Choosing your Minecraft server type: Paper, Purpur, Forge or Fabric
Picking the right Minecraft jar is the single most important decision for a new server. Compare Paper, Purpur, Forge, Fabric, Vanilla and Bedrock.
The jar you pick determines what plugins and mods you can run, plus how your server performs at scale. Here's a practical breakdown.
Paper
The most popular choice. Paper is a fork of Spigot with huge optimizations — chunk rendering, entity ticking, async sound. Runs Bukkit/Spigot plugins.
Use for: public Survival, SMP, minigames, 10–300+ players. The default recommendation for 90% of servers.
Purpur
A fork of Paper with extra gameplay toggles (mob caps, entity flags, vanilla tweaks). Ideal for survival packs that want fine control.
Forge
The mod platform. If you want big modpacks (FTB, ATM, Create, SkyFactory) — Forge is your only option. Does not run Bukkit plugins.
Downsides: higher RAM usage, no standard permission plugins.
Fabric
A lighter mod API with faster version adoption. Performance mods like Lithium, Sodium, FerriteCore give Fabric a real edge.
Vanilla
The Mojang jar. For purists or testing a new Minecraft version. No plugins, no mods.
Bedrock
For Minecraft: Bedrock Edition (mobile, Xbox, Switch). Plugin ecosystem is different (Nukkit, PocketMine). Want Java/Bedrock cross-play? Use the Geyser plugin on Paper instead of a separate Bedrock server.
Quick comparison
| Type | Plugins | Mods | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper | ✅ | ❌ | ★★★★★ |
| Purpur | ✅ | ❌ | ★★★★★ |
| Forge | ❌ | ✅ | ★★★ |
| Fabric | ❌ | ✅ | ★★★★ |
| Vanilla | ❌ | ❌ | ★★★★ |