You want to play Minecraft with friends and you do not want to pay for a server. Aternos and Minehut are the two names that come up most often. They are both genuinely free, they have been around for years, and they work. But they are built very differently, and which one is right for you depends on how many players you have, what kind of server you want, and how much waiting you are willing to accept.
This comparison covers the things that actually matter day to day: hardware, queue wait times, player limits, and plugin support. There is also a third option worth knowing about at the end.
How Each Service Works
Aternos is a purely web-based service. You create a server through their site, pick a version, add plugins or modpacks, and start it. The setup process is fast and beginner-friendly. Aternos runs thousands of servers on shared infrastructure, keeping costs down by only running servers that have active players on them.
Minehut works similarly at a high level, but it has its own Minecraft network as the entry point. You can log in to the Minehut network from inside Minecraft and create or join servers directly from there. That in-game launcher is a nice touch for players who want to discover other servers, not just run their own.
Both services are ad-supported on the free tier, and both offer paid upgrades if you need more resources or priority access.
Hardware and Performance
Neither Aternos nor Minehut publishes exact hardware specs for their free tier servers. Based on community reports and testing, both run on shared virtual machines. Free tier servers on Aternos typically get limited RAM (around 4 GB, sometimes less depending on load) and CPU time that is shared across many concurrent servers. This is fine for vanilla Minecraft with a handful of players, but it shows under load: chunk generation is slow, and anything CPU-intensive like large Redstone contraptions or heavy plugin processing can cause lag spikes.
Minehut is in a similar position. The free tier allocates modest resources, and because Minehut servers run persistently once started (rather than shutting down immediately when empty), the shared pool is stretched further at peak hours.
If raw performance matters to you, both services are limited by the nature of shared hosting.
Queue vs Sleep
This is where Aternos stands out for better or worse. Aternos servers sleep automatically when no players are online, and they wake up when someone tries to connect. The catch is that waking a server goes through a queue. During off-peak hours, the queue might be a few seconds. During peak evening hours, you can wait several minutes before your server actually starts. Players who try to join during that window get a "server is starting" message and have to wait or come back.
Minehut handles this differently. Free Minehut servers are kept running as long as you need them active, but they shut down after inactivity and require a manual restart from the dashboard. There is no automatic wake-on-join for inactive servers.
For comparison, NetSkyway uses a hibernation system that sits in a different category entirely. Servers pause when empty, and wake under a second when a player connects. Because the server is only sleeping rather than fully shut down, there is no startup queue. The player connecting to a hibernated server sees a brief "Logging in..." screen and then lands in the game without ever needing to reconnect.
Player Limits
Aternos does not impose an explicit player cap on the free tier, but in practice the RAM allocation limits how many concurrent players a server can comfortably handle. For vanilla survival, 10 to 20 players is realistic. Push further and you will start seeing performance issues before hitting any formal limit.
Minehut caps free tier servers at 10 players. It is clearly stated and enforced. If your group is under 10 people, this is fine. If you want more, you need a paid plan.
NetSkyway does not apply a player cap and does not throttle free servers based on player count. The limits are the server's allocated RAM and the egg configuration, both of which are set generously for typical use cases.
Plugin Support
Aternos has one of the best plugin libraries of any free host. You can install Bukkit, Spigot, and Paper plugins directly through the Aternos panel, and they support a large catalog of modpacks through CurseForge and Feed the Beast. If you want a modded server, Aternos is strong here.
Minehut supports Spigot and Paper plugins as well, with a curated marketplace of plugins you can install in one click. The selection is smaller than Aternos but covers most popular plugins. Minehut does not support modpacks on the free tier.
NetSkyway gives you full file access through the panel and SFTP, so you can install any plugin, datapack, or mod manually. There is no curated marketplace, but there is also no restriction on what you can upload and run.
The Verdict
Aternos is the better pick if you want a modded server or if you value a large one-click plugin library. The setup process is fast, and the modpack support is hard to beat at a free price point. The queue is the main trade-off, and it is genuinely annoying during peak hours. For a broader look at all your free options, see the best Aternos alternatives roundup.
Minehut is a better fit for small groups of under 10 players who want a clean, simple experience. The in-game server browser is a nice feature, and the interface is polished. The 10-player cap is the hard limit that will push you away if your group grows.
If hardware quality and instant wakes matter most, NetSkyway runs on dedicated bare-metal machines with Intel i9-13900K and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processors, DDR5 RAM, and NVMe storage. Servers are available globally, not just in the US. To learn more about how it compares to the major free hosts, see the best free Minecraft hosting comparison. To get started, read how to get a free Minecraft server and request yours on Discord at discord.gg/QXKNwaWVJ2 in the #request-server channel.