A free Aternos alternative

Why people look for an Aternos alternative

Aternos is free because servers only run while someone plays, and it pays for that with ads. Most of the complaints that send people looking elsewhere follow from how it starts servers: someone has to open the website and press Start, and at busy times there's a queue before the server comes up. If that person isn't around, nobody plays.

None of that is a bug. It's the price of free hosting at Aternos's scale. But there are other ways to do free.

How Jump is different

• Join to wake it. A sleeping Jump server wakes up when anyone joins from Minecraft: no website, no start button. The first join takes about a minute, then everyone plays normally.
• No ads. Free servers are paid for by the people who upgrade, not by banners.
• No daily time limit. Play as long as you like. A server sleeps after 15 minutes with nobody online.
• 2 GB of memory and your own slot count. Set as many player slots as you want in Settings.
• Java and Bedrock together. Pick Bedrock and friends on phones, consoles and Windows join the same world as Java players, through Geyser.
• A real panel. Console, file manager, SFTP, whitelist and ops, a plugin and mod catalog, your own domain.

Where Aternos is still a good fit

Aternos has years of tutorials, a huge community and lets you keep several servers. If you're happy pressing Start and your group plays at quiet hours, it works well. Jump gives one free server per account, and big modpacks need a paid plan here, since 2 GB isn't enough for them anywhere.

Limits on free hosts change often, so check Aternos's own site for its current rules before you decide.

Moving your Aternos world to Jump

1. On Aternos, open Worlds and download your world as a zip.
2. On the Jump home page, pick Java or Bedrock, type a name and create the server. It's online in under a minute.
3. In the panel, stop the server, then use Upload world in Files and pick the zip.
4. Start it, and send friends the new address, like yourname.play.jumphosting.cloud.

Plugins and mods aren't part of the world download: install the same ones from Plugins & mods. The guide to uploading a world has more detail, including SFTP for big worlds.

Questions