How to Optimize A Minecraft Server (Boost Performance)

As you play Minecraft with your friends, you’ll notice over time how your Minecraft server doesn’t feel as smooth as it once did when first setting it up. The world that you built with your friends can suddenly feel slow, leaving you and your friends frustrated. You are starting to notice:

• Chunks are loading slower than usual;
• Players and mobs are moving in teleportation-like jitters;
• Redstone farms are not working smoothly;
• Game delays and freezes that crash your game entirely

While there are several things you can do to optimize your Minecraft server, such as switching hosting services to adjusting server settings, the many possible solutions to optimizing your Minecraft server can all be very overwhelming. In this article, you will learn how to properly optimize your Minecraft server, fix lag and boost performance.

What causes lag and poor performance?

First off, it’s important to know the causes of lag and overall poor performance for your Minecraft Server. This can help you better assess what can be the best way to optimize your server.

Some of the usual reasons why your server lags and has overall poor performance can include the following issues:

By identifying the common causes of lag and poor performance, you’ll be better equipped to apply the right optimizations. Plus, you’ll be able to take the right steps to fix your Minecraft server’s problems and keep it running smoothly.

Limit Entities, Chunks, and Redstone Mechanics

The biggest causes of lag on Minecraft servers come down to three things: entities, chunks, and redstone. By limiting how many of these are active at once, and fine-tuning how the server processes them, you can keep TPS stable.

Entities

If many players and mobs drop items that aren’t cleared, the server has to constantly track all of these dropped items. Similarly, if there are too many players or mobs within a given area, your Minecraft server can become overwhelmed with so many entities to track. 

You need to set limits for your mobs in your server’s configuration by editing a spawn-limits property on your server’s control panel files, such as a bukkit.yml, spigot.yml, paper.yml, and similar files. It also helps to use add-ons like ClearLag to clear excess items on the ground automatically.

Chunks

Chunks work in relation to your server’s RAM and CPU. They are the 16x16 block sections of the world in which your server loads and updates over time as you play. This means that if many chunks are active, it will strain your RAM and CPU. 

You can lower your View Distance so that fewer Chunks are being loaded but more about that in the next section. Another thing you can do is to pre-generate chunks using the worldborder command or the Chunky Border add-on to prevent in-game lag from exploring your world and stop players from endlessly exploring and forcing new chunk generation away from other players. 

Redstone and Hopper Mechanics

Other than that, if you and your friends are avid redstone mechanic users, you need to look into your redstone and hopper mechanic systems. A lot of automated farms can prevent your server from running smoothly. So, it helps to optimize these.

One thing you can do is to set a limit on the use of Redstone Clocks, as they can send signals nonstop, even if you don’t want them to send signals at the moment. You may also want to consider using observer-based triggers that only activate when needed to prevent server overload. 

Additionally, you can replace your hopper-based mechanics with chests, droppers, or optimized add-ons. It saves you materials and helps cut down the lag within your server. 

Editing server.properties file

Like I mentioned before, setting limits for your mobs in your server’s configuration is one of the easiest ways you can optimize your Minecraft server. First of, we have server.properties file. This determines how much your server processes everything all at once, such as view distance and tick rates, which are some of the key things that significantly impact your Minecraft server performance.

view-distance

Recommended value: 6-8

View distance is how far you can see and load the world around you on a Minecraft server. The higher it is, the more of the world shows up, but it makes the server work harder.By default, the View Distance is around 10 to 12.

simulation-distance

Recommended value: 4

Simulation distance decides how far away the world is alive. If your simulation distance is 4, anything beyond 4 chunks away will still be visible (if view distance is higher), but mobs won’t move, farms won’t grow, and redstone won’t tick there.

network-compression-threshold

Recommended value: 512

Network compression threshold compresses packets over a set size before sending to players. Higher (e.g., 512 or 1024) reduces CPU usage but increases bandwidth. Lower improves bandwidth usage but increases CPU load.

spigot.yml file (Spigot servers)

This is one of the most impactful config files to tweak for performance. Let’s go through each of those spigot.yml settings in detail so you see exactly what trade-offs you’re making:

entity-activation-range

Defines the radius (in blocks) around players where mobs are “ticking”. Default: ~32 for most mobs.

• Higher values = mobs stay “alive” at longer distances, but this burns CPU.
• Lower values = mobs freeze unless closer to a player, saving CPU.

