Free Minecraft server hosting platforms often claim to be “The best out there”, but which is really the best? I tested 6 free hosting platforms on performance, usability, compatibility and availability.
All tests were run with the same settings on all hosts:
- Level-Seed: 1
- Paper 1.21.4
- Chunky
- No RAM upgrade
Overall:
| General stats: | Seedloaf | Aternos | FalixNodes | MineKeep | MineHost | FreeMCServer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Startup Time | 57.837s | 45.656s | 106.288s | 41.496s | Too long queue | 87.443s |
| Average CPS | 11 | 14 | 10 | 22.8 | / | |
| Plugins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, but not all | Yes |
| Mods | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, but 4 mods… | Yes |
| Bedrock | No | Yes + GeyserMC | Yes + GeyserMC | GeyserMC | No | Yes + GeyserMC |
| RAM | 4000 | 2650 | “4000”, reality 3000 | 1000 | ? | 2170 |
| RAM Upgrade? | Yes | Yes | No | No | / | Yes |
| 24/7? | No | No | Yes! | No | No | No |
Seedloaf: Balanced
One of the newest free Minecraft server hosting platforms is SeedLoaf. It’s heavily in development and I’ve really seen it grow from a small project, to an organization with thousands of servers. I can tell, because I was one of the first users to give feedback and become a Discord member of his server!
Average performance
Performance isn’t great. With a start time of 57.837s, an average result across my testing. For chunk loading, Seedloaf lags behind. With great 20-25 CPS (Chunks per Second) highs and 3-7 cps lows, it has a lot of instability. The average generation speed is: 11 cps, which is not great. I do want to point out that everything is still in beta, so things can change quickly.
Great usability
The usability was nice, but nothing too special.
Panel
The custom-made panel is nice to see. Everything works smoothly and organised.
Ads
Two built-in ads from their partners are displayed in the panel, making the the panel much more user-friendly than other panels that randomly display ads.
Okay Compatibility
Seedloaf supports custom mods and plugins, which you can upload in their custom File Manager. They currently support Forge, Fabric, Quilt, Paper and Vanilla Minecraft. Please note that Seedloaf doesn’t offer custom ports, so not all plugins or mods will work (Dynmap,…).
Bedrock?
Neither Bedrock nor GeyserMC is supported by Seedloaf.
Great Availibility
I’ve had no issues regarding availability using Seedloaf.
Special:
The 4GB of RAM with room for an additional 1GB is nice to see. I also noticed that the simulation distance was bigger than the actual render distance, which is really weird. Change this directly to improve server performance!
Conclusion:
Seedloaf is a great option if you just want a server to play with friends, but you will suffer from lag spikes. The usability is quite great. It does the job, but it’s not the best.
Aternos: Allrounder
One of the most popular and widely used free Minecraft Server Hosting companies is Aternos, but are they any good?
Decent Performance
Aternos’ first boot time is pretty good: 45.656s. Their chunk generation is also noticeably better, averaging 14 cps. The CPS does fluctuate though, from 20 cps all the way down to 7 cps, which definitely results in lag spikes.
Bad Usability
The usability of Aternos is pretty bad…
Panel
The panel itself is great. It’s easy to install plugins, mods, new server software, whatever. It does fall short with ads.
Ads
The ads are screaming everywhere. Automatically playing videos with loud music, constant ad pop-ups when changing pages and ads everywhere. It’s 50% panel, 50% whack a mole with ads.
Fantastic Compatibility
Compatibility on Aternos is great! They support every server software imaginable and support many plugins ands mods (including mine!).
They offer one port, which makes GeyserMC possible.
Okay Availability
Aternos is quite known for it queue times, but it’s doable.
Conclusion
After all these years in a rapidly changing landscape, Aternos still stands strong with good performance and customizability. However, the amount of ads makes it difficult to use…
Falixnodes: The Best Availibility
Falixnodes has been my favorite free Minecraft hosting company for a long time, but is it still as good?
Bad Performance
Performance is pretty bad for Falixnodes. A start time of 106.288s, 3-6 cps low and 14-18 cps high, this is clearly not made for Minecraft servers. The average is 10 cps.
Okay Usability
The overall usability is ok, but nothing fancy.
Panel
Custom build panel that looks quite good.
Ads
The ads are all over the place, ruining the usability of the panel.
Outstanding Compatibility
Compatibility is excellent, offering all the necessary server software, plugins, mods, 3 ports and bedrock support via GeyserMC or a PocketMine server.
Outstanding Availability
The server is 24/7 online, which makes it fantastic towards availability.
Conclusion
Falixnodes is no longer intended for casual Minecraft servers, but would work great as a proxy or a small lobby!
MineKeep: The Best performance
The frontpage claimed to be “The best free Minecraft server host”, a bold claim. Is that really true?
Outstanding Performance
The performance is excellent: a cps ranging from 9.6 to 30, which comes to an average of 22.8! These result are really surprising because of the 1GB of RAM. It even performs better than the Orange Pi 5. Due to the lack of RAM, the stability isn’t always perfect. The startup time was 41.496s, the faster of my testing.
Fantastic Usability
The overall usability is great!
Panel
The panel looks really nice and is well build.
Ads
There were no ads? I was quite surprised to see this.
Decent Compatibility
It lacks compatibility compared to it’s competitors. The supported server software isn’t super broad. Luckily, you can upload every plugin or fabric mod you want. Bedrock isn’t supported by the host, but GeyserMC is automatically supported, so playing with Bedrock and Java players is no problem. Also, ViaVersions was automatically installed, which is nice to see.
There’s also a page to connect your server with Tebex, which is cool to see.
Great Availability
I haven’t had a queue and if the server goes down, you can join it to get it back up.
Conclusion
MineKeep really surprised me with their outstanding performance and panel. They may truly call themselves the best hosting platform out there.
MineHost: The Grandpa
I can be quite short about MineHost, it isn’t great. Their easy to install feature is great, but the queue times are insane. I waited over 30 minutes to move down one place in a queue of 44 people! At that rate, I would have to wait 22 hours, which is just unplayable.
FreeMCServer: Decent
Since the company focuses entirely on free Minecraft server hosting, my expectations are high.
Meh Performance
The start time of 87.443s didn’t give me much hope about the performance. And I was right, a cps between 4-16 isn’t great performance, nor stable. The average was 10.5 cps. There were options to improve the server performance, but I don’t think it would change much.
Fine Usability
Panel
The panel looks ok, but could really use some improvement. The amount of subtabs to choose from is just too much.
Ads
There were a lot of ads, which ruined the ease of the panel.
Great Compatibility
There is support for various Minecraft server software including Bedrock. There is also the possibility to use Dynmap or GeyserMC because of the extra port.
The Tebex support is also great to see.
Decent Availability
I’ve had no queue.
Conclusion
FreeMCServer is a nice host, but needs some improvements in usability and performance. Overall it’s decent.
Conclusion
It was a lot of fun testing all these hosts. I recommend using Minekeep for your next SMP and Falixnodes as a future proxy server. For the other hosts, I don’t really see an advantage to use them over these two.
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