UK Minecraft Server hosting (2024)

Pricing

When you’re choosing your Minecraft server host this is often the first thing that people look towards to decide if they will host with them or not. Prices are important and we all want as good of a product for as cheap of a price as possible. It’s easy to choose the cheapest Minecraft server hosting if that is all you’re after. But the cheapest is far from the best, therefore we encourage you to look for a balanced price-to-performance ratio so that you can get the best Minecraft server possible for as low a price as possible.

Pricing comparison for Minecraft server provider’s cheapest Packages!

Cost per slot

Are you looking to host a big server for a lot of people? Maybe you are probably more interested in the price per slot offered by a Minecraft server hosting provider in the UK than any of the aforementioned things. It is easy to compare the price per slot based on the different Minecraft server provider’s biggest server packages and divide the price tag by the number of slots and find out the price per slot, however, it is also worth thinking about how many slots you need along with the performance offered from the Minecraft server host. You should expect to look at how many slots the server contains and also compare what hardware is offered by the Minecraft hosting provider, such as RAM memory, and what processor is allocated to the hosting.

server locations

When looking into server locations for your Minecraft server hosting in the UK it’s good to think about who is going to play on the server. You always have the lowest ping to a server that is as close to you as possible and if the server is meant to be played from more than one country it can be good to choose a server location that is closest to everyone. 

If you and your friends around Europe are playing and are sat in the UK, France, Germany, and Sweden then a server location in Amsterdam might be allowing everyone to have as low ping as possible and therefore be preferred. Read more about how location impacts your ping.

Server uptime & Stability

This is something almost every Minecraft server provider markets as 100% or 99.99%, and for the most part, it is true but there are a few exceptions where the server providers don’t have the Minecraft server uptime they claim to have.

What you are looking for regarding server uptime and stability is that the company claims 100% or 99% game server uptime. Because if they do and your server goes down then you can simply write a ticket to the support and get your money back for that month’s hosting since if the server is down more than 7 hours in 28 days it’s more than 1% thus you can claim your money back. Also if it goes down just 3-4 days into hosting then all it takes is for it to be down half an hour to an hour and they don’t have 99% uptime anymore. ,

So keep in mind when you select your hosting platform that if they mention 100% server uptime it is within your right to hold them to it. 

Support

The support of a game server provider is nothing to be overlooked, especially if you are less tech-savvy. If you’re a simple guy like me then it might be best to pick a Minecraft game server hosting provider who offers quick and efficient support or an expansive knowledge base so you can either learn or ask about how you set your server up in the way you want it.

If there’s ever a billing issue it is also very nice to have access to a support team that can help you in a reasonable time and you don’t have to wait for a few days just for them to start your refund process or get your Minecraft server rolling again.

Warranty and Money-back Guarantee

The biggest reason to get a serious server provider is that you want to have access to a warranty if anything goes wrong, just like we wrote about in the server uptime part of the article you need to be able to get your money back if the server provider doesn’t preform. Many Minecraft hosting providers have solved this by offering you as a client a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with their service if you apply for it within a certain timeframe, this is often between 24 – 70 hours. 

Minecraft Mods

How easily you can install mods on the Minecraft server is also a thing many players should take into consideration when choosing a Minecraft game server host. If you are not very tech savvy then maybe it is better to choose a Minecraft server host that offers an easy press-and-play setup for the Minecraft server, you can check what the Minecraft server hosting provider offers and choose accordingly. Another thing to keep in mind is that some of these mods might cost extra from certain Minecraft hosting providers and that this might be a dealbreaker for you. Read through what is included in the Minecraft server hosting service and what isn’t when you’re looking for Minecraft server hosting.

Reviews

Always look at the reviews when you select a Minecraft server provider, there’s always a benefit to learning from what other people have done before you, the same applies with server hosting and services online of any kind. When you look at what other reviews say then you get a good idea of what the strengths and weaknesses the hosting provider has, if you see a lot of reviews complaining about bad service or issues with the servers then it is a good sign that this might be one of the weaknesses you can find with that server provider. The same is true when the server provider has many positive reviews and these reviews give remarks on the great customer service or the server performance. 

What is minecraft server hosting?

Minecraft server hosting is a service that makes it possible for you and your friends to play on a standalone server that is up and online even when you aren’t, it offers the possibility for you to play Minecraft on a server that is not dependent on you to host it from your computer. This is especially useful if you play with multiple friends and you all want to be able to play without having to wait for the guy who is hosting the server to come online or be interrupted because one of your friends is going to see his family on Saturday and none of you can play for the entire evening. Hosting a dedicated Minecraft server helps get rid of this issue so that the server is online at all times and doesn’t require one of you to run it on a PC for the others to play.

What is dedicated minecraft hosting?