Recommend values:

  animals: 16
  monsters: 24
  raiders: 48
  misc: 8
  water: 8
  villagers: 16
  flying-monsters: 48

tick-inactive-villagers

This setting decides if villagers keep ‘thinking’ when nobody is near them. Turning it off makes the server faster, but villagers won’t restock trades or farm while you’re far away.

Default: true → Villagers always tick, even outside activation range.
Optimization: false → Villagers behave like other mobs: they “freeze” when outside the range.

merge-radius

Merge radius defines how close dropped items and XP orbs need to be before merging into one entity.

Default: Item = 2.5, XP = 3.5.
Optimization: Increase to 3–4.

mob-spawn-range

Mob spawn range is how far from the player mobs are allowed to spawn.

Default: 6
Optimization: Lower to 4–6. This keeps mobs spawning closer to players

bukkit.yml file (All Bukkit-based servers)

A core configuration file used by Bukkit-based servers (Spigot, Paper, Purpur all inherit it). This file lives in your server’s root directory.

spawn-limits

Controls the maximum number of mobs the server targets per world.

Recommended values:

  monsters: 40
  animals: 8
  water-animals: 3
  water-ambient: 10
  ambient: 5

ticks-per

How often certain tasks run (in ticks; 20 ticks = 1s). Increasing these intervals reduces how frequently the server does expensive work.

Recommended values:

  monster-spawns: 10
  animals-spawns: 400
  water-spawns: 400
  water-ambient-spawns: 400
  water-underground-creature-spawns: 400
  axolotl-spawns: 400
  ambient-spawns: 400

Paper-world configurations

Paper configs are extra settings that Paper servers give you, letting you fine-tune how the game runs behind the scenes, like how redstone, mobs, hoppers, and chunk saving work. They make servers faster and more stable.

despawn-ranges

despawn-ranges controls how far from a player mobs are allowed to live before the server automatically despawns them.

There are two values for each mob category:

• soft: If a mob is farther than this distance and hasn’t been touched (hit, named, picked up gear, etc.), it can despawn.
• hard: If a mob is farther than this distance no matter what, it will despawn (unless it’s marked persistent, e.g., nametagged pets).

Recommended values:

  ambient:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  axolotls:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  creature:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  misc:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  monster:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  underground_water_creature:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  water_ambient:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30
  water_creature:
    hard: 72
    soft: 30

tick-rates

Minecraft runs a game tick every 50 ms → 20 ticks per second (20 TPS).A “tick rate” setting controls how often a specific task runs (spawn checks, hopper pulls, autosaves, etc.).

• Higher numbers = less often → lighter on CPU, but slower mechanics.
• Lower numbers = more often → heavier on CPU, but faster mechanics.

Recommended values:

  behavior:
    villager:
      validatenearbypoi: 60
      acquirepoi: 60
  sensor:
    villager:
      secondarypoisensor: 80
      nearestbedsensor: 80
      villagerbabiessensor: 40
      playersensor: 40
      nearestlivingentitysensor: 40

Regularly Restart your Minecraft Server

Like your computer or smartphone, a Minecraft server runs best when it’s not left running endlessly. You’ll clear running apps and end stuck processes, which are issues that contribute to the lag by closing apps or even restarting your device. 

If you restart your Minecraft server, you can give it a clean slate, freeing up resources and improving its stability.

Update and Monitor your Minecraft Server 

Minecraft, as a long-time running game, has had a lot of updates throughout the years. With each game update also comes updates for server software, plug-ins, and mods. If you don’t catch up with their updates, this can cause lag or even crashes, which affect your Minecraft server’s performance and security.

It becomes essential to check on your Minecraft server’s available updates for new versions of the game and for your installed add-ons. Consider pairing regular updates with optimization mods to better manage performance issues in real-time. You’ll be able to catch small hiccups before they grow into huge problems for your server.

Re-allocate Resources

Another way to optimize your Minecraft server is to re-allocate your resources. While it’s common practice to invest in more RAM, it doesn’t always mean you’ll get better performance. You need to find the right balance between your RAM and CPU power so your Minecraft server runs optimally.

A good rule-of-thumb you can be guided by is that Vanilla servers run pretty well with 3–4 GB of RAM. While for modded Minecraft, you might need 8 GB or more. In terms of CPU power, if you’re using a hosting provider, the CPU power depends on the host’s hardware. 

Set Community Guidelines

Lastly, performance optimization for Minecraft servers isn’t just about hardware and settings; it’s also about how your server’s players interact with each other within the server. If you don’t establish clear rules, then everything you’ve done to optimize your server won’t work at all. 

