Biggest Minecraft Servers by Live Player Count

Player counts come straight from each server's status ping: the same small request your game sends when it shows a server in the multiplayer list, with the players online and the slot limit. We send it to 87 of the biggest public Java and Bedrock servers every 5 minutes and keep the history.

The line marked live updates while the page is open. The table and the charts are a snapshot from 15:34 UTC on 24 September 2026, and the text describes that snapshot.

Top 10 servers

The ranking right now is on our live list. Open the Minecraft server list

At 15:34 UTC, DonutSMP led with 29,633 players, 3,959 more than Hypixel. That lead did not last: Hypixel passed DonutSMP at 18:41 UTC the same day, 27,873 players to 27,561. DonutSMP is a Java survival server with an economy and PvP.

Together the top 10 had 111,154 players, 65% of everyone on the 87 servers we follow. Further down the numbers drop fast: from 7th place to 30th, servers had between 1,131 and 5,126 players.

Our list is not every server in the world. It is the big public ones we picked and check, so a server that is missing is not necessarily small. You can look up any server on the Minecraft player count page by its address.

DonutSMP vs Hypixel through the day

From 21:48 UTC on 23 September to 15:31 UTC on 24 September, DonutSMP was ahead in every one of our 208 paired readings. Both servers follow the same daily shape: a low in the European morning (DonutSMP bottomed out at 16,342 at 05:38 UTC, Hypixel at 13,136 at 07:32 UTC) and a climb through the afternoon and evening.

The shapes match because both draw most of their players from the same time zones in Europe and North America. What changes from day to day is the gap between them. The DonutSMP and Hypixel pages show it live, with a longer history as it builds up.

Java vs Bedrock networks

Java has far more servers on our list, and most of its players. Bedrock is different: on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch you can only join a handful of featured servers without workarounds, so console players pile into a few networks. That is why CubeCraft Bedrock and The Hive reach 11,524 and 10,443 players while most Bedrock servers stay small.

Some networks run both. CubeCraft, ManaCube, FadeCloud, OPBlocks and JackpotMC each report a separate count for their Bedrock server, and we list those as separate entries, because the ping only ever answers for the address you ask.

How the counts are measured

Every Minecraft server answers a status request with its name, version, players online and maximum players. We ask through mcstatus.io, one server at a time, and store the answer. Networks sit behind a proxy that adds up all their lobbies and game servers, so the ping shows the whole network, not one lobby.

The server decides what its ping says, so in theory it can claim any number. That is why a curve over a day is more useful than a single number: real player counts rise and fall with the time zones, while a faked one tends to sit flat or jump.

To check a server that is not on our list, type its address on the Minecraft player count page and pick Java or Bedrock. Add the port if it is not the default, like play.example.com:25566. The count refreshes every 30 seconds, and you can put it on a website or in OBS from the same page.

If a server stops answering, the ranking keeps its last count for up to three hours and then leaves it out until it answers again. A network that is down for maintenance can vanish for an evening and return the next day.

Running your own SMP: RAM per player count

The giants above run on racks of machines. A survival server for your friends needs far less. These are the starting points we would use for a Paper or Purpur server, which run noticeably lighter than the vanilla server jar:

RAM is rarely the first thing to run out. The server's main game loop runs on one CPU core, so a fast core matters more than a big number of them. View distance and simulation distance matter even more: dropping simulation distance from 10 to 6 chunks takes a lot of work off the server with little visible change.

Want friends on phones and consoles to join too? Run a Java server with the Geyser plugin, which lets Bedrock players connect to a Java server. Friends on Xbox, PlayStation or Switch need a workaround to join servers outside the featured list; phone and Windows players can simply add your address.

Pre-generate your world with a plugin like Chunky before people join, so the server does not have to create new terrain while everyone explores. And plan a daily restart; a server that runs for days can slow down.

If you want someone else to run the machine, Space-Node Minecraft hosting starts at €0.90 per GB of RAM a month, with Java and Bedrock.