Minehut Alternatives: Free and Cheap Minecraft Hosts

Looking for a minehut alternative? Aternos, Falix, exaroton and our own 1up all run Minecraft servers for free or a few euros, and each gives up something different: RAM, player slots, ads, a queue or a meter. We are 1up, a competitor, so every figure below comes from the host's own page, read on 13 October 2026 and checked again on 25 October 2026.

If you only want a server running, our guide to making a free Minecraft server walks through it, and our Minecraft Java server page shows what we offer for that edition. If you are leaving Aternos rather than Minehut, read our Aternos alternatives comparison instead.

• More RAM for free: Falix gives 3 GB shared and Aternos 2,400 MB on a Vanilla 1.20.1 server. Minehut Starter has 1 GB, 1up Free 2 GB.
• More players for free: Aternos and Falix advertise unlimited slots. Minehut Starter has 10, 1up Free 4.
• Modpacks for free: Aternos and Falix. Minehut Starter takes plugin uploads; 1up Free has no plugins or mods from the catalogue.
• Cheapest 24/7: 1up Casual at €3 a month with 2 GB. Minehut only stays online 24/7 on Ultimate (6,000 credits a month).
• Pay only when you play: exaroton, at 1 credit (€0.01) per GB of RAM per hour.
• Playtime: Minehut, Aternos and Falix set no playtime limit while someone plays. 1up Free runs 3 hours a day and 30 hours a month on Minecraft; Casual has no limit.

1. What Minehut gives you

Minehut calls itself "the largest free Minecraft server host" on its homepage. Its free plan, Starter, comes with:

• 10 player slots and 1 GB of RAM, with a "Basic" CPU (server plans).
• "No playtime limits on any plan". Servers "sleep when empty and wake the moment a player joins".
• Crossplay on every server: Java players join at mc.minehut.com, Bedrock players at bedrock.minehut.com.
• Plugin uploads from the web dashboard; "Higher plans allow more plugins".
• 10 GB of storage on free servers, 20 GB on paid plans. Going over "may result in data loss or file corruption", the plans page warns.

That is a good deal for a group that wants a plugin server with crossplay and no setup. People usually look elsewhere for one of three reasons: 1 GB is tight for anything beyond a small vanilla or Paper world, the server sleeps whenever nobody is online, and more RAM is paid in Minehut credits rather than a plain monthly price.

2. Method

We read each host's homepage, plan page and help center on 13 October 2026, checked them again on 25 October 2026, and kept only what they say about themselves. Review sites, forums and other comparison posts were left out. Where a host's pages say nothing, the table says "Not stated".

• No benchmarks. We did not run the same world on every host, so nothing here says which one lags less.
• No ratings. There is no score and no winner. Section 5 matches hosts to groups instead.
• Prices in the host's currency. Minehut sells credits in US dollars; exaroton, Falix and 1up charge in euros.

3. Free tiers compared (checked 25 October 2026)

Sources, read on 2026-10-13 and checked again on 2026-10-25:

• Minehut: homepage, server plans, store.
• Aternos: homepage, 24/7 Hosting, Stop countdown, Server RAM, Maximum allowed server size, Queue, You are using an adblocker.
• Falix: free Minecraft hosting page and ad blocker article.
• exaroton: homepage and Pricing.
• 1up: our live plans list and our Minecraft Java panel.

Two cells need context. Aternos asks you to turn off your ad blocker on its site, and Falix goes further: "Failure to comply with the above will lead to an account suspension." And exaroton is run by the Aternos team, which calls it "our ad-free, more powerful hosting platform" in the same adblocker article.

4. Cheap paid options: more RAM or 24/7

Free tiers all stop when nobody plays. If you want the world online all the time, or more memory for mods, this is what each host charges.

Minehut credits. The store sells 800 credits for $6.00 ($5.00 a month as a subscription), 1,800 for $12.00 ($10.00), 4,650 for $30.00 ($25.00) and 9,400 for $60.00 ($50.00). Standard costs 600 credits, so the smallest pack covers one month with some left over. No single pack matches the 6,000 credits of Ultimate, the only Minehut plan that stays online when empty.

exaroton maths. At the published rate, a 2 GB server running a 30-day month uses 1,440 credits, €14.40. A server that only runs on weekend evenings costs a fraction of that, and the storage fee of 10 credits a month is waived when you spend at least that much on running it (Pricing).

1up. Every paid plan has no playtime limit, stays on with nobody playing and has no start queue. Casual has 1 cloud backup and 20 GB of disk, Starter adds plugins and mods with 3 backups, and Pro has 5. You can ask for a refund within 3 days of paying. Our plans page lists all of them.

5. Who each one is for

• You want crossplay with zero setup on the newest version: Minehut. Every server takes Java and Bedrock players at fixed addresses. On 1up the Bedrock bridge runs on Java 26.2 or older, as our crossplay guide explains.
• You want a modpack without paying: Aternos or Falix, which both list modpacks on their free tier. Falix warns that "very large modpacks need more than 3 GB of RAM", and our Minecraft RAM guide explains why.
• Your group is big: Aternos or Falix, with unlimited slots, or Minehut with 10. 1up Free stops at 4.
• You play a few evenings a month on a strong server: exaroton. You pay for the hours the server runs.
• You want the world online all the time for little money: 1up Casual at €3, or a paid Falix plan from €12 if you need 4 GB.
• You are a small group that plays a few hours a day and wants no ad-blocker rules and no card: 1up Free, for up to four friends on a vanilla or Paper world, 3 hours a day and 30 a month.

Whatever you choose, download your world now and then. Every host on this list offers a way to do it, and a copy on your own disk is the only one nobody can delete for you.

6. Our limits

We asked you to trust our table, so here is where 1up Free is weaker, in plain words:

In return: no ad-blocker checks, no card to sign up, and a server you can move to a paid plan without starting over.

Tested on 1up production v0.293.0 (Free plan, Minecraft: Java Edition 26.3 by default) and on the competitors' own pages, 2026-10-13; 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.

Change log

• 2026-10-25: all figures checked again; 1up Starter (€5, 4 GB) and Pro (€10, 8 GB, 30 players) corrected; Falix Free is now 3 GB and sleeps instead of stopping; new playtime row (1up Free 3 h a day, 30 h a month).
• 2026-10-20: the idle stop of 1up Free is 30 minutes; no claim about ads.
• 2026-10-13: first version; all figures read on the hosts' own pages that day.

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