Which Minecraft hosts does the finder compare?
The finder compares Minecraft server plans from three hosts: Astroworld Hosting, Lodehost and Cheapest Minecraft Hosting. The three hosts are built for different players: Cheapest Minecraft Hosting is the budget option, Lodehost offers simple plans in the middle, and Astroworld Hosting has the most locations and the widest choice of plans. So which host is right for you comes down to what your server needs. The rules below decide which plan you get, and you can check every one of them.
Step 1: how much RAM your Minecraft server needs
RAM is usually the first thing to run out on a Minecraft server, so the finder starts there. It uses the busiest moment you expect, which is the top of the player range you chose or the exact number you entered in the RAM calculator, and calculates the RAM like this:
- Vanilla: 2 GB base, then 1 GB per 3 players
- Plugins: 2 GB base, then 1 GB per 2 players
- Modded: 5 GB base, then 1 GB per 2 players
- Modpack: 8 GB base, then 1 GB per player
If you use plugins, the finder asks roughly how many: 10 to 25 plugins add 1 GB, 25 to 50 add 2 GB, 50 to 100 add 3 GB and more than 100 add 4 GB. On a modded server, 100 to 200 mods add 1 GB and more than 200 add 2 GB. The modpack rule is for a large pack of around 300 mods; a light pack of about 100 mods starts at 6 GB, a pack of about 200 mods at 7 GB and an expert pack at 10 GB. Bedrock has no plugins, Forge or Fabric, so a Bedrock server is always sized like a vanilla server. A crossplay server never gets less than 4 GB, because Geyser runs alongside the game. These numbers are on the safe side of the usual advice, so your plan has room to spare instead of running tight.
The advanced settings of the RAM calculator go further, and they carry over to the finder. The player allowance assumes a view distance of 10 chunks and grows or shrinks with the area each player keeps loaded: at 16 chunks it is about 1.7 times as large, and at 6 chunks about 0.7 times. Farms and redstone add 1 GB, a web map 1 GB and every extra world 1 GB, and Room to grow adds a quarter to the total. The RAM calculator shows the calculation for any number of players.
Step 2: the best Minecraft server location for your players
The finder asks where your players play, as a country or a wider area. On the home page it makes a first guess from the time zone of your device; that guess stays in your browser and is never sent anywhere. Then one rule decides the server location:
- Under 100 ms to Warsaw: the server goes to Poland. That covers players all over Europe, from Portugal to Finland, and in North Africa and the Middle East outside the Gulf states. Poland has the fastest processor on our list, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X with DDR5, on the Performance line of Astroworld Hosting and Lodehost and on every plan of Cheapest Minecraft Hosting, and the lowest prices.
- Further away: the server goes to the location nearest to your players. That is US East, US Central or US West in North America, Beauharnois in Quebec for eastern Canada, US East for South America, Japan for Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Singapore for Southeast Asia, India for South Asia and the Gulf states, and Sydney for Australia and New Zealand.
Once you see your match, Edit answers opens all your answers in one window. There you can also pick the server location yourself, from every location the three hosts offer: Poland and Germany first, then the United Kingdom, the US regions, Japan, Singapore, India, Sydney and the seventeen cities where Astroworld Hosting runs its standard line, from Amsterdam to New York. A location you pick yourself always wins over the automatic one, and the result shows which of the two it is.
Step 3: the best Minecraft server plan from each host
Each host puts forward its smallest plan with at least that much RAM, in the server location. Astroworld Hosting and Lodehost do this twice: once for their standard line and once for their Performance line, if they offer it in that location. If every plan a host has there is too small, a plan that fits from a nearby location is used instead; if there is none, its largest plan is used and the result tells you so. If no plan anywhere is big enough, only the largest plans are compared.
Cheapest Minecraft Hosting only has servers in Poland. Poland borders Germany, so when you choose Germany, its plans are included from Poland. In the same way, the Performance lines, which run in Germany and Poland, are included from Poland when you choose the United Kingdom. In the seventeen cities only the standard line of Astroworld Hosting runs, and most of them carry plans up to 24 GB, so a bigger server comes from Poland or Germany. For all other locations, a host is only included from a nearby location if no host has servers in your location at all, and the result tells you when that happens. In Europe, a nearby location always means Poland first and Germany second.
Step 4: how Minecraft hosting plans are scored
If you enter a monthly budget, plans above it are removed first. If nothing fits within your budget, the closest plan is kept and the result tells you so. Every remaining plan gets a score based on its monthly price when you pay monthly. The lowest score wins.
- Lowest price uses the monthly price as it is.
- Balanced adds EUR 1.99 a month where daily backups cost extra, which is at Cheapest Minecraft Hosting. It then counts the Performance line at 0.45 times its price and the budget line at 1.8 times its price. This way, a plan with reserved Ryzen 9 threads wins wherever one is available, unless its price is far too high.
- More performance works the same way, but counts the Performance line at 0.35 times its price and the budget line at 2.5 times, so the fastest line wins by a wider margin.
For a heavy modpack, Astroworld Hosting is counted at 0.9 times its price, because it supports every Forge and Fabric modpack and has the most sizes on the Performance line. If two plans get the same score, a plan in the server location beats a plan in a nearby location. After that, a fixed order decides: Cheapest Minecraft Hosting first for the lowest price, the Lodehost Performance line first for Balanced and the Astroworld Hosting Performance line first for More performance.
The free website that comes with every plan from 8 GB at Astroworld Hosting and Lodehost is shown with the match, but it does not change the score. The finder never moves you to a bigger plan for the website alone; our page on the free Minecraft server website helps you decide whether it is worth the step up.
Where do the Minecraft hosting prices come from?
Every price is taken from the host's own order page, the page where you actually pay, not from an advert or a pricing overview. Prices include VAT and the location surcharge where there is one. The price in a result is the price when you pay monthly; the line below the specs shows the lowest monthly price on a longer term. If a host changes a price, the order page is what counts, and we update this site to match.
On the Performance lines of Astroworld Hosting and Lodehost, new customers get 60% off in Poland and 20% in Germany, on their first two servers: for the first 3 months at Astroworld Hosting when you pay monthly, and on the first payment at Lodehost. Where that applies, the result and the plan tables show the discounted price first, with the regular monthly price right after it. The score always uses the regular monthly price, so the discount for new customers never decides which plan you see.
The button below a result opens the host's order form with the plan, location and edition already filled in. You pay the host directly. This site never handles payments, and using our links costs you nothing extra.
Which Minecraft hosts are not included?
We only compare the three hosts above, because those are the hosts whose order pages we can check for every price. There are other good Minecraft hosts. If you want a wider comparison, Astroworld Hosting publishes comparisons with Apex Hosting, BisectHosting, Shockbyte and others on its own website.