Dedicated Minecraft hosting is as mentioned above a service provided where a company hosts your server on their server locations, for this to work they rent, buy or set up servers in locations around the world and connect them to their brand and install their software on them. Through this process they offer you the possibility to host your games from locations across the world and makes it easy for you to skip the hassle of hosting yourself.

Do you need to host a server?

You will always need server hosting for playing online, you host your games locally or on a dedicated server. Every online multiplayer game needs a host for the game or the lobby that they are in, some games solve this by setting up peer-to-peer hosting within the game, meaning that one of the players in the lobby gets selected to host the lobby. An example of this is the game Counterstrike Global offense, during normal matchmaking a host is selected and will host the game for the other 9 people, the server host is usually the player with the lowest ping. 

The “job” of the host is to store all game data and update all game data as the game goes along, the players ping their information to the host and get new information from the host several times per second. These are things such as their location in the game, their ammunition, weapon, grenades, well everything really. 

So yes, you need to have a host to play a multiplayer game online, however, you have many options on how to host your server. 

Why should i use dedicated minecraft server hosting?

You should use dedicated Minecraft server hosting for many reasons, it offers the possibility to have your game at easy access for you and all your friends at all times, and you get a high level of performance to your server that you would not get if you were to host it yourself from your PC, especially not if you’re playing with someone who lives far away from you. You also get backups from most game server hosting providers so that you can rest easy in that your progress is saved if ever anything should happen. 

+ Reliable servers:  When you use dedicated Minecraft server hosting you always get working servers that stay up and available for you to play around the clock!

+ You can customize your servers easily: When you choose dedicated Minecraft server hosting you often get to choose different mods you can add to your server with ease and also an admin page where you can make all of these customizations with just a few clicks! 

+ Strong performance: A dedicated server is a powerhouse that you can’t compare to any normal player-hosted server, these servers can allow you to host hundreds of players and still offer a very stable server. A dedicated Minecraft server is a must-have for anyone who wants to start a bigger server. 

+ Security: A dedicated server has security to deal with DDoS attacks, hackers, and other types of malware trying to cheat or ruin your server. With these things, you know that your server is safe for you and your users!

– Is it needed for you: Might be excessive if you’re just setting it up for you and one of your close friends or siblings to play. 

How do i host a minecraft server?

You can easily host a Minecraft server by creating one with your selected Minecraft server provider, this is something you find more information about for each server provider if you select one to start with, you can see our selection of the best Minecraft server hosts above. 

If you want to host a server on your own you can do this with the JAVA Edition that Microsoft has provided. Note that this only works with Minecraft Java Edition and not Bedrock edition, what this means for you is that Java does not support crossplay as Bedrock edition does. So if you host a Minecraft server yourself you can only host it for your friends on PC and not on Xbox for example.

how to set up a minecraft java server

The first step for you is to download the server software provided by Microsoft, you find that software here. Once you have downloaded the server software it is smart to put the .jar extension in a folder of its own since this will store all your server data and make it easy for you to access the server files once you have started playing and also to manage the server yourself. 

The second step is to create a text document and name it start.txt inside the folder youve created, when you’ve done this you open it and copy in the text shown on the Minecraft website. “java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.1.19.2.jar nogui“ Remember to double check the text is up to date with the current Minecraft patch, you might have other numbers than these in your text, check on Microsoft’s download page for the server (.1.19.2.). 

If you change the -Xmx(numbers)M code it specifies the maximum and minimum amount of RAM the server is allowed to use. 

Now what you need to do is to rename your start.txt file ending to a start.bat file, this changes the file to a windows batch file and makes it possible for you to run it and start your server. Once it has been run it will create some new files for you inside the document and among them is a file called “eula.txt” this file is an agreement file, you need to open it and change the value to =true. After that is done, you can run the start.bat file again and it will load up your server! 

You can connect to your server by direct connecting and typing in a 0 on the server address.

TO JOIN ON THE SAME PC (LOCAL)

In the address field type “0” or “localhost”

TO JOIN A DIFFERENT PC ON SAME WIFI (LAN)

On the server pc open a cmd prompt and type “ipconfig”. Look for your ipv4 address and that is what you would type into the address bar.

TO PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS (WAN)

You need to give anyone outside your network your public IP address to join. To do this google “what is my ipv4 address” figure it out and give that to your friend along with the port. Now have your friend use that with the port to join. They would type it in this format 123.456.789.012:25565. You must port forward for this to work. 

Here’s a great video tutorial that explains how to make a Minecraft server, credit goes to Voidzdev for his amazing tutorials.

Here is another Video tutorial on how to port forward for your Minecraft server so your friends can join! Credit to Voidzdev for this amazing tutorial as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkx1aGgz4Ig