal number, and the primary sources disagree by up to twenty times. What is sourced: Minecraft's wiki puts a five-player vanilla server at 2 GB, and the All the Mods team tells players to allocate 8 GB and no more than 12 GB for a pack of around 500 mods. The '1 GB per player' rule has no primary source behind it at all. Pixly plans reach 64 GB, and because billing is hourly and plans are switchable, the cheap answer is to start small, watch the live memory readout, and resize when the pack tells you.
Rarely because of memory. A server runs 20 ticks a second and ticks can't run in parallel, so one slow tick delays the next and the backlog compounds. The lever you control is view distance: it's a radius, so 10 loads up to 441 chunks per player against 1,089 at 16, and dropping to 7 takes it to 225. Set simulation distance lower than view distance, then look at mob farms, dense entity clusters, hoppers and villagers.
Judge it against your pack, not a feature list. It has to offer the loader your pack names, let you pin the exact Minecraft version it was built for rather than pushing you onto the newest release, install from the catalog your pack lives on, and give the pack the memory its authors ask for. Then there's the shape of the bill: a modded group that plays a few evenings a week is paying a fixed monthly plan for a lot of hours nobody is online. Pixly charges by the hour for the hours the server is up, which is the difference that matters most for weekly play.
No. Mojang's Realms settings — for Java and for Bedrock alike — offer no way to add a plugin or a mod loader; the whole configuration surface is worlds, players, subscription and settings. Bedrock Add-Ons are a separate thing, and Mojang says so directly: Add-Ons are not mods, mods are exclusive to Java Edition, and it recommends playing with at most three Add-Ons. A rented server you can install a loader on is the way to run a modpack.
The files a pack installed stay on the world volume — the boot-time installer never uninstalls, and a world already shaped by those mods wouldn't be clean anyway. The dashboard flags exactly this and offers a one-click world reset, which backs the old world up first.
Yes on Fabric, NeoForge, and Quilt, where the Geyser bridge installs alongside your mods and server-side mechanics apply to everyone. Forge is the exception — Geyser publishes no build for it. Bear in mind that Mojang lists mods as Java-only, so modded blocks and items are drawn by a player's own game and Bedrock clients show stand-ins instead.
No — the price is your plan's per-hour rate whatever you run on it. Heavier packs tend to want larger plans, which cost more per hour, and that's the whole difference. Idle time works like any Pixly server: it hibernates when empty, there's no hourly charge while it sleeps, and a small storage fee keeps the saved world.
Put your pack on a server tonight
Create a server, pick the loader, paste the pack. Start with about 10 hours of play to try it, then pay for the time you play.
No card to start