Minecraft server types — Vanilla, Paper, Fabric or Forge, and what each one costs you

The Minecraft create page puts a dozen server software choices in front of you, and every name sounds like the same thing with a different speed rating. It is not. What you are choosing is which add-ons you will be able to install three months from now — and which ones you never will. Here is what each family accepts, what it gives up, and how much you can undo later.

Mods and plugins: the decision underneath the decision

Before arguing Paper versus Fabric, answer this: is the thing you want to install a plugin or a mod?

• Plugins run alongside the server — commands, permissions, an economy, land claims. They do not change the game itself, so players join with plain unmodified Minecraft and install nothing.
• Mods change the game: new blocks, items, dimensions, machines. That requires code on both ends — anyone without the same mod set cannot join.

In our system every server type belongs to a loader family, and there are exactly three: plugin, fabric and forge. That family decides whether a file you upload gets loaded or ignored.

The one sentence worth memorising: a Forge mod placed on a Paper server does nothing at all. Not because we block it, but because there is no Forge loader on that server — nothing there ever opens the file. The server boots normally; the content just never shows up. The reverse is equally silent: a Bukkit plugin on Fabric is ignored the same way.

The six software families

Our Java software list is organised into six groups. You see them as literal headings in the "Software" select of the "Version and software" section on the "Settings" tab, used when you change software after creation. The create page's first step arranges them differently: five main choices first — Paper with a "Recommended" badge, Vanilla, Fabric, Forge and Modpack — and everything else folded under "Advanced options", split into "Other server software" and "Proxy (joins several servers)", where Velocity lives. Different arrangement, same game software.

What this table says, and the create page does not, is that types inside one group accept the same things. Choosing between Paper, Purpur and Leaf is a different scale of decision from choosing between Paper and Fabric — the first changes details, the second changes what can be installed at all.

The two hybrids, Mohist and Arclight, are a real exception: they run Forge mods and Bukkit plugins together on one server. On uniz.host they carry one condition — both kinds must come from Modrinth: "Hybrids install mods & plugins via Modrinth only".

Choosing in four steps

Decide first whether you want plugins or mods

Open the page for one thing you actually want to install. If it lists Paper/Spigot/Bukkit support, it is a plugin; if it lists Fabric or Forge/NeoForge, it is a mod. Popular projects often ship both, but plenty exist on one side only.

"I do not want to install anything" means Vanilla. "I want a curated set, ready to play" means the Modpack choice — but know the trade first, because a modpack server cannot change software later.

Pick the family that loads what you chose

With that answer, the table above resolves it. Plugins mean the Paper family or the legacy plugin group; mods mean Fabric or Forge, whichever most of your intended list supports; both at once means a hybrid.

How you know you got it right: after creation, open that server's "Content" tab and look at its first section. Plugin-family servers label that section "Plugins"; every other type labels it "Mods". If the word does not match what you intended, you picked the wrong side.

Check the three things that family gives up

Check these three against your pick. None are settings you can flip afterwards — they come with the server type.

1. Bedrock crossplay — only on Paper, Purpur, Leaf, Spigot and Bukkit. If your friends play on phone or console, this halves the list.
2. TPS on the health graph — Vanilla, Fabric and Quilt do not report it.
3. Java runtime — Fabric and Quilt get their Java floor raised automatically; Forge deliberately does not.

Leave yourself a way to change your mind

This matters more than it looks. The thirteen types in the six groups above can be switched between later; modpack servers cannot switch at all, and Pumpkin and Custom sit outside the switchable set too. Starting on one of those thirteen keeps the door open. Start on a modpack and later want out, and your only routes are detaching the pack or building a new server.

Vanilla accepts neither

Vanilla is the only entry with no loader family — not an empty one, none at all. The consequence is blunt: a Vanilla server cannot take individual mods or plugins. Every other type across the six groups can; Vanilla alone is excluded at the source. A Vanilla server's "Content" tab has no mods or plugins section at all — only data packs, resource packs and worlds.

That is not a defect. If you want the game exactly as Mojang shipped it, with nobody needing to install anything, Vanilla is the most honest answer on the list — and it is switchable later, since it belongs to the thirteen.

