Minecraft Server Hosting

What does Minecraft server hosting give you, and who is it for?

Minecraft server hosting keeps your world running while your own computer is off, gives everyone the same address to join and moves the load away from your home internet connection. Running your own server instead of LAN or Realms means full control over the player limit, plugins, mods, whitelist and backups.

A rented server makes the biggest difference in three scenarios:

• Groups of friends: a 5–10 player survival world where nobody has to keep the host PC switched on.
• Modpack players: All the Mods, Create or tech-heavy packs need serious memory and CPU; a server takes that load off the players’ machines.
• Community and network builders: projects that link lobby, survival and minigame servers with Velocity and aim for dozens of concurrent players.

Our servers are located in Türkiye, which makes them a natural fit for players in Türkiye and the surrounding region.

Java or Bedrock: which Minecraft server should you rent?

If most of your players are on Java Edition on a computer, rent a Java server; if they join from phones, tablets, Xbox, PlayStation or Switch, rent a Bedrock server. If you want both, adding Geyser to a Java server is the most common solution. The two editions look like the same game but use different network protocols, different server software and different plugin ecosystems.

For mixed communities, install Geyser and Floodgate on the Java server to let Bedrock players in too: Geyser translates the protocol, and Floodgate lets Bedrock players join without a Java account. In this setup port 19132/UDP must also be open for Bedrock.

Paper, Purpur, Fabric, Forge or NeoForge: which server software fits you?

If you will use plugins, choose Paper (or Purpur, which is built on it); if you will use mods, choose the loader your modpack requires, i.e. Fabric, Forge or NeoForge. Trying to mix both on the same server usually causes trouble.

• Vanilla: Mojang’s plain server. No plugins and limited performance tuning; for small, pure experiences.
• Paper: keeps Bukkit/Spigot plugin compatibility while adding many performance fixes. The de facto standard for plugin-based survival servers.
• Purpur: a fork of Paper with extra gameplay settings, compatible with Paper plugins.
• Folia: an experimental Paper-team project that splits the world into regions processed on multiple cores; plugin compatibility is limited, so consider it only for very busy, custom projects.
• Fabric: a lightweight mod loader. Optimisation mods such as Sodium and Lithium and technical player mods live here.
• Forge and NeoForge: loaders for large content modpacks. Many packs have moved to NeoForge on newer versions; check the pack page to see which loader it needs.
• Velocity: a proxy that joins several servers behind one address — the modern alternative to BungeeCord.

How much RAM and CPU do you need per player count?

For a Paper server with plugins, 3–4 GB of RAM is usually enough for up to 10 players and 6–8 GB for up to 30. With modpacks, the number of mods matters more than the number of players, and anything below 8 GB rarely runs comfortably. The table above summarises these estimates; the exact figure depends on your plugins, the size of the explored world and what players are doing.

Two factors are as important as RAM but often forgotten:

1. Single-core speed: Minecraft’s main game loop (the tick loop) runs largely on one thread. Extra cores help with world generation, networking and garbage collection, but per-core performance is what keeps the server at its target of 20 ticks per second.
2. Disk speed: as players explore new areas, chunks are written to and read from disk. NVMe storage reduces stutter during busy exploration hours.

Allocating far more RAM than needed can also hurt: when the Java heap is very large, garbage collection pauses get longer.

Should you rent a ready-made Minecraft package or a VDS?

If you want to run a single server and manage it from a panel, a ready-made Minecraft game package is the right choice. If you plan to connect several servers with Velocity, run a database and website on the same machine or need full operating system access, a VDS is the better fit.

LIONFIN Minecraft packages come with a web-based game panel, one-click modpack installation, automatic daily backups and DDoS protection; RAM options are listed live in the package table on this page. For a panel user, running the server comes down to choosing a version, installing plugins and typing commands in the console.

A VDS server is a KVM virtual machine whose cores, memory and disk are reserved entirely for you. There you set up the Java version, startup flags, firewall and backup routine yourself, and you can add a management panel such as Pterodactyl if you like. We compare both routes side by side on the game server package vs VDS page.

Once you choose a package and complete payment, your server is provisioned automatically and the connection details appear in your customer panel. If you chose a VDS instead, you can connect over SSH and install Java and the server software yourself. Prices are shown in Turkish lira excluding VAT and the checkout is in Turkish; if you need help ordering, contact us by email.

What should you watch for when choosing plugins and modpacks?

Download plugins and mods only from trusted sources (Modrinth, CurseForge, Hangar, SpigotMC), check that they match your server version and take a backup before every addition. However popular a plugin is, installing the wrong version can cause startup errors or even corrupt world data.

A common core set for plugin servers:

• LuckPerms: permissions and rank management.
• EssentialsX: basic commands such as homes, teleports and kits.
• WorldGuard and WorldEdit: region protection and bulk building edits.
• CoreProtect: block logging and grief rollback.
• spark: performance profiling that shows which plugin is causing lag.

On modpack servers, the client and server must use exactly the same pack version. Using the “server pack” published by the pack author prevents client-only mods (for example visual mods) from being installed on the server.

How do you improve Minecraft server performance?

The biggest performance gains come from lowering view and simulation distance, pre-generating the world and profiling to find the plugin causing lag; adding RAM is usually the last resort.

1. view-distance and simulation-distance: these two values in server.properties set how many chunks are loaded and processed around each player. Lowering simulation distance reduces CPU load while keeping the view distance.
2. Pre-generate the world: generating a bordered world with a plugin such as Chunky before players arrive removes the sudden load of exploration. Use the worldborder command to set the border.
3. Entity limits: entity and hopper settings in the Paper configuration stop large farms from slowing the server down.
4. Profiling: run /spark profiler for a few minutes; the report shows which plugin or mechanic takes the most time.
5. JVM flags: the widely used Aikar flags tune the G1 garbage collector for Minecraft. Keep the heap size (-Xms/-Xmx) a little below the package memory so the operating system has headroom.

