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Realms, a VPS or a Hosting Provider: What Each One Actually Gives a Small SMP

How Minecraft Realms, self-hosting on a home PC or VPS, and a Minecraft hosting provider compare for a small SMP: how much control each gives over plugins, mods and settings, and how much of the setup, updates, security and uptime lands on you.

ChunkPod Team · October 10, 2026 · 9 min read

Realms, a VPS or a Hosting Provider: What Each One Actually Gives a Small SMP

A small SMP can run in three main places: on Minecraft Realms, on hardware you manage yourself, or on one of the big hosting providers. They all get your friends into the same world. Where they differ is how much you can change, and how much of the work lands on you.

This post goes through each option on two points: how much control you get over plugins, mods and server settings, and how much of the setup, updates, security and uptime you handle yourself.

Minecraft Realms

Realms is the official server subscription from Mojang. You pay monthly, Mojang runs the server, and you invite players from inside the game. There's a Java Edition version and a Bedrock Edition version, and they're separate: a Java realm can't take Bedrock players, and a Bedrock realm can't take Java players.

Control

This is where Realms is the most limited of the three.

• Plugins and mods: a Java realm can't run plugins or mods. There's no Paper, no Fabric, no Forge. You get vanilla Minecraft. Bedrock realms can use add-ons and Marketplace content, but that isn't the same as a plugin or mod setup on Java.
• Server settings: you don't get a server.properties file. You get a short list of options in the Realms menu, such as difficulty, game mode and PvP. Things like view distance, simulation distance or spawn rates aren't yours to tune.
• Access: players join through the Realms menu after you invite them. There's no IP address to hand out, so you can't list the server anywhere or run it as a public server.
• Player count: a realm has a small cap on how many people can be online at once, so it's built for a group of friends rather than a growing community.
• Worlds: you can upload your own world or pick from the maps and minigames Mojang offers.

What you handle yourself

Almost nothing. Mojang handles the hardware, the network, security and uptime. Updates to new Minecraft versions come from Mojang too, so you don't swap server jars or wait for your plugins to update, because there are no plugins.

The flip side is that you also don't choose when things happen. If Mojang updates the realm, your world moves to the new version. If something goes wrong, you can't open a console and look at logs.

Who it fits

Realms fits a friend group that wants survival or creative with vanilla rules and no admin work at all. The moment someone asks for a land claim plugin, a shared economy or a Fabric performance mod, you've outgrown it.

Self-hosting: a home PC or a rented VPS

Self-hosting means you run the server software yourself. That can be on a spare computer at home, or on a VPS you rent from a cloud or VPS company. The Minecraft side is the same in both cases. What changes is who owns the hardware and the connection.

Control

Self-hosting gives you full control. Nobody decides for you.

• Server software: run Vanilla, Paper, Purpur, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge, or put a Velocity proxy in front of several servers. If you're unsure which fits your SMP, the Server Software Comparator lays them out side by side.
• Plugins and mods: install anything that works with your server software. Full modpacks, custom plugins you wrote yourself, and plugins that need extra services like a database are all fine.
• Settings: every config file is yours: server.properties, bukkit.yml, spigot.yml, Paper's config files, and the Java startup flags. Tools like the server.properties Generator and the JVM Arguments Generator help if you'd rather not write these from scratch.
• Versions: you pick when to update. If your favourite mod isn't ready for a new Minecraft release, you stay on the old version until it is.

What you handle yourself

Everything. That's the trade.

• Setup: installing Java, the server software, a startup script, and getting the server to start again after a crash or reboot.
• Updates: the operating system, Java, the server jar, and every plugin or mod. Updates to Minecraft often mean waiting on several plugin authors at once.
• Security: a firewall that only opens the ports you need, strong passwords for anything like RCON, and keeping the machine patched. The Firewall Rules Generator and the RCON Password Generator cover two small parts of that.
• Backups: nobody makes them unless you do, and a backup stored on the same machine doesn't help much if the disk dies.
• Uptime: if the server goes down at 2am, it stays down until you notice.

Home PC vs VPS

The two self-hosting routes have different problems.

A home PC costs nothing extra if you already own it, but it has to stay on whenever people want to play. Your home upload speed limits how many players it can handle smoothly. You'll usually need to set up port forwarding on your router, your home IP address may change, and giving out a server address means players can find your home connection. Anything else you do on that PC or that internet line, like gaming or streaming, competes with the server.

A VPS lives in a data centre, so it stays online without your electricity bill or your router being involved, and your home IP stays private. You still get root access and full control. The catch is that you're renting a bare Linux machine: you need to be comfortable in a terminal, and the VPS company only looks after the hardware and the network, not your Minecraft server. VPS plans also vary a lot in how much CPU they actually give you, and Minecraft cares a lot about single-core speed because the main game loop runs on one thread.

Who it fits

Self-hosting fits an admin who enjoys the technical side, or whose SMP needs something the other two options won't allow. If nobody in your group wants to be on call for the server, it's a lot to take on.

The big hosting providers

The large Minecraft hosting providers sit between the two. You rent a server built for Minecraft, and you manage it through a web control panel instead of a terminal. These hosts are open to everyone today, and they offer a wide range of plans and locations.

Control

You get most of what self-hosting offers, inside some limits the host sets.

• Server software: most panels let you pick Vanilla, Paper, Fabric, Forge and others from a menu, and many offer one-click installs for popular modpacks.
• Plugins and mods: you can usually upload any plugin or mod through the panel's file manager or SFTP.
• Settings: you can edit server.properties and the other config files, and many hosts let you set your own Java startup flags.
• Limits: you normally don't get root access to the machine. Your RAM, CPU and storage are fixed by your plan, and some hosts restrict things like extra ports, databases or custom software that doesn't run as a normal Minecraft server. What's allowed differs a lot between hosts, so it's worth checking before you commit.

What you handle yourself

The work is split.

• The host handles the hardware, the network, the operating system, and keeping the machine online. Many hosts also include some form of backups, though how often they run and how long they're kept depends on the host and the plan.
• You handle everything inside the server: picking and updating plugins and mods, config files, permissions, whitelists and ops, and keeping your world healthy. If the server lags because of a badly behaved plugin, that's still yours to fix.
• Support is usually a ticket system or live chat. It helps with problems on the host's side, and some hosts will help with Minecraft issues too.

Who it fits

A hosting provider fits an SMP that wants plugins or mods and a real server.properties file, but doesn't want anyone running Linux updates or worrying about a home router.

Side by side

Picking one for your SMP

Start from what your group actually wants to play. If it's vanilla survival for a handful of friends, Realms does that with no admin work. If you want plugins or mods and someone is happy to run a Linux box, a VPS gives you everything. If you want plugins or mods without looking after the machine, a hosting provider is the usual middle ground. A home PC works for testing, or for a small group that plays at set times while the owner's PC is on.

Whichever you pick, it's worth estimating how much memory you'll need before you choose a plan or a machine. The RAM Calculator gives a rough number from your player count, server software and plugin or mod count.

ChunkPod is a new Minecraft host that's still in early access, so it's not open to the public yet. If you'd like to hear when hosting opens, you can join the waitlist at chunkpod.com.