If you want to start your own minecraft server, there are two ways to do it. One is to run one from your own home, the other is to hire or rent minecraft servers from one of the many companies offering minecraft server services. This article will teach you about how to set up your own minecraft server, or how to choose one from another company.
Hosting Your Own Minecraft Server
This can be achieved by downloading the Minecraft server file from the official Mojang site. Running your own minecraft server is fairly simple, but hosting it on your home computer can lead to a lot of problems, including security issues for your home PC and fairly slow connection speeds depending on your hardware and connection.
Here is a comprehensive tutorial on hosting your own minecraft server at home. This is a good place to start if you want to play with a few friends who live locally and who you trust.
If, on the other hand, you have ambitions of starting a famous minecraft server with a large number of players, you may want to look into renting minecraft servers.
Buying / Renting Minecraft Servers
For a monthly fee, there are several companies who will host a minecraft server for you. Several of them offer options like Bukkit support, mod support and more. Some minecraft server companies offer support for popular Mod Packs including Feed The Beast (FTB) and Tekkit. This means you can set up your server and start to play the way you want to almost immediately. A good server host can save you a lot of set up time, especially if you find the finer aspects of server configuration too hard to deal with.
When it comes to choosing the company you want to put your server with, it pays to check for reviews. There are more than a hundred companies offering minecraft server hosting and not all of them are what you might call 100% legitimate or reliable. Some players believe that it is best to choose server hosts who have experience hosting other games and are not only dedicated to running minecraft servers.
How Much Do Minecraft Servers Cost?
You can expect to pay anything from FREE for a small server to upwards of a hundred dollars a month for a high volume service. Beginner server prices usually start under the ten dollar mark, however.
Free Minecraft Server List:
Minecraft Server Comparisons
Peakhosting -Best Minecraft Server Reviews
Offers a 48 hour free server trial. Reviews are generally very good, however some customers have complained about lacking technical support to fix server issues. Offers complete mod support (FTB, Tekkit, etc) and also offers jar installation services. Prices for servers start at $2.49 per month for a server with 256 MB of RAM, but quickly ramp up from there. For a 2G server, you’re looking at twenty bucks a month.
BeastNode -Best Minecraft Servers For Newbies
Beastnode starts at $4.95 for a 256 MB server, a 2 G server will cost you just under thirty dollars a month. This company also offers full modding support and also free mumble voice chat with every server, as well as complete access to the control panel so you can run your server your way. Reviews are largely positive. Some players dislike the Beastnode control panel system, others find it streamlines their control experience.
Tree Puncher-Free Minecraft Server Trials
Offers free 48 hour trials. Free mumble. Complete mod support. Unlike other servers which use a RAM allowance method of charging, Tree Puncher charges by player slot. Five dollars per month will get you a five player server, ten dollars will get you a ten player server, and on up to two hundred players for two hundred dollars a month. This is probably not an ideal service for anyone who isn’t setting up a server to play with a relatively set number of people. Their prices work out to be $40 for a 2G server, which is the most expensive of all server options so far.
CraftingHost -Best Value For Money Minecraft Server Hosts
At just $16 per month for a 2G server able to handle around 45 people, Crafting Host offers great bang for your buck. CraftingHost is a small company who seem to have excellent customer support and often engage customers in public media spaces.
Other dedicated minecraft server hosts: