Which plugins does a Minecraft server actually need?

The six that solve real problems

Permissions. Install this first. Everything else hangs off it, and retrofitting a permissions plugin onto a server where twenty people have operator is painful. Groups, inheritance and per world nodes are what you want.

A core command pack. Homes, warps, spawn, teleport requests, kits, chat formatting. One well maintained plugin covers all of it and saves you installing six.

Grief logging and rollback. Not prevention, logging. When somebody hollows out a base, you want to see who placed and broke every block and undo it in one command. This is the plugin that saves your server's reputation.

Land protection. Either claim based, where players protect their own area, or region based, where staff define zones. Pick one model and stick to it.

A profiler. Install it before you have a problem. When the server lags at 8pm you want a report naming the cause, not guesses.

Client version support. A protocol translation plugin lets players on older or newer clients join, which quietly increases how many people can actually reach you.

Add these if they match your server

• Cross play so Bedrock clients can join a Java world, plus the companion plugin that handles their accounts. See the Bedrock guide.
• An economy and shops if money is part of the game. Player run shops make a market; NPC only shops make a vending machine.
• Vote rewards so players who vote for you get something. That needs Votifier on your server, which you can test with our Votifier tester.
• Discord chat linking if your community lives there, which it probably does.
• Scheduled backups writing off the machine.

Install order, and why it matters

Permissions first, then the core command pack, then protection and logging, then everything else. Start the server between each one and read the console.

Installing eight plugins at once and then finding a startup error is how people lose an evening. One at a time, restart, check the log, and keep a note of which version of each you installed. When something breaks after an update you will want that note.

The plugins that quietly cost you

Anything that scans large areas on a timer. Anything doing database or web requests on the main thread. Anything with a particle effect that runs for every player every tick. Anything abandoned two major versions ago.

Also be suspicious of all in one plugins that claim to do twenty things. They are convenient and they are usually the first name in your profiler report. Prefer a few focused plugins that each do one job well.

Check the update date and the version compatibility before installing anything. A plugin last updated for a much older release will either fail to load or fail silently in ways you find out about later.

Keep a list of what you run

Write down every plugin, its version, and why it is installed. Two months in, you will have a plugin you cannot remember adding, and a config you cannot remember changing, and the only way back is that list.

It also makes upgrading Minecraft versions a known quantity rather than an afternoon of surprises: you check your list against what has been updated, and you know before you start what will break.