Every Way to Play Minecraft — All Server Types, Mods & Modpacks at HostedGG

7 Server Types. 250+ Modpacks. Zero Limits.

Most hosting providers give you Vanilla and maybe Paper. We give you every way to play Minecraft — from untouched Vanilla to heavily modded Forge, from lightweight Fabric to fully customizable Purpur. Plus a searchable library of 250+ modpacks you can install in one click.

Here's everything we support and why each option exists.

At a Glance

Plugin Servers — Paper, Purpur & Spigot

These three share the same ecosystem. Every Bukkit and Spigot plugin works across all of them. The difference is what each adds on top.

Paper — The Default Choice

Paper is what we recommend for most servers. It's a fork of Spigot with:

• 30-50% better performance than Spigot (async chunk loading, optimized entity AI)
• Built-in anti-exploit patches (dupe glitches, chunk ban fixes)
• Better memory management — handles more players per GB of RAM
• Full Spigot & Bukkit plugin support — install EssentialsX, LuckPerms, WorldEdit, and thousands more

Paper is the right choice for SMP, Factions, Skyblock, Towny, Minigames, and basically any server that uses plugins.

Plans: 2-8 GB RAM — Order Paper server

Purpur — Paper With Extra Power

Purpur is a fork of Paper that adds hundreds of extra configuration options that Paper doesn't expose. Everything Paper can do, Purpur can do — plus more.

What Purpur adds over Paper:

• Rideable mobs — let players ride dolphins, ravagers, or even the Ender Dragon
• Per-crop growth rates — fine-tune how fast wheat, carrots, and other crops grow
• Villager behavior tweaks — control trading, restocking, and pathfinding
• TNT and redstone tuning — adjust explosion mechanics and redstone behavior
• Combat customization — tweak attack cooldowns, knockback, and critical hits
• Hundreds more — mob spawning rates, phantom behavior, item despawn timers, and much more

All of this is exposed through purpur.yml — just edit the config file from our panel.

Who should use it: Server owners who want Paper's performance but wish they had more knobs to turn. Power users who want to tweak everything.

Plans: 2-8 GB RAM — Order Purpur server

Spigot — The Classic

Spigot is the original plugin server that started it all. Paper is built on top of Spigot, so Paper is strictly better in almost every way. But some legacy plugins or specific redstone behaviors work slightly differently on Paper, so we offer Spigot for those edge cases.

When to pick Spigot over Paper:

• A specific plugin explicitly recommends Spigot
• You need exact Spigot-era behavior for a legacy server
• That's basically it — use Paper otherwise

Plans: 2-6 GB RAM — Order Spigot server

Modded Servers — Forge & Fabric

This is where Minecraft stops being "just Minecraft" and becomes whatever you want it to be. New dimensions, magic systems, tech trees, space travel, Pokémon battles in your backyard — if someone imagined it, there's probably a mod for it.

Forge — The Modpack King

Forge is the most popular modding platform, home to the largest library of Minecraft mods. It powers virtually every major modpack you've heard of.

Why Forge:

• 250+ one-click modpacks — install ATM, RLCraft, SkyFactory, Pixelmon, and more from our control panel
• Thousands of individual mods — tech, magic, adventure, quality-of-life
• New dimensions, new mechanics — fundamentally change how Minecraft works
• Custom modpack support — upload your own via FTP

Popular Modpacks (All Installable in One Click)

Can't find yours? We pull from the full Modrinth and CurseForge libraries. If it exists, we can run it.

Plans: 4-8 GB RAM — Order Forge server

Fabric — The Modern Lightweight Alternative

Fabric is the fastest-growing Minecraft modding platform. It's lighter than Forge, updates faster (often within hours of a new Minecraft release), and is home to the best performance mods in the game.

