kiphost

A free server for every group of friends

Kiphost gives away small Minecraft Java servers. Here's why, how it works, and who's behind it.

Why Kiphost exists

Most people who want a Minecraft server want it for a weekend with a few friends, or a few evenings a week. Paying a monthly fee for that feels like too much, and hosting it on your own PC means nobody can play when you're not around.

Kiphost is for that group. You get a real server with its own address, plugins and files, and it costs you a few short ads instead of money.

How it stays free

The expensive part of a Minecraft server is memory, and a server holds on to its memory whether anyone's playing or not. Most servers are empty most of the day.

So Kiphost servers nap. After 5 minutes with nobody online, the server saves the world and shuts down, and its memory goes back to the pool. When someone joins, a small gateway in front of every server notices, starts it again, and tells the player to rejoin in a moment. Because only the servers people are actually playing on are running, one machine can look after many more of them.

The rest is paid for by advertising: the ads on this site, and the short ads you can choose to watch to keep your server longer.

Why servers need topping up

Every server, even a napping one, takes up storage and a spot on a machine. Servers start with 30 minutes, and each ad you watch adds 6 hours, up to 30 hours at a time and one ad an hour. A server someone cares about is easy to keep going; a server nobody comes back to frees its spot within about a day.

Who runs it

Kiphost is built and run by HEO Systems, a small team that builds and hosts web services. The servers run on dedicated machines we manage, with Paper as the Minecraft server software and Calagopus as the control panel behind the scenes.

Kiphost is not an official Minecraft product and isn't approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. Everyone who runs a server agrees to the Minecraft EULA.

What we care about

  • Your world is yours. You can download every file on your server at any time, including for 7 days after it expires.
  • No surprise costs. There's no paid plan to upsell you to and nothing to cancel.
  • Plain rules. The limits are on the FAQ and the dashboard, and they're the same for everyone.
  • Little data. We ask Discord for your username and email and nothing else. See the privacy policy.