Top 5 optimization plugins for Minecraft servers

Minecraft servers are relatively easy to set up and can be a great way to enjoy multiplayer features with others. The best servers have thousands of players connecting daily, and Minecraft truly wouldn't be the same if servers weren't implemented into the game.

One of the biggest caveats with Minecraft servers is that vanilla Minecraft server code is relatively poorly optimized. This is a documented issue by much of the community and is mainly caused by poor CPU thread usage, with the majority of Minecraft server operations being done on only a single thread.

For the less technically proficient, what this means is that Minecraft servers in their current state are severely prone to lag, especially with a lot of players on a single server.

It's not all doom and gloom, as there are several plugins admins can install to optimize many server functions, thereby making their server lag significantly less in some cases.

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These are the best plugins to reduce server lag on Minecraft

5) Clearlagg

Clearlag is a tried and tested old-school solution for clearing entities and limiting the total number of entities present on a Minecraft server. This can be extremely useful, as having too many entities in a single world is off of the biggest sources of FPS lag and TPS loss (server lag).

Clearlag isn't limited to just clearing useless entities and also has a neat feature to identify laggy chunks. This allows players to teleport to these chunks and clear the source of lag by hand.

Download Clearlagg here

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4) LaggRemover

With several built-in tools to help optimize game processes, LaggRemover is another great plugin to help improve server performance. Released in 2015, it's also proven to be a highly popular solution, boasting over eight million unique downloads.

Players with relatively small amounts of RAM allocated to their server may find this plugin useful due to its "RAM reduction" feature. This feature claims to reduce the amount of chunks loaded into the memory, thereby reducing RAM usage.

Download LaggRemover here

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3) Spark

Spark is a great plugin for those a bit more technically proficient with Minecraft

It can be hard to optimize a server without knowing exactly what's slowing it down. Although spark requires a bit of technical knowledge to be used, literacy with this plugin can pay dividends in the long run.

Spark will not fix any problems itself, instead, it allows players to generate in-depth profiles of what their server is doing, and therefore identify exactly what subprocesses are slowing it down the most.

Download Spark here

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2) Stackmob

Entities in Minecraft, particularly mobs, cause a huge amount of lag in large amounts. This is primarily due to complex A.I. logic which has to be calculated on the server's CPU constantly.

Normally mobs aren't a problem in single-player Minecraft because there are only a few mobs loaded into the world (those close to the player). For multiplayer, this is obviously not the case, and there can be hundreds, if not thousands of mobs, loaded at one time.

StackMob seeks to provide resolution to this problem, stacking close by mobs of similar traits together. For example, the plugin will stack all nearby cows into one entity, taking a significant load off the CPU, resulting in less lag.

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1) LagAssist

Lagassist takes the cake as the best all-in-one lag solution for Minecraft servers in the eyes of many. As a relatively modern plugin, it seeks to compile some of the most popular optimization techniques into one standalone plugin.

For example, LagAssist covers most of the major functionality of both the stackmob and clearlagg plugins mentioned previously. This isn't where it ends, however, and LagAssist has pioneered new methods to help reduce lag on many types of different servers.

Some of the best of these methods include optimizing hoppers, breaking laggy Redstone machines, regulating mob spawning, and even cleaning laggy chunks in the world automatically.

Download Lagassist here

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