Why Fabric:

• Fastest updates — plays new Minecraft versions days before Forge
• Lighter resource usage — runs on less RAM than equivalent Forge setups
• Best performance mods — Lithium, Sodium, Starlight, FerriteCore
• Growing mod ecosystem — Create, Origins, REI, Iris, and thousands more on Modrinth

Fabric vs Forge — Quick Comparison

Popular Fabric mods:

• Lithium — optimizes physics, mob AI, block ticking (server-side)
• Starlight — rewrites the lighting engine for massive gains
• Create Fabric — the engineering mod, now on Fabric
• Origins — choose species with unique abilities
• Roughly Enough Items (REI) — recipe browser
• Cobblemon — Pokémon mod built natively for Fabric

Plans: 2-6 GB RAM — Order Fabric server

Vanilla — Pure Minecraft

No plugins, no mods, no modifications. Just the official Mojang server software, exactly as intended.

Best for:

• Small friend groups who want the authentic experience
• Players who want new updates instantly (no waiting for mod/plugin updates)
• A cheaper, more powerful alternative to Minecraft Realms
• Servers where "fairness" matters — no plugins giving anyone advantages

Plans: 2-6 GB RAM — Order Vanilla server

BungeeCord — Server Networks

BungeeCord is a proxy, not a game server. It connects multiple Minecraft servers behind a single IP address — like how Hypixel and Mineplex work.

Players connect to play.yourserver.com
              |
         [BungeeCord]
         /    |     \
   [Survival] [PvP] [Creative]

You need separate Minecraft servers (Paper, Forge, etc.) for each gamemode. BungeeCord just routes players between them. We also support Velocity, BungeeCord's modern successor with better security and performance.

Plans: 512 MB-1 GB RAM — Order BungeeCord

250+ Modpacks — Browse & Install in One Click

Our control panel includes a built-in modpack browser powered by Modrinth and CurseForge. Search for any modpack, click install, and your server is ready in minutes. No FTP uploads, no manual configuration, no JAR hunting.

What's available:

• All major FTB modpacks
• All ATM (All The Mods) versions
• CurseForge modpacks
• Modrinth modpacks
• Custom modpack uploads via FTP

You can also browse our modpack library directly on the Forge Minecraft page or the Fabric Minecraft page.

Thousands of Individual Mods & Plugins

Beyond modpacks, our panel includes a mod and plugin manager for installing individual mods:

For Paper/Purpur/Spigot servers:

• Browse SpigotMC and Bukkit plugin repositories
• One-click install for popular plugins
• Install EssentialsX, LuckPerms, WorldEdit, CoreProtect, and more

For Forge/Fabric servers:

• Browse the full Modrinth mod library
• Filter by loader (Forge, Fabric, NeoForge, Quilt)
• Filter by Minecraft version
• See download counts, compatibility, and descriptions

How to Choose — The Simple Guide

Want modpacks?          -> Forge (or Fabric for Fabric modpacks)
Want plugins?           -> Paper (or Purpur for extra customization)
Want nothing changed?   -> Vanilla
Want multiple servers?  -> BungeeCord + Paper backends
Want lightweight mods?  -> Fabric
Not sure?               -> Paper (works for 90% of servers)

Server Software Family Tree

Mojang Server (Vanilla)
  -> CraftBukkit
      -> Spigot
          -> Paper
              -> Purpur

Forge (separate ecosystem - mods, not plugins)

Fabric (separate ecosystem - lightweight mods)

BungeeCord / Velocity (proxies - connect servers together)

Pricing Overview

BungeeCord starts at €1.99/mo (512 MB). All plans include DDoS protection, instant setup, and a free MySQL database.

Start Your Minecraft Server

Pick your server type and you're playing in under 60 seconds:

• Paper — Best all-around choice
• Purpur — Maximum customization
• Forge — Modpacks & mods
• Fabric — Lightweight modern mods
• Vanilla — Pure Minecraft
• Spigot — Classic plugin server
• BungeeCord — Server networks

Not sure which to pick? Read our server type comparison guide for a deep dive.