Which Minecraft server software should you run?
Minecraft · 17 September 2026 · 2 min read
Paper, Fabric, Folia and Velocity solve different problems. Picking wrong costs you a migration later.
Vanilla Minecraft's server is fine for a handful of friends and falls over well before a public server needs it to. Everything below exists to fix that, but they fix different things.
The projects
| Project | Notes |
|---|---|
| Paper | Java, the usual choice |
| Purpur | Paper fork, more configurable |
| Folia | Regionised threading |
| Fabric | Mod loader |
| Forge | — |
| NeoForge | — |
| Velocity | Proxy |
| BungeeCord | Proxy |
Choosing between them
Paper is the default answer for a public survival or minigame server. It is a fork of Spigot with substantial performance work and a large plugin ecosystem, and almost every plugin you will want targets it. If you have no specific reason to choose otherwise, choose this.
Fabric is the answer when your server is built around mods rather than plugins. It is lightweight and updates to new Minecraft versions quickly, which matters if you want to be running the newest release on launch day. The trade-off is that clients must install the same mods.
Folia is a Paper fork that spreads the world across multiple threads. It is the only real answer for very high concurrent player counts spread over a large map, and it is the wrong answer for anything else - many plugins do not work on it, and below a few hundred players you gain nothing.
Velocity is not an alternative to the others. It is a proxy that sits in front of several backend servers so players can move between them without reconnecting. You want it once you have more than one server, not before.
The mistake worth avoiding
Picking Folia because it sounds fastest. It is fastest for a specific shape of server - many players spread widely - and for a fifty-player SMP it costs you plugin compatibility and buys you nothing measurable.
Start on Paper. Move when you have a number telling you to.