Nukkit Server Hosting

What is Nukkit and who is it for?

Nukkit is open-source server software for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, written in Java and maintained today by the CloudburstMC community. It does not run the game's official code the way Mojang's BDS does. Instead it reimplements the game in Java and, in exchange, offers a flexible plugin API. That approach gives you a lot of freedom to change the rules of the game on the server side.

Nukkit fits projects such as custom minigames written by a Java team, lobby servers, community servers built on kit and economy plugins, and backend servers that will sit inside a WaterdogPE network. Because it reimplements the game, redstone contraptions and mob behavior may not match vanilla Bedrock exactly, so for pure vanilla survival Vanilla Bedrock is the better pick. PowerNukkitX, a branch of the Nukkit family, adds more vanilla features and custom block support, while Nukkit keeps a leaner core. With the official PocketMine-MP team having stopped updates in July 2026, Nukkit is a sensible alternative for teams that write plugins in Java and want to serve current clients.

How do you install Nukkit plugins, and do Spigot plugins work?

Nukkit plugins go into the plugins folder as .jar files and are enabled on restart based on the details in their plugin.yml. Their config files are usually created in a folder named after the plugin inside the plugins directory. The main place to find plugins written for Nukkit is the Resources section on the CloudburstMC site, along with developers' GitHub pages.

Let us clear up a common misunderstanding: although Nukkit's API resembles Bukkit, Java Edition plugins written for Spigot, Paper or Bukkit do not run on Nukkit. They are built against a different game's internals and network protocol. When you look for a plugin, make sure it was written for Nukkit. Some plugins written for PowerNukkitX may also depend on APIs that Nukkit does not have, so try each plugin on a test world first. You can upload files with the file manager, but SFTP is more practical when you move a lot of plugins at once.

How much RAM does a Nukkit server need?

Nukkit is a Java application, so memory is used through the heap assigned to the JVM. Loaded chunks, entities and whatever data plugins keep in memory are what fill that heap. Not all of your plan's memory can go to the heap, since the JVM itself and the network layer need their share as well.

A server with a handful of plugins and up to 15 players is fine on Bronze 4GB. If you are aiming for a community of 25 to 40 players with minigame arenas, several worlds and a crowded plugin set, Gold 8GB gives more comfortable room. When memory runs short, the usual symptom is frequent, long garbage collection pauses, which players feel as momentary freezes. As player counts grow, the CPU starts to matter too: the first five plans, Diamond included, have 4 vCores, Emerald has 6 and Xtreme has 12. Keeping view-distance in server.properties reasonable also eases both memory and network traffic.

Managing server.properties, permissions and updates

The core settings sit in server.properties: motd, server-port, max-players, gamemode, level-name, white-list and xbox-auth. With xbox-auth on, players are verified through their Microsoft account; turning it off on a public server lets people join under someone else's name. The one exception is when you place the server behind a proxy such as WaterdogPE, where the proxy handles authentication and xbox-auth is switched off on the Nukkit side.

Operators are stored in ops.txt and allowed players in white-list.txt, both managed from the console with the op and whitelist commands. nukkit.yml carries more advanced settings for network, world and performance behavior, and changing one thing at a time while watching the effect is the safest way to tune it.

When Mojang ships a new Bedrock release, phones update quickly, and for players to keep connecting you need a Nukkit build that supports the new protocol. The Nukkit team released these updates regularly throughout 2026. Always take a backup before switching and confirm your plugins work with the new build.

How do players connect to a Nukkit server?

For Android, iOS and Windows players the process is standard: tap Add Server in the Servers tab and enter the IP address and port shown in your panel. Nukkit uses Bedrock's usual UDP port 19132 by default, but the port assigned to you may differ, so always share the value from the panel. A player's client version has to be compatible with the protocol supported by the Nukkit build on your server.

Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch players cannot add custom addresses. They get around that with DNS redirect services such as BedrockConnect or with apps that make the server appear as a LAN game to a console on the same network, all built by the community. For a growing community, a common approach is to put your Nukkit servers behind a WaterdogPE proxy: players connect to a single address, and the proxy moves them between lobby and game servers without dropping their connection.