Which families can run Bedrock crossplay

Our crossplay works by installing Geyser into a Java server as a plugin. Once the install mechanism is a plugin, the consequence follows: it can only load on a server that has the Bukkit-API plugin layer. So the "Enable Bedrock crossplay (Geyser)" switch exists on exactly five types — Paper, Purpur, Leaf, Spigot and Bukkit.

The part that trips people up is that Folia is in the Paper family and is still not one of those five — excluded on purpose, not by oversight. Pick Folia planning to add crossplay later and that switch will not be there, so settle this at type-selection time.

Vanilla, Fabric, Quilt, Forge, NeoForge and both hybrids have no such switch either. Bedrock players cannot reach those servers; the alternative is a separate Minecraft Bedrock-edition server, which accepts no mods or modpacks at all.

Which families report TPS

The "Resource usage" charts on the Overview tab start with the game's own charts — "Players online" and, for Minecraft, a TPS chart. TPS is not something we estimate — we send a command over RCON and read the answer. Software with no such command has nothing to read.

Note that Folia sits on the TPS side while having no crossplay — these are genuinely different lists, so do not infer one from the other.

Servers on the right still get their "Players online" graph; they just have no TPS line. If you are choosing Fabric and expected to watch TPS, know in advance that the line will not be there — judge headroom from the RAM and CPU graphs instead, as covered in RAM for a game server.

The two odd ones: Pumpkin and Custom

These two live outside the six groups, and they are odd in different ways.

Pumpkin is creatable by anyone and carries a "Beta" badge in the create page, but it does not run the same image as the other Java types. The entire settings surface therefore does not apply, and we hide those controls rather than let them appear and silently do nothing. On a Pumpkin server you lose:

• Minecraft's whole set of server settings on the Settings tab (server.properties values, MOTD, Java)
• gamerules
• world reset
• the server-icon upload

What stays is the console and player management — both work over RCON, which Pumpkin answers.

Custom runs a jar you supply yourself. That is the most open option on the list, and for exactly that reason it is admin-only to create — it never appears in the customer create page. Once one exists it keeps more than Pumpkin does: the Settings tab's server settings, gamerules and world reset all work normally.

Both share one trait: they are kept out of the switchable set. Create a Pumpkin server and you cannot turn it into a Paper one later.

How much you can change later

The "Version and software" section on the Settings tab changes both the Minecraft version and the software itself, under three rules.

First, only within the thirteen types in the six groups above. Both the current type and the target type must be in that set. Pumpkin, Custom, Bedrock and the modpack types are outside it.

Second, crossing loader families clears installed mods. With individual mods or plugins installed, moving to a different loader family makes the confirmation warn "Switching software family — installed mods/plugins will not work on the new software." and refuse to proceed until you tick "I understand my installed mods will be removed". Moving inside one family — Paper to Purpur, say — is not affected, and your installed list survives.

Third, modpack servers cannot switch at all, because the pack owns both the loader and the version. The section says "This server runs a modpack — detach it before changing version or software." Even after detaching, a server still carrying a modpack type remains blocked.

The change also does not happen the moment you press the button: a safety backup runs first, and the change applies only if that backup succeeds. If it fails, the change is dropped rather than half-applied.

The Java runtime that comes with the family

Your server type also drives something invisible: which Java build the server boots on. Normally that follows the Minecraft version, but there is one exception tied directly to the type.

Fabric and Quilt get their Java floor raised automatically. Even on an older Minecraft version that would otherwise land on an old Java, the Auto entry in the "Java runtime" select shows the raised build — it reads Auto — {tag} (recommended), where {tag} is the build actually chosen.

Forge deliberately does not get that treatment. Old Forge, the 1.12.2 era, genuinely requires Java 8, and flooring the whole modded set would break servers that boot fine today. If a specific mod or pack needs a particular Java build, set it yourself in that same select.

The full picture — which version maps to which Java, and how to recover a server crash-looping on the wrong one — is in Java runtime for Minecraft servers.

Read next

• Java runtime for Minecraft servers — which Java each version and loader needs
• Run a Minecraft server yourself — the do-it-yourself path and its limits
• RAM for a game server — what modpacks cost in memory, and where OOM comes from
• /minecraft — create a server on uniz.host and pick from this same list