Paper vs Purpur: Performance and Compatibility

When setting up a multiplayer server, strict Vanilla software simply doesn't cut it. To host a lag-free community, you need an optimized fork. The two biggest names in the industry are Paper and Purpur.

The Short Answer: Paper is the industry standard for sheer performance. Purpur is built on top of Paper, offering the exact same performance but with hundreds of fun, customizable gameplay tweaks.

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What is Paper?

Paper is a high-performance fork of Spigot. It patches massive memory leaks, optimizes entity AI, and handles chunk loading asynchronously.

• Pros: Unmatched stability, enormous community support, and patches Vanilla exploits.
• Cons: Alters some Vanilla mechanics (like certain TNT duping or bedrock breaking) to improve performance, which technical redstone players might dislike.

What is Purpur?

Purpur is a fork of Paper. It includes every single optimization that Paper has, but it adds a purpur.yml file packed with crazy gameplay toggles.

• Pros: Same speed as Paper. Allows you to ride dolphins, make phantoms burn in daylight, or change mob behavior without installing extra plugins.
• Cons: Takes slightly longer to update to the newest Minecraft version after a major release.

Need Hosting? Both Paper and Purpur are available as 1-click installs on all of our Minecraft Hosting plans.

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Which One Should You Choose?

Choose Paper if:

• You want a pure, traditional survival experience.
• You prioritize Day-1 updates on major Minecraft releases.
• You run a competitive network or minigame server.

Choose Purpur if:

• You run an SMP with friends and want fun tweaks (like riding phantoms or infinite lava sources).
• You want to modify gameplay without adding heavy plugins.

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