It takes cooperation from your community to keep things running smoothly, so everyone can enjoy them. By setting community guidelines, you can encourage best practices that can keep your Minecraft server fun and stable. Some examples include:

• Limiting the size of automated farms
• Discourage heavy use of Redstone Clocks
• Set distance limits for exploration and building
• Maintaining a limit on entities per player

Having community guidelines ensures that players respect the technical limits of your Minecraft server while still having the creative freedom to build, explore, and play together. 

Upgrade your Minecraft Server Hosting Plan

Sometimes lag has nothing to do with your settings, it’s the foundation your server is running on. It's normal that your server has outgrown its current setup, meaning you'll need to upgrade your Minecraft server hosting plan or switch providers.

The strength of your hosting plan goes beyond keeping the server online, as its components can directly affect how well your Minecraft world performs. Each element plays a role in the optimization of your server. Some key factors that dictate this include:

• RAM (Memory) - Stores chunks, entities, and plug-ins. Too little, and your server crashes. Too much, and resources get wasted.
• CPU Power - Having a powerful CPU means you get faster chunk generation, smoother Redstone mechanics, and stable ticks per second. 
• Storage - Reduces load times, speeds up logins, and helps with chunk generation.

Think of it as upgrading the engine of your Minecraft world.

WiseHosting: The Best Choice for Minecraft Server Performance Optimization in 2025

For reliable performance and optimization, WiseHosting has quickly become a go-to Minecraft server hosting provider for both beginners and experienced Minecraft server admins who want lag-free and expansive gameplay. 

While it’s a paid service, users can expect hardware and software tuned specifically for Minecraft, which is something generic web hosts don’t usually provide, but WiseHosting makes it possible to have an optimized Minecraft server for every type of player, from Redstone-heavy builders, massive modpack users, to small friend groups who want their own place to play. You can get just any of those servers with the help of WiseHosting’s server hosting features.

Optimized Hardware

WiseHosting uses AMD Ryzen 7 3800X, fast NVMe SSD storage, and DDR4 RAM to ensure players have a lag-free performance. These hardware features ensure that WiseHosting servers maintain high ticks per second even under immense load. You’ll get stable performance and smooth scaling for huge builds in Minecraft. 

Lag-Free Multiplayer Experience

When playing with friends from across the world, it helps to have global server locations to minimize latency and keep Minecraft servers secure from attacks. WiseHosting makes it possible for you and your friends to stay connected, maintaining consistent gameplay without random disconnection.

Smart Automation and Tools

To add to that, WiseHosting also goes beyond basic hosting by integrating management tools through its Live Player Manager. Server admins can monitor and manage players in real-time, such as viewing and checking player inventories, teleporting players, kicking, and banning them when things get chaotic in a server.

Similarly, you can also skip the hassle of manual setup for your server as WiseHosting has presets that automate functions such as daily backups, auto-installations of plug-ins, mods, and file configuration. 

24/7 Support Built for Minecraft

As WiseHosting seems to have everything you might need to upgrade your Minecraft server hosting plan, there will be times you might run into issues you can’t fix on your own. This is where its 24/7 support team comes in. The support team will help you fix your farms, troubleshoot plugins, and even join your server when necessary to resolve your Minecraft server’s issues and optimize it as needed.

Other WiseHosting Features:

• Version Changer - Switch between different Minecraft versions instantly
• Java and Bedrock Edition Servers - Host servers for both Java and Bedrock players
• Databases - Easily manage your server data with built-in database support
• One-Click Installer for Mods, Modpacks, and Plugins - Add content and customization to your server seamlessly 
• Multiple Instances - Run and manage multiple servers at the same time
• Integrated Tools - Access powerful management tools to make Minecraft gameplay efficient
• Flexible and Customized Server Hosting Packages - Choose hosting plans tailored to your needs

With these features, you’re bound to have an optimized Minecraft server for all your gaming needs. Whether that’s smooth Vanilla Minecraft with friends or a modded SMP for bigger communities, having powerful hardware, automation tools, and expert support can make your Minecraft server’s management effortless and optimized for peak performance.

Wrapping Up

Optimizing your Minecraft server doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. By understanding the root causes of your server’s poor performance and lag, you can make the necessary adjustments to make a huge difference in your Minecraft server. Whether that’s changing server properties, updating add-ons, or even switching your hosting plan, you can bring back your Minecraft server’s smooth and immersive gameplay for you and your community. 

At the end of the day, Minecraft is about creativity and collaboration. By combining technical adjustments with player-to-player cooperation, you’ll set your server up for long-term stability, smooth gameplay, and an enjoyable experience for everyone.