Alison DeNisco Rayome Managing Editor
Managing Editor Alison DeNisco Rayome joined CNET in 2019, and is a member of the Home team. She is a co-lead of the CNET Tips and We Do the Math series, and manages the Home Tips series, testing out new hacks for cooking, cleaning and tinkering with all of the gadgets and appliances in your house. Alison was previously an editor at TechRepublic.
- National Silver Azbee Award for Impact/Investigative Journalism; National Gold Azbee Award for Online Single Topic Coverage by a Team; National Bronze Azbee Award for Web Feature Series
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Minecraft is one of the most popular video games in the world, with millions of players building worlds and digging deeper and deeper into mines. If you want your living world in Minecraft, which your friends can join even when you’re not online, hosting a dedicated Minecraft server is the way to do that.
Using a dedicated server hosting provider for Minecraft is like using a web host. You pay a monthly fee to use a vendor’s servers, which can provide you with improved security, performance and the ability to apply modpacks for customized multiplayer experiences.
With so many Minecraft hosting server options on the market (some better than others), you may want assistance in determining which is the best Minecraft server hosting option for you.
Which Minecraft hosting service will best optimize your Minecraft gameplay? One option is Minecraft Realms, Mojang’s official server subscription service (available for Java and Bedrock editions). If you want more back-end control over your server — or modpacks and maps that aren’t available in Realms — you’ll need a modded Minecraft server. In that case, you may opt for a third-party server host that can provide sufficient bandwidth and control over your Minecraft world seed’s configuration and settings.
Below, we’ve reviewed some of the best Minecraft server hosting vendors, including Hostinger, Shockbyte and GGServers. We focused on service providers that offer 24/7 support and a variety of plan options.
CNET is in the process of updating our assessments of the best web hosting services. We periodically update this story to maintain accurate prices, but our overall rankings may change after we’ve been able to re-evaluate these services.
Read more: Best Web Hosting for 2023
How we chose the best third-party Minecraft server hosts
It’s important to note that we didn’t explicitly “test” the Minecraft hosting provider options on this list. Instead, we compiled a competitive overview based on a variety of factors, including third-party ratings and features offered by each hosting company. We’ve also weighted the rankings of these businesses by the Better Business Bureau and TrustPilot. With that data in hand, we split them into two tiers:
Best Minecraft hosting providers (top tier): These Minecraft host vendors all have a rating of A or higher from the nonprofit Better Business Bureau (except in cases when the companies are based outside of North America and not included in the BBB ranking system) and a rating of 4.0 or higher out of 5 from TrustPilot, a Danish consumer review site. All of the TrustPilot rankings are based on at least 1,000 user reviews. All of the vendors listed in our top picks also say they offer 24/7 support and modpack support.
Other Minecraft hosting options to consider (second tier): All of these Minecraft host vendors have TrustPilot ratings of 4.0 or above; however, those ratings are based on fewer than 1,000 user reviews. One — Nodecraft — has a D+ rating from the BBB. The others have either As or higher, or no BBB page due to location.
Important caveats: The Better Business Bureau is not affiliated with any government agency and does not rate companies outside of North America. To be BBB Accredited, companies pay a fee to the organization. TrustPilot, meanwhile, also offers a paid tier that provides companies more interaction with their user ratings. It also removed 2.2 million fake reviews in 2020.
A note on pricing: We’ve made every effort to verify that the prices listed here were accurate at the time of last publication, but prices in this category are subject to frequent fluctuations and are also consistently subject to special offers and limited deals. Further, many of the prices listed here reflect the monthly rates if you prepay for 12 months of service, or are limited-time introductory prices. Please check the vendors in question to verify pricing at any given time.
Best Minecraft server hosting services
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One of our top web hosting provider picks, Hostinger offers three different Minecraft hosting plans. All of its plans include mod support, full root access, DDoS attacks protection, free MySQL, automated off-site backups and 99.99% uptime. Minecraft hosting features include Minecraft dedicated server, Game Panel control panel, Modpacks and plugins and low latency as the server location is deployed in globally connected Tier-3 data centers. The differences in pricing are due to different RAM and vCPU hardware options, starting at 4GB RAM and two vCPU Hardware for $7 a month and rising to 16GB RAM and eight vCPU Hardware for $30 a month.
Hostinger is based in Lithuania, so it does not have a BBB page (that organization only focuses on US-based businesses), but it does have a TrustPilot rating of 4.6 out of 5, with more than 20,000 reviews.
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MCProHosting offers nine Minecraft server host plans, ranging from $7 a month for 1GB RAM and 25 player slots, to $75 a month for 32GB RAM and unlimited player slots. Every plan includes unlimited storage space, worldwide server locations and DDoS protection.
