Aternos Alternatives: Free Minecraft Hosts Compared

Looking for an aternos alternative? Minehut, Falix, exaroton and our own 1up all run Minecraft servers for little or no money, and each trades something different: RAM, slots, ads, queues or a meter. We are 1up, a competitor, so every figure below links to the host's own page, checked again on 2026-10-25.

If you only want to get a server running, our guide to making a free Minecraft server walks through it step by step, and our Minecraft Java server page shows what 1up offers for that edition.

• Most RAM for free: Falix (3 GB shared) and Aternos (2,400 MB on a Vanilla 1.20.1 server, plus optional boosts). 1up Free gives 2 GB, Minehut Starter 1 GB.
• Most players: Aternos and Falix advertise unlimited slots on free servers. Minehut Starter allows 10, 1up Free allows 4.
• Modpacks for free: Aternos and Falix. 1up Free and Minehut Starter are for vanilla-style worlds.
• Playtime: Aternos and Minehut set no playtime limit while someone plays; Falix asks in chat whether you are still there every few hours. 1up Free runs 3 hours a day and 30 hours a month on Minecraft; 1up Casual (€3 a month) removes that limit.
• Ads: Aternos and Falix are funded by ads and ask you to turn your ad blocker off; exaroton is ad-free. 1up runs no ad-blocker check and needs no card to sign up.
• Queues: Aternos queues when it is full, Falix says starts "may queue briefly", 1up Free can queue at peak hours. exaroton has no queue but charges per hour.

1. Method

We read each host's own homepage, plan page and help center on 5 October 2026, and again on 25 October 2026, and kept only what they state themselves. Review sites, Reddit threads and other comparison posts were left out, including our own impressions of the competitors' panels. Anything we could not find on the host's own pages is not in this post.

Some things this comparison does not do:

• No benchmarks. We did not run the same world on every host, so nothing here says which one has less lag. Hardware claims are quoted, not tested.
• No ratings. There is no score or winner. The right host depends on your group, which is what section 4 is about.
• Free tiers first. Paid plans appear only where they help explain the free one, for example exaroton, whose model is pay-per-hour.

Hosts change their limits often. If a figure below looks wrong when you read it, the linked page wins; the change log at the end says when we last checked.

2. Dated table

All figures checked on 2026-10-25 on the pages linked under the table.

Sources, all checked 2026-10-25:

• Aternos: homepage (free forever, unlimited slots, modpacks, Google Drive backups), 24/7 Hosting, Server RAM, Maximum allowed server size, Stop countdown, Queue, You are using an adblocker.
• Minehut: homepage and server plans (Starter: 10 players, 1 GB, time limit "None").
• Falix: free Minecraft hosting page and ad blocker article.
• exaroton: homepage, Pricing, Free Trial, Allocated resources and hardware.
• 1up: our live plans list (Free: 2 GB, 4 slots, 6 GB, 3 hours a day and 30 hours a month on Minecraft) and our free Minecraft server hosting page.

Two cells deserve a closer look before you decide.

Aternos RAM is not one number. Its help center says the memory "depends on which software and version you use" and gives 2,400 MB for a Vanilla 1.20.1 server as the example. On top of that, the RAM Boost program adds 500 MB for 7 days each time you upload a Minecraft clip through the Medal app on Windows, stacking up to 2.5 GB extra.

exaroton is not a free tier. New accounts get 5 free credits to test it, with file uploads and some other features locked until the first purchase (Free Trial). At 2 GB, 5 credits run a server for 2.5 hours. After that you pay for the hours your server is on: by the published rate, a 3 GB server left on for a 30-day month would use 2,160 credits, €21.60. A server that is only on for weekend evenings costs a small fraction of that, which is the whole point of the model.

3. Ads and queues

These are the two things people usually leave Aternos over, so here is exactly what each host says about them.

Ads

• Aternos says it "is completely financed through advertisements", detects ad blockers and reminds you to disable them on its website (adblocker article). The same article lists privacy add-ons such as Privacy Badger and Ghostery among those that can trigger the warning.
• Falix says it relies "solely on advertisements to fund the cost of the free plan" and requires every user to whitelist Falix; "failure to comply with the above will lead to an account suspension" (Falix knowledge base).
• Minehut says on its homepage that it uses cookies "to show the ads that keep free servers free". Its own pages do not say where those ads appear, so we leave it there.
• exaroton is described by the Aternos team as "our ad-free, more powerful hosting platform" in the same adblocker article. Both services are run by the same team.
• 1up asks for no card to sign up for Free and runs no ad-blocker checks.

