How to start a Minecraft SMP with friends
Published on 3 October 2026
An SMP, short for survival multiplayer, is a survival world you share with a regular group. Everyone builds, gathers and trades in the same world, even while the others are offline. To start one you need a server that’s always on, a whitelist, a few clear rules and automatic backups. Add a handful of plugins and a prank with TNT won’t end a friendship.
What is a Minecraft SMP?
Plain survival, just together. There’s no fixed goal like on a minigame server. The story writes itself: someone opens a shop, someone else builds a railway to the neighbours’ base, and after a few weeks your world has a history of its own.
An SMP works best on a server that stays online all day. That way everyone plays when it suits them, and the world is exactly as they left it the next day.
What rules work on an SMP?
A friends’ SMP doesn’t need a thick rulebook, just a few agreements everyone knows. These work well:
- Don’t steal or break what isn’t yours. Not even as a joke.
- Ask first before building right next to someone else’s build.
- PvP only when both players agree. Or switch it off entirely with
/gamerule pvp false. - No lag machines. A farm with a thousand chickens is funny until the server starts to stutter.
- Leave the world tidy. Replant trees and fill in big craters.
- Take disputes to the admin, not into your own hands.
Put the rules on a sign at spawn or in your Discord. Agree on Minecraft’s own settings too. Does everyone need to sleep to skip the night? With /gamerule players_sleeping_percentage 50, half the players is enough. Do you keep your items when you die? That’s /gamerule keep_inventory true, as explained in How to turn on keep inventory in Minecraft. Since Minecraft 1.21.11, game rules use these lowercase names with underscores.
How do you keep your SMP private and safe?
- Whitelist. Since 26.3, the whitelist is on by default for new servers. Add players with
/whitelist add name, or under Players in the game panel. - Few admins. Give operator status to yourself and at most one trusted co-admin. An operator can do anything, including by accident. Both are covered in Turn on the whitelist and add operators.
- Automatic backups. Schedule a nightly backup under Schedules in the game panel. Each server keeps 2 at a time; lock a backup from a moment when everything was fine. How it works: Create and restore a backup.
Want to go further, with permissions per group and undoing damage player by player? That’s covered in How to protect your Minecraft server from griefers.
Which plugins are useful for an SMP?
On a Paper server you install plugins from the Plugins tab in the game panel; the steps are in Install plugins on your Minecraft server. These five turn up on lots of SMPs:
| Plugin | What it does | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| CoreProtect | Logs who placed or broke which block and rolls back damage | Only sees what happens after you install it |
| GriefPrevention | Players claim their own land so nobody else can wreck it | New players automatically get a claim around their first chest |
| LuckPerms | Permissions per group, such as player, builder and moderator | You can also set it up in a web editor, with /lp editor |
| Simple Voice Chat | Talk to nearby players right in the game | Needs its own port; anyone who wants to talk installs the mod too |
| Chunky | Generates the world in advance so exploring doesn’t lag | Works best together with a world border |
Simple Voice Chat needs a port of its own. Don’t reuse your Minecraft server’s port; the developers strongly advise against it. You can add an extra port yourself under Network in the game panel, because Minecraft Java plans include one. Put that port number in port in voicechat-server.properties. See Add an extra port to your server.
Fancy a map of your world in the browser? See A live web map of your world with BlueMap. The DiscordSRV plugin links your in-game chat to your Discord server. Before you update your server, check that each plugin supports the new Minecraft version, because not every plugin is ready on day one.
Ready to start? An SMP server at CakeHosting stays online all day, from €4.95 a month, VAT included. See the Minecraft plans.
How big should your SMP server be?
For an SMP with five to ten friends and a handful of plugins, 4 to 6 GB of RAM is usually enough. For ten to twenty players, plan on 6 to 8 GB. The server size calculator works it out for your exact number of players and plugins.
On an SMP everyone heads off in a different direction, and the server has to generate every new piece of world first. That takes more effort than playing together in one place. Two things help:
- Set a world border with
/worldborder set 10000. The world is then 10,000 blocks wide, and nobody wanders off forever. - Pre-generate the world with Chunky: type
/chunky worldborderand then/chunky start. Do it at a quiet time, because it takes a while.
Still lagging? Find out what’s causing it first, with Find lag on your Minecraft server with Spark.
Often ten or more players online at once, with big farms or lots of redstone? Then Premium is worth a look. The difference is explained in Standard or Premium.
How do you give your SMP its own identity?
- A colourful MOTD. Make the line of text under your server in the server list with the MOTD maker.
- A server icon. Create the 64 by 64 pixel image next to your server with the server icon maker.
- A spawn worth coming back to. Build a village square together with the rules, a notice board and, if it’s up to us, a cake. Setting the spawn point is explained in How to set the spawn on your Minecraft server.
- Seasons. Some SMPs start a fresh world after a few months. Keep the old one as a backup so you can wander around it later. Starting over is covered in Reset your Minecraft server.
Friends on Bedrock, on a phone or tablet? They can join through Geyser: Minecraft crossplay: Java and Bedrock together. On a console that only works with a workaround, because Xbox, PlayStation and Switch only list featured servers.
