Free Minecraft server hosting, a real 8 GB server

How the free Minecraft server hosting works

There is no order form and no config file. Sign in with Google or Discord and Orca creates your server, and it is live in about 30 seconds. No credit card, because there is nothing to bill: the 8 GB server is part of every account, not a trial that expires or a teaser you upgrade out of. You get the server address right away, share it with your friends, and they join like any other Minecraft server.

The one honest catch: the free server pauses when everyone leaves. Your world, your installed mods, and your settings are all kept exactly as they were. When you press start, or a friend asks to play, it wakes in about 30 seconds and picks up where it left off. Nothing is deleted, nothing resets, and there is no queue to wait in behind other people's servers. If you would rather read how the paid tiers extend this, the Minecraft server hosting plans page covers the full ladder.

Every loader and 6,000+ modpacks

Free does not mean vanilla-only. Your server runs Vanilla, Paper, Fabric, Forge, or NeoForge, and you switch what you build on by telling Orca what you want to play. On top of the loaders sit 6,000+ modpacks you install from chat: name the pack and Orca sets the server up for it, matching the Minecraft version and loader the pack needs. Plugins work the same way on Paper, so a survival server with land claims and a shop economy is a couple of sentences, not an evening of reading wiki pages.

And because Orca is also an AI Minecraft mod maker, you are not limited to mods that already exist. Describe a mod or plugin in plain English and Orca writes it, compiles it, and installs it onto this same free server.

Up to 40 players, free

The free server holds up to 40 players. That is not a typo and not a slot count you buy back later: 40 is the ceiling on the free tier itself. For most groups that is the whole Discord server, the classroom, or the SMP with room to spare. Free hosts traditionally cap players hard because their free RAM is tiny; an 8 GB server does not have that problem, so we do not impose the cap. Share the address, set a whitelist if you want to control who joins, and play. If your community genuinely outgrows 40 concurrent players, that is the point where renting more RAM makes sense, and only then.

Java and Bedrock crossplay

Your friends are not all on PC, so the server should not care. Bedrock crossplay is free on every Orca plan: players on phones, tablets, and consoles join the same server as Java players, in the same world, at the same time. There is no separate Bedrock server to rent and no plugin to configure yourself; crossplay is part of the hosting. In practice this is the difference between "we play Minecraft together" and "half of us watch", because the friend who only has an iPad or a Switch gets to be in the world instead of on the call. Java players connect with the normal address, Bedrock players with the same host and the Bedrock port shown in your server panel.

Is it 24/7?

No, and we would rather tell you exactly how it works than write "24/7" in a headline. The free server sleeps when nobody is online and wakes in about 30 seconds when you start it, with the world kept. That sleep is not a dark pattern, it is the economics: hosts that promise an always-on free server pay for it somewhere else, usually with 1 or 2 GB of RAM, ads, queues, or aggressive upsells. Orca spends the budget on RAM instead. Your server is huge while you are playing and asleep while you are not, which is why free can be a real 8 GB. If you need the server up around the clock, for a public community that gets joins at 4am, that is what the paid tiers are for.

When you outgrow free, scale by the GB

Most groups never need to pay. When you do outgrow the free server, a giant modpack, a big public community, you rent more RAM by the gigabyte beyond the free 8 GB: 2 GB at $4.99, 4 GB at $8.99, 8 GB at $17.99, or 16 GB at $34.99 a month. There are no bundles of features being withheld from free; paid is more RAM, not unlocked basics. The full ladder is on the Minecraft server hosting plans page, and pricing covers everything else Orca charges for, which is a short list. Scale up when the world demands it, scale back down when it does not.

Orca's AI runs the server with you

Every Orca server, free included, comes with an AI server manageryou talk to in plain English. "Install EssentialsX." "Set difficulty to hard." "Why did it crash?" Orca runs the action on your live server and shows you what it did. It goes further than admin chores: describe a mod or plugin that does not exist and Orca writes the code, builds the jar, and installs it onto your server, all from the same chat. This is the part no other free Minecraft server hosting has, and it is not a paid add-on. The chat, the builds, and the installs are free on every account.