Paper vs Spigot: Which Minecraft Server Software is Better in 2026?

When configuring a new Minecraft server, server owners are immediately faced with a choice: which server software (often called a "jar") should they run? For years, Spigot was the undisputed king of Minecraft servers. Today, however, Paper has become the industry standard.

But what exactly is the difference between Paper and Spigot? Should you still use Spigot? In this guide, we break down the performance, configuration, and compatibility differences.

The Short Answer

You should almost always choose Paper.

Paper is a direct fork of Spigot, meaning it contains all of Spigot's features and runs 100% of Spigot plugins. However, Paper includes thousands of performance optimizations that Spigot lacks. For the vast majority of modern servers, Paper provides significant performance benefits over Spigot.

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What is Spigot?

Spigot is a modified version of the vanilla Minecraft server software. Created as a fork of the now-defunct CraftBukkit project, Spigot was designed to improve performance and allow the installation of custom plugins.

Pros: Enormous legacy community, foundational API (Spigot API) that powers most modern plugins.
Cons: Outdated performance optimizations, struggles with modern Minecraft versions (1.18+) which are heavily unoptimized out of the box.

What is Paper (PaperMC)?

Paper (often referred to as PaperMC) is a fork of Spigot. This means the developers took the Spigot code and heavily modified it to make it faster, more secure, and more configurable.

Pros: Massive performance gains, fixes vanilla duplication glitches and exploits, highly configurable paper-global.yml settings, asynchronously loads chunks.
Cons: Patches some vanilla bugs (like TNT duping) that technical redstone players rely on. (Note: These patches can be disabled in the configuration).

Performance Comparison: Why Paper Wins

Modern Minecraft generates massive caves, complex world heights, and demanding entity AI. Spigot runs the vast majority of these tasks on a single CPU thread. When that thread gets overloaded, the server's TPS (Ticks Per Second) drops, resulting in lag.

Paper introduces asynchronous processing for many of these tasks. For example, Paper loads chunks asynchronously, meaning players flying with Elytras won't cause the entire server to freeze while the server struggles to generate new terrain.

If you are experiencing low TPS on Spigot, switching to Paper is often one of the most effective ways to improve performance. (You can verify your current server performance using our TPS & MSPT Calculator).

Plugin Compatibility

The biggest fear server owners have when migrating is: "Will my plugins break?"

No. Paper implements the entire Spigot API. Any plugin designed for Spigot will work flawlessly on Paper. In fact, many modern plugin developers explicitly state that they only provide technical support if you are running Paper, because Spigot's legacy codebase can introduce bizarre bugs.

How to Migrate from Spigot to Paper

Migrating from Spigot to Paper is incredibly simple and takes less than two minutes:

Stop your server.
Take a backup of your server files (just in case).
Delete your spigot.jar file.
Download the latest paper.jar for your Minecraft version.
Upload paper.jar to your server and rename it to whatever your startup script expects (often server.jar).
Start your server.

Paper will automatically generate its new configuration files (paper-global.yml and paper-world.yml) without touching your existing worlds or plugins.

Advanced Alternatives

Once you migrate to Paper, you might wonder if there's anything even faster. The answer is yes. If you run a SMP (Survival Multiplayer) with friends and want even more gameplay toggles, you might want to look into Purpur.

Read our complete Paper vs Purpur Guide to learn if you should take your optimization a step further.

Summary

The debate of Paper vs Spigot was settled years ago. Spigot paved the way for modern Minecraft multiplayer, but Paper perfected it. If you want a lag-free experience for your players, make the switch to Paper today.

Not sure how much RAM your Paper server needs? Use our free Minecraft RAM Calculator to find out.