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Hosting types

Self-hosting (unmanaged)

Self-hosting refers to hosting where the Minecraft server is hosted on a server whose entire system you have full access to.

An unmanaged server refers to a server where the user gets full access to the server, the management of which is entirely under the user’s control. Only the operating system is installed on such a server, or the user can install the operating system himself (typically VPS and dedicated server).

Managed hosting

Managed server refers to a server where the user manages the server through an interface (administration) provided by the service provider (typically shared hosting). By default, you will encounter managed hosting with shared hosting, which is hosting where you share server resources with other customers on the same physical server.

However, you may also encounter a managed variant of a dedicated server, a service where you have the power of the entire physical server, but you manage the server through client administration by default, as with classic shared Minecraft hosting. Such services can have different equivalents, for example you can have managed hosting for a dedicated server, which allows you to create Minecraft servers and for them and reallocate resources as needed.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting is hosting that tends to be the most ideal solution for standard users. It typically provides the best price/performance ratio. It is hosting where resources on a single server (ideal for a Minecraft server) are shared among several users.

This type of hosting tends to be the easiest to manage. The server is managed through a client administration interface. Shared hosting typically provides additional services, such as automatic backups or databases, or allows you to assign access to the server to other users.

There are three standard types of shared hosting

  1. Free

These hostings are typically characterized by poor performance and a number of limitations. You often cannot install custom plugins or modify them. If you have such an option, it is a good idea to avoid such hostings. At the same time, free hostings often do not allow you to download a full backup of the server, so if you want to change the hosting, you will irretrievably lose your data. Probably the most famous free hosting is Aternos.

  1. Budget

The most commonly used type of paid hosting. It provides (or should) sufficient server performance for servers with a lower (to medium, depending on the specific hosting) number of players, i.e. friends and smaller communities.

  1. Power/performance/plans with dedicated (extra) performance

This type is usually suitable for large servers and heavy modpacks.

Dedicated (physical) server

A dedicated server works the same way as a VPS in terms of administration, i.e. you get access to the entire (operating) system, the management of which is entirely in your control. However, unlike a VPS, you don’t get only a part of the server resources, but the performance of the entire physical server.

This option can be suitable for really large servers, especially servers with multiple separate servers connected (proxy server).

The most popular dedicated server providers are Hetzner and OVH, but there are many more.

VPS

As stated by Wikipedia, VPS is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting service.

This means that when you purchase the service, you will be given (SSH) access to a server where only the operating system (Linux) will be installed. The management of this system is entirely up to you (it is therefore self-hosting). Therefore, if you want to use a VPS, you need a basic understanding of Linux server management. On such a server you can create as many servers as you need, you are only limited by server resources.

It is important to know, however, that standard VPS hosts (such as Contabo) are not suitable for hosting a Minecraft server, mainly due to the use of processors unsuitable for Minecraft servers (see here). At the same time, it is standard to limit other server resources, such as disk speeds (so an NVMe disk does not automatically mean it is actually fast). Although VPS hosting may look advantageous at first glance because of the large amount of threads, RAM, and disk space, performance is lousy compared to hosting dedicated to Minecraft servers. In case you want to host your Minecraft server(s) on VPS, it is important to choose a hosting that specializes in Minecraft game servers.

Home Hosting

Unlike traditional hosting services, you don’t pay for the hosting itself, but electricity, internet, possibly hardware, and some space for backups.

It is important to make sure that you have sufficient connection speed and its stability for this kind of hosting. At the same time, this kind of hosting may not be ideal in terms of security.

For instructions on how to set up a Minecraft server on your Windows machine, check out this link: https://paper-chan.moe/paper-self-hosting/

In case you can’t port forward (which is required; e.g. ISP doesn’t allow it) or don’t want to, you can use “tunnels” like ngrok, playit.gg or tunnel from Cloudflare (paid).