Self-Hosted Alternatives to Minecraft Realms

Why Replace Minecraft Realms? Minecraft Realms costs $7.99/month (Java) or $3.99/month (Bedrock) for a server limited to 10 players with no mod support. Over a year, that's $48-96 for a server you don't control, can't mod, and that disappears if you stop paying. A self-hosted Minecraft server has no player limit (beyond your hardware), full mod and plugin support, complete world control, and costs nothing to run if you have existing hardware. Limitation Realms Self-Hosted Player limit 10 (Java), 10 (Bedrock) Hardware-limited (50+ on Paper) Mod support None (Java), limited add-ons (Bedrock) Full (Paper, Fabric, Forge, Spigot) Plugin support None Thousands (Bukkit, Spigot, Paper) Monthly cost $3.99-7.99/month $0 (on existing hardware) Server control Limited settings menu Full server.properties + RCON World download Manual export Direct file access Custom world generation No Yes (datapacks, mods) Performance tuning None JVM flags, view distance, etc. Best Self-Hosted Alternative Docker (i