Optimization guide for Minecraft servers

This guide will help you optimize your Minecraft server to reduce lag and improve the performance.

Java Edition

Vanilla

Consider switching to PaperMC, PaperMC has much better performance than Vanilla and also provides plugins support. PaperMC also patch some vanilla bugs and exploits. If you wish to stay with the bugs and exploits, switch to Fabric with some server sided performance mods. There's not much you can do to optimize a Vanilla server, one of the main reason is that Vanilla doesn't support plugins or mods, etc.

Forge

It’s not easy to optimize Forge, specially when using too many mods, heavy mods, etc. We really recommend that you use the mods that are really needed, removing unused mods will help a little bit with improving your server performance. Here we list some options that you can follow to optimize your Forge server:

• Don’t use too many mods. If you really need to consider increasing your server RAM.
• Avoid using heavy mods. Mods that add several new entities, blocks or mobs can really increase lag.
• Remove broken mods. If a mod does not work as expected is highly recommended to remove it, having broken mods on your server might break your world or increase lag.
• Increase the RAM for your server. Not always the best option but should help.
• Don’t change the value of the gamerule randomTickSpeed, always set it to 3.
• Don’t have too many entities on your server. Consider using the kill command to remove some entities from your server.

FabricMC

One of the best ways to reduce lag is using performance mods. You can find a list of performance mods that are server-side only to improve your performance here. Some reasons that might increase lags are described in the following list with a possible solution:

• Too many mods: Usually mods don't give enough lag except heavy mods. Make sure you only use the important mods.
• Too many entities: This might cause lag to your world, to fix this you can execute the command /kill @e[type=NAME] where NAME would be the name of the entitie, e.g. /kill @e[type=item] will delete all dropped items. For more information about the command, read this guide.
• RAM too low: Increasing your server RAM will not always fix lag but might improve a little your server performance.
• randomTickSpeed value too high: Increasing the gamerule randomTickSpeed value to a really high value can have a bad performance on your server. It is recommended to always set it to the default value, which is 3.

PaperMC

Paper itself is a very good optimized server software but if you continue to have lags or low TPS you can follow the instructions listed below:

Edit your server bukkit.yml file.

1. Update spawn-limits

spawn-limits:
  monsters: 50
  animals: 8
  water-animals: 7
  water-ambient: 10
  water-underground-creature: 3
  ambient: 1

2. Update chunk-gc

chunk-gc:
  period-in-ticks: 400

3. Update ticks-per

ticks-per:
  animal-spawns: 400
  monster-spawns: 5
  water-spawns: 11
  water-ambient-spawns: 21
  water-underground-creature-spawns: 1
  ambient-spawns: 31
  autosave: 6000

Edit your spigot.yml file.

1. Update save-user-cache-on-stop-only

settings:
  save-user-cache-on-stop-only: true

2. Update merge-radius

world-settings:
  default:
    merge-radius:
      item: 4.0
      exp: 6.0

3. Update item-despawn-rate

world-settings: 
  default:
    item-despawn-rate: The-Value-You-Think-Would-Be-Better

• Note: this will update the time in ticks it takes for ground items to get removed.

4. Update mob-spawn-range

world-settings:
  default:
    mob-spawn-range: 6

5. Update max-tick-time

world-settings:
  default:
    max-tick-time:
      tile: 1000
      entity: 1000

6. Update nerf-spawner-mobs

world-settings:
  default:
    nerf-spawner-mobs: true

7. Update entity-activation-range

world-settings:
  default:
    entity-activation-range:
      animals: 16
      monsters: 24
      raiders: 48
      misc: 8

8. Update tick-inactive-villagers

world-settings:
  default:
    entity-activation-range:
      tick-inactive-villagers: false

Edit your server paper.yml

1. Update max-auto-save-chunks-per-tick

world-settings:
  default: 
    max-auto-save-chunks-per-tick: 6

2. Update disable-chest-cat-detection

world-settings:
  default: 
    game-mechanics:
      disable-chest-cat-detection: true

3. Update optimize-explosions

world-settings:
  default:
    optimize-explosions: true

4. Update mob-spawner-tick-rate

world-settings:
  default:
    mob-spawner-tick-rate: 2

5. Update disable-chest-cat-detection

world-settings:
  default:
    game-mechanics:
      disable-chest-cat-detection: true

6. Update container-update-tick-rate

world-settings:
  default:
    container-update-tick-rate: 3

7. Update max-entity-collisions

world-settings:
  default:
    max-entity-collisions: 2

8. Update grass-spread-tick-rate

world-settings:
  default:
    grass-spread-tick-rate: 4

9. Update despawn-ranges

world-settings:
  default:
    despawn-ranges:
      monster:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96
      creature:
        soft: 28
        hard: 128
      ambient:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96
      axolotls:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96
      underground_water_creature:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96
      water_creature:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96
      water_ambient:
        soft: 28
        hard: 64
      misc:
        soft: 28
        hard: 96

10. Update disable-move-event

world-settings:
  default:
    hopper:
      disable-move-event: true

11. Update non-player-arrow-despawn-rate

world-settings:
  default:
    non-player-arrow-despawn-rate: 60

12. Update creative-arrow-despawn-rate

world-settings:
  default:
    creative-arrow-despawn-rate: 60

13. Udpate prevent-moving-into-unloaded-chunks

world-settings:
  default:
    prevent-moving-into-unloaded-chunks: true

14. Update use-faster-eigencraft-redstone

world-settings:
  default:
    use-faster-eigencraft-redstone: true

15. Update armor-stands-tick

world-settings:
  default:
    armor-stands-tick: false

16. Update per-player-mob-spawns

world-settings:
  default:
    per-player-mob-spawns: true

SpigotMC

You can try the suggestions given in the section "PaperMC". PaperMC is a fork of Spigot, therefore the server has the bukkit.yml and spigot.yml files.

MohistMC

You can try and test the suggestions given for Forge and PaperMC servers since MohistMC is a combination of both server software.

Modpacks

It's hard to have a good performance using modpacks, mostly because modpacks usually have too many heavy mods. Some solutions are mentioned in the list below:

• Check your list of mods: make sure that you don't have client-side mods on your server, since it's a client-side mod, you only need it on your Minecraft client, not on your server. You can also remove mods that you will not use, it's not really a good idea to have mods on your server that you will not even use.
• Increase RAM: The modpack page usually provides what's the required amount of RAM for your server to run smoothly, increasing at least 1GB of RAM might help but it's not guaranteed.
• If you cannot increase your server RAM then the most you can do is to avoid mods to spawn too many entities, you could execute thekill command to remove some entities from your server.

Bedrock Edition

Bedrock

There's no way to optimize a Bedrock server because we cannot add modifications, plugins or update settings that may improve the server performance. Although, Bedrock servers don't really have a bad performance (most of the time).

PocketMine-MP

We suggest not using Pocketmine if you want to miss the updates of new Minecraft versions. Pocketmine is missing several features and all updates above 1.12 are not added to Pocketmine, also many gamerules are missing. Please do not use Pocketmine for a survival experience. The best way to get a better performance is using some optimization plugins (if they even exist).

Credits

• Thanks to @Alex22-SV and @adriellwc for writing this guide.
• [GUIDE] Server Optimization⚡
• Lags - Aternos