Minecraft Realms: What They Are and How They Differ From Servers
A plain-English guide to Mojang's hosted multiplayer service — and when a community server is a better fit.
What is Minecraft Realms?
Minecraft Realms is Mojang's official, paid hosting service for small private multiplayer worlds. You subscribe, invite up to 10 friends (Java) or 10 players (Bedrock), and Mojang runs the server 24/7 in the background — no port forwarding, no hosting bill, no plugins to configure.
Realms vs traditional Minecraft servers
A public Minecraft server (the kind you'll find on MinecraftServersList) is a community-run game world that anyone with the IP can join. The big differences:
- Players: Realms caps at ~10 invited friends. Public servers routinely host hundreds or thousands of concurrent players.
- Plugins & mods: Realms only supports a handful of curated content packs. Public servers can run Bukkit, Spigot, Paper, Fabric, Forge — anything.
- Cost: Realms is a monthly subscription paid to Mojang. Most public servers are free to join.
- Gamemodes: Realms is essentially vanilla survival or creative. Public servers offer SMP, Skyblock, KitPvP, Bedwars, factions, and dozens more gamemodes.
- Discoverability: Realms is invite-only. Public servers are listed and ranked — players find them through directories like MinecraftServersList.
When Realms makes sense
Realms is great if you just want a private world for you and a small group of friends, you don't want to manage hosting, and you're happy with mostly-vanilla gameplay. It's the simplest possible multiplayer Minecraft experience.
When a public server is better
If you want more than ~10 players, modded gameplay, a specific gamemode (Skyblock, Bedwars, PvP), or to meet new people, a public server beats Realms every time. Browse vote-ranked options by category:
- Best SMP servers — long-term semi-vanilla communities.
- Best Skyblock servers — custom islands and economies.
- Best survival servers — vanilla, semi-vanilla and hardcore.
- Best PvP servers — KitPvP, factions and UHC.
- Best minigame servers — Bedwars, SkyWars and more.
How to join a Realm vs a public server
To join a Realm you need an invite link from the owner — open Minecraft, go to the Realms tab, and accept the invite. To join a public server you just need its IP address: open the Multiplayer menu, click "Add Server", paste the IP, and connect. Every server on MinecraftServersList shows its IP and version on the listing page.