A big benefit of MCProHosting: You can try out its “Villager” plan free for seven days, or the step-up “Witch” plan for just $1 for the first month.
MCProHosting has an A- rating from the BBB, and a TrustPilot rating of 4.8 out of 5 with more than 5,000 reviews.
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Shockbyte is a game server provider, offering 12 different Minecraft server hosting plan options, along with the ability to design a custom plan. Options range from $2.50 a month for 1GB RAM and 20 slots (the number of spaces on a game server available to players) to $40 a month for 16GB RAM and unlimited player slots. All plans include 100% uptime, DDoS protection, instant setup and a free subdomain name.
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GGServers offers ten different Minecraft server hosting plans, each of which comes with the option for standard or premium (which doubles the price).
Standard plans offer DDR4 2133 MHz RAM, 3.2-4GHz CPU, and 400MBps read/write SSD. It also costs an extra $2 a month to add on a MySQL database, or unlimited slots. You don’t get access to all nine server locations, either. Premium plans offer DDR4 2400 MHz RAM, 4.4-5GHz CPU, 2,500-plus MBps read/write SSD, and include the MySQL database, unlimited slots and all nine server locations worldwide. Both plan types include a free subdomain, DDoS protection and instant activation. Standard plans range from $3 a month for 1,024MB RAM and 12 player slots standard (or $6 a month premium) to $96 a month for 32,768MB RAM standard (or $192 a month premium).
GGServers is based in Canada and does not have a BBB page but it does have a TrustPilot rating of 4.4 out of 5 with more than 3,000 reviews.
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ScalaCube is another game-specific server hosting vendor. There are eight paid plan options ranging from $5 a month for 1.5GB RAM, 2×3.4GHz CPU, 15GB SSD storage, 20 player slots and unlimited servers to $96 a month for 32GB RAM, 8×3.4GHz CPU, 320GB SSD storage, 600 player slots and unlimited servers. You’ll also find Minecraft Pocket Edition server hosting options, ranging from $0 a month for a basic server to $96 a month for 600 players. All Minecraft and Minecraft Pocket Edition plans include multiple servers, backup, DDoS support, and free web hosting, domain and MySQL.
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The following Minecraft server hosts have slightly lower or fewer TrustPilot and/or BBB ratings than the ones above.
Hostwinds
Another of our top web hosting site picks, Hostwinds also offers Minecraft server hosting starting at $5 a month. It has an A+ rating from the BBB and is BBB Accredited, and its TrustPilot rating is 4.1 out of 5, although it has fewer than 1,000 reviews.
BisectHosting
BisectHosting offers 20 different plans, each with an option for a budget or premium package. Budget packages start at $3 a month for 1,024MB RAM, unlimited NVMe SSD and up to 12 slots, and go up to about $96 a month for 32,768MB RAM and 160 slots. Premium plans range from $8 a month to about $160 a month, with the same amounts of RAM as their budget counterparts but with more locations, and free daily backups, modpack updates, sponge installation, dedicated IP address and unlimited slots. BisectHosting has an F rating from the BBB, but it also has a TrustPilot rating of 4.5 out of 5 with more than 5,000 reviews.
Apex Hosting
Apex Hosting offers Minecraft Java and Bedrock Edition servers starting at about $8 a month. It also includes a seven-day money-back guarantee. Apex Minecraft Hosting has an A+ rating from the BBB, and its TrustPilot Rating is 4.8 out of 5, although it has fewer than 600 reviews.
Nodecraft
Nodecraft also offers Minecraft Java and Bedrock Edition server hosting, starting at around $10 a month. Nodecraft has a B- rating from the BBB but a 4.3 out of 5 TrustPilot rating, with more than 1,000 reviews.
Sparked Host
Sparked Host offers game and cloud hosting, with 13 different Minecraft server hosting plan options, starting at less than $2 a month. It’s based in the US, but Sparked Host does not appear to have a BBB page. It does have a TrustPilot rating of 4.7 out of 5 with more than 1,000 reviews.
PebbleHost
PebbleHost is home to both Minecraft and other gaming and dedicated servers. It offers budget, premium or extreme plans depending on your needs, starting at $1 per GB a month. PebbleHost is based in the UK and does not have a BBB page, but it has a TrustPilot rating of 4.8 out of 5 with more than 2,000 reviews.
RAMShard
RAMShard offers nine Minecraft server hosting plans, starting at $3 a month. It has an A+ BBB rating, and a TrustPilot rating of 4.2 out of 5, but with fewer than 500 reviews.
Former CNET editor Dawnthea Price Lisco contributed to this report.