Queues and sleep

A free server costs the host memory while it runs, so every free tier has some rule about when your server may run. They fall into two groups: a queue before the start, and a stop when nobody is playing.

Aternos has both. Its Queue article says that when its servers are at full capacity you join a queue, see your position and an estimated wait, and must click a green confirmation button near the front, or you are removed and start over. Once running, an empty server shows a stop countdown; a "+1" button adds a minute while you get into the game. Aternos does not cap playtime while someone is online (24/7 Hosting).

Falix puts an empty free server to sleep and wakes it "as they connect" when someone joins; after a long sleep anyone can start it from its Start Server page. While people play it may ask in chat whether you are still there, at most once every three hours, with 30 minutes to click the link. About queues, its FAQ says "Usually not. When a free machine is busy, new starts wait their turn in a short queue" (free hosting page).

Minehut servers "sleep when empty and wake the moment a player joins", with "no playtime limits on any plan"; only the Ultimate plan stays online 24/7 (homepage). Its pages say nothing about a start queue, so we do not claim one either way.

exaroton has "no queue", in the Aternos team's own words (Queue article). You pay for every running hour instead, and its optional AutoStop and AutoStart features keep that bill down (Pricing).

1up Free gives each account 3 hours of server time a day and 30 hours a month on Minecraft; heavier games use that time faster (the hourglass multiplier shown on each game). It stops a server after 30 minutes with nobody online. At peak hours there may be a start queue of a few minutes on the Free nodes; the panel shows your place in it and the server starts on its own when your turn comes. We do not promise a Free server with no queue.

4. Who each one is for

There is no host that wins every row, so match the host to the group.

• You want a big modpack without paying: Aternos or Falix. Both list modpacks on their free tier, with more memory than 1up Free. Falix itself warns that "very large modpacks need more than 3 GB of RAM" (free hosting page), and our Minecraft RAM guide explains why.
• Your group is large, a class or a whole Discord: Aternos or Falix, which advertise unlimited slots, or Minehut with 10. 1up Free stops at 4 players.
• You want Java and Bedrock friends together with zero setup: Minehut says every server supports crossplay, with Java players on mc.minehut.com and Bedrock players on bedrock.minehut.com (homepage). On 1up a Paper or Fabric server can let Bedrock players in with one toggle; the pillar guide covers the version rule.
• You play a few evenings a month and want a strong server: exaroton. Pay-per-hour suits irregular play, and you pick 2 to 16 GB (Allocated resources).
• You are a small group in Europe that plays a few hours a day and wants no ad-blocker rules and no card: 1up Free. Four friends, a vanilla or Paper world, servers in London and Paris, sign-in with email, Google or Discord.
• You want the same small server without the hour limit: 1up Casual, €3 a month: 2 GB, 6 players, 20 GB of disk, one cloud backup, no playtime limit and no start queue. If it is not for you, you can ask for a refund within 3 days.
• You want the server online all the time: none of the free tiers do that. Minehut's Ultimate plan, a pay-per-hour host or a flat paid plan does; our plans page lists what each 1up plan includes.

One habit pays off on any of these hosts: download your world now and then. Aternos says it bluntly in Keep your world safe: "It's your task to keep your world saved all the time."

5. Our limits

Since we are asking you to trust our table, here is where 1up Free is weaker, in plain words:

What we offer in return is a short list: no ad-blocker checks, no card to sign up, and a server address you share once. If your group outgrows those limits, you can move the same server to a paid plan instead of starting over: Casual at €3 a month lifts the hour limit and the queue, and Starter at €5 adds 4 GB, plugins and mods. Our plans page lists every plan.

If you hit a problem joining, our can't connect to a Minecraft server guide covers the common errors on any host.

Tested on 1up production v0.241.0 (Free plan, Minecraft: Java Edition 26.3 by default) and the competitors' own pages, 2026-10-05; figures checked again on 1up v1.39.1 and the same pages on 2026-10-25. We did not benchmark any host; hardware and performance claims are quoted from each host.

NOT AN OFFICIAL MINECRAFT SERVICE. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG OR MICROSOFT.

Change log

• 2026-10-25: all figures checked again; Falix Free is now 3 GB and sleeps instead of stopping; new playtime row (1up Free 3 h a day, 30 h a month); 1up Casual as the no-limit option.
• 2026-10-20: 1up Free disk is 6 GB; the idle stop is 30 minutes; no claim about ads.
• 2026-10-05: first version; all figures checked on the hosts' own pages.