Free Minecraft server hosting: Aternos, Minehut, and the always-on alternative

You want a Minecraft server you and your friends can jump onto, and you want it free. Search around and two names come up again and again: Aternos and Minehut. Both are genuinely free, and both are genuinely good at what they do. There is also a third option a lot of people never realize they have: running your server, for free, on the Windows PC you already own.

This is an honest look at all three, so you can pick the one that actually fits how you and your friends play. Everything here is current as of July 2026.

How free cloud hosting works

Aternos and Minehut share the same basic idea: your server does not run on your computer, it runs on theirs, out in the cloud. That comes with a real upside. There is nothing to install, you do not need a PC that stays on, and you can manage everything from a web page on any device. If you do not have a computer you can leave running, this is a legitimately good way to play.

The catch, and the thing that surprises most people, is how these services stay free: your server goes to sleep when nobody is playing. That keeps their costs down, and it is a fair trade for free hosting. But it shapes the whole experience, so it is worth understanding before you commit.

Aternos, in a nutshell

Aternos is free. When the last player leaves, Aternos automatically stops your server. To play again, someone has to start it back up and wait in a queue while it boots, and how long that takes depends on how busy Aternos is at the time. You also get a fixed, fairly small amount of memory to work with, and mods and plugins come from a curated list built into their installer rather than the whole open library.

None of that makes Aternos bad. For a casual world you dip into now and then, it is a solid free option. It just means “always ready the second you want it” is not part of the free deal.

Minehut, in a nutshell

Minehut is also free, and on its free plan you get 1GB of memory and 10 player slots per server, with plugins available to install. Like Aternos, a free Minehut server sleeps when it is empty and wakes up when someone tries to join. Minehut recently removed an old four-hour daily time limit, which is a nice improvement, but running a server that stays online around the clock is still something their paid plans are built for, not the free tier.

So the shape is the same as Aternos: free and easy to start, with a server that rests when your friends are not actively on it.

Aternos or Minehut keeps going to sleep?

If you searched for exactly that, you are not alone. “How do I keep my server online all the time?” is one of the most common questions Aternos and Minehut players ask, and the honest answer on the free tier is: mostly, you cannot, because the sleeping is the whole point of it being free.

Here is what that feels like in practice. Your friend messages you: “server’s down.” Somebody has to open the panel, wake the server, and wait for it to boot (and on Aternos, wait out the queue too). Then everyone piles in and plays. If your group plays spontaneously, a few evenings a week, that little wake-and-wait tax adds up. It is the single most common frustration people have with free cloud hosting, and it is not a bug you can fix, it is how the free tier is designed.

The third way: run it on the PC you already own

Here is the option a lot of guides skip. If you have a Windows PC, you can host your server on your own machine, for free, and skip the sleeping entirely. That is what we built SpawnBox to do.

Because the server runs on your computer instead of someone else’s, there is no sleep timer and no queue. As long as your PC is on, your friends connect any time, instantly, the same as visiting any other server. You are not squeezed into a small memory allowance or a fixed number of player slots either, your own PC’s power is the only limit. Mods, plugins, and datapacks come from a built-in one-click browser (the full open library, not a curated shortlist), all free. SpawnBox also hands you a friendly address to share, like your-server.mc.spawnbox.app, so nobody has to memorize a string of numbers, and it backs your world up automatically. Your world stays on your PC, and it is yours.

Two honest things to know, because we would rather you pick the right tool than the one we make:

• It needs a Windows PC that stays on while your friends want to play. Cloud hosts do not need any hardware from you, and that is their real advantage. But for most families with a computer that is on in the evenings anyway, this simply means the server is there whenever anyone wants it, with none of the wake-and-wait.
• SpawnBox runs Java Edition on Windows. If the people you play with are on phones, tablets, or consoles (that is Bedrock Edition), the cloud hosts above are the better fit today. It is worth being upfront about that.

And it does not stop once the server is up. SpawnBox quietly turns running the server into part of the fun: you can watch every player live, with more than two dozen real-time stats and animated 3D avatars, free on every plan, and reach for deeper tools like a live world map when you want them. Being the person who runs the server becomes something you enjoy, not a chore you babysit.

Side by side

A quick, honest comparison of the free experience on each, as of July 2026:

	Aternos	Minehut	SpawnBox
Price	Free	Free	Free
Where it runs	Their cloud	Their cloud	Your Windows PC
Sleeps when empty	Yes	Yes	No
Wait to start a session	Yes, a queue	Brief wake-up	None
Memory (RAM)	Capped	1GB (free plan)	Your PC’s
Player slots	Capped	10 (free plan)	Your PC’s
Mods and plugins	Curated list	Plugins	Full one-click browser
Bedrock (phone/console) players	Yes	Phone, not console	No, Java Edition only
Needs your PC left on	No	No	Yes

So which should you choose?

• Pick Aternos or Minehut if you do not have a PC you can leave on, if you want pure cloud hosting you manage from any browser, or if your friends play on phones, tablets, or consoles. They are a genuinely fine, free way to get started, as long as you do not mind waking the server each time.
• Pick SpawnBox if you have a Windows PC and you want your friends to hop on any time with no sleeping and no queue. It is free too, and setup takes about the same few minutes, with none of the wake-and-wait afterward.

If you go the SpawnBox route, our step-by-step Windows setup guide walks you through it (and shows you the free by-hand method too, so you can see exactly what the app saves you). And if your friends ever have trouble connecting, our guide on tricky internet and a free fix covers the usual causes.