When ticks per second (TPS) drop below 20, players experience delayed block breaking and rubber-banding.

How do you protect a Minecraft server from DDoS and account attacks?

The foundation of Minecraft server security is network-level DDoS filtering, keeping online-mode enabled, using a whitelist or a solid permission structure and closing management ports (RCON, database) to the outside world.

• DDoS: popular servers can be targeted by rivals or banned players. DDoS protection is standard on LIONFIN game packages; the RouteFence firewall in our data center filters attack traffic at network level.
• online-mode=true: makes players authenticate with a Mojang/Microsoft account. On backend servers behind Velocity this is turned off, so their ports must be open only to the proxy and Velocity’s modern forwarding secret must be used; otherwise anyone could join a backend server directly under another player’s name.
• Whitelist: for private servers, white-list=true plus /whitelist add is the simplest protection.
• RCON: if you don’t use it, leave enable-rcon=false; if you do, set a long password and open the port only to your own IP address.
• Bot attacks: unlike DDoS, “bot attacks” open dozens of connections per second with fake accounts and exhaust the login stage. On proxy networks, anti-bot plugins with connection rate limits and chat verification reduce this load.
• Admin accounts: give operator (op) rights only to people who truly need them; a limited moderator rank in LuckPerms for daily moderation prevents a single compromised account from wiping the whole server.

If you run your own server on a VDS, restricting SSH to key-based access and applying operating system updates regularly matter as much as in-game measures.

How do you back up and migrate an existing world?

A Minecraft world consists of the world, world_nether and world_the_end folders in the server directory. Backing up these folders and the plugin data regularly is enough, and migrating simply means uploading the same folders to the new server.

LIONFIN game packages take automatic daily backups; still, it is good practice to take a manual backup from the panel before a major plugin update or version upgrade. On a VDS, keep backups outside the server as well — the basic rule of any backup strategy is never to rely on a single copy.

To move a single-player world or a server from another provider:

1. Stop the source server (a world copied while running may be corrupted).
2. Compress the world folders and the plugins or mods directory.
3. Upload them to the new server over SFTP and extract; make sure the folder name matches level-name in server.properties.
4. If versions differ, test with a backup first; opening an old world in a new version converts it irreversibly.

How do you combine several servers under one address with Velocity?

To put lobby, survival, creative and minigame servers behind one address, you set up a Velocity proxy: players connect only to the proxy, and Velocity moves them to the backend servers via commands or menus.

A typical small network consists of:

Each server here is a separate Java process, so memory needs add up: a small share for the proxy, a few GB for the lobby and separate memory for each game server according to its player load. That is why networks are usually built on a VDS rather than a ready-made package. MariaDB is a popular choice for the shared database; LuckPerms and many economy plugins support MySQL-compatible databases directly.

The critical security point is that backend server ports stay closed to the internet. On a VDS a few UFW firewall rules do this: open only the proxy port and bind the others to the local address. Set player-info-forwarding-mode to modern in the Velocity configuration and enter the same secret in the Paper servers’ configuration, and player identities are passed through the proxy securely.

What should you watch for when upgrading the Minecraft version?

Before upgrading, take a full backup, wait for your plugins or mods to support the new version and try the upgrade on a copy server first; once a world has been opened in a new version, it cannot be rolled back.

Mojang changes block, entity and world generation code with every major update. Software such as Paper usually ships for a new version within days or weeks, with the first builds marked “experimental”. Big plugins (for example WorldGuard, EssentialsX) can also take time to update. The most common problems on a rushed upgrade are plugins that won’t load, broken region protections and sharp transitions where new world generation meets old areas.

A safe upgrade plan:

1. Stop the server and take a full backup of the world, plugin and configuration folders.
2. List your plugins and check each one’s support for the new version.
3. Open the backup with the new version on a separate test server, walk around as a player and check key builds.
4. If all is well, upgrade the live server and announce it to players.

For communities that want to stay on an older version, ViaVersion and ViaBackwards let newer clients connect to an older server. This works in the short term, but new blocks and items won’t appear on the old server.

What are the most common Minecraft server errors and fixes?

The most frequent problems come from version mismatches, the wrong Java version, insufficient memory and incompatible plugins or mods — and all of them can be diagnosed from the first error line in the console log.

• “Outdated server” / “Outdated client”: client and server versions differ. Match the server to the players’ version or use a compatibility plugin such as ViaVersion.
• UnsupportedClassVersionError: the server software needs a newer Java. 1.20.5 and later require at least Java 21; select the right Java version in the panel.
• OutOfMemoryError or sudden crashes: memory is insufficient or a mod is leaking memory. Measure with spark first and upgrade the package if needed.
• “Can’t keep up! Is the server overloaded?”: the tick loop is falling behind; review simulation distance, entity counts and heavy plugins.
• “Mod rejections” / missing mods in a modpack: client and server pack versions don’t match.
• Connection timed out: the port is closed or the wrong address is used. To connect with your own domain, create an A record.
• “Failed to bind to port”: another server process is using the same port, usually a previous instance that didn’t shut down fully. Stop it or change server-port.
• “Chunk file at … is in the wrong location” warnings: some world files may have been damaged during copying; restore from a clean backup.

If you can’t solve the issue, opening a support ticket with the relevant part of the console log speeds up diagnosis.