What EssentialsX Provides

EssentialsX is the most widely installed utility plugin for Paper and Spigot servers. It provides around 130 commands that cover the day-to-day needs of almost every server: teleportation with /tp and /home, player-to-player messaging with /msg and /r, economy hooks for a balance system, warps, kits, nickname coloring, a spawn command, player muting and jailing, and much more. If you are standing up any kind of community server, EssentialsX is almost certainly part of your plugin stack.

EssentialsX is a maintained fork of the original Essentials plugin, which stopped receiving updates years ago. The EssentialsX team tracks modern Minecraft versions and fixes bugs the original left behind. Always install EssentialsX rather than the old Essentials.

Downloading EssentialsX and Companion Plugins

Go to essentialsx.net/downloads.html and grab the latest stable release. There are several modules available in addition to the core plugin:

  • EssentialsX (required): the core plugin with all commands.
  • EssentialsX Chat: custom chat formatting, prefixes, and suffixes. Requires a permissions plugin like LuckPerms to show rank prefixes.
  • EssentialsX Spawn: handles spawn on first join and after death. Adds /setspawn and /spawn commands.
  • EssentialsX AntiBuild: optionally restricts building in specific worlds or for players without permission.

Most servers need at minimum the core EssentialsX and EssentialsX Spawn. Download both JARs from the same release.

Installing EssentialsX

Upload the downloaded JAR files to your server's plugins/ folder via SFTP or the panel file manager. Then restart the server fully. A reload command is not reliable for new plugins. On the first start, EssentialsX creates a plugins/Essentials/ directory containing its main configuration file config.yml and several data files.

Confirm the plugin loaded correctly by running plugins in your console. EssentialsX should appear in green. If it appears in red, check the console log for error messages, which usually point to a version mismatch or missing dependency.

Key config.yml Settings to Configure

Open plugins/Essentials/config.yml in the file editor. There are a few settings you should review before opening the server to players:

# Set your server's default locale for messages
locale: en

# Disable commands you do not want players using
disabled-commands:
  - god
  - feed

# Protect players from PvP in spawn area
spawn-radius: 16

# Economy starting balance
starting-balance: 100

# Whether players can use /tpa (teleport request)
teleport-cooldown: 3
teleport-delay: 3

The disabled-commands list is useful for removing commands you do not want any player to access, even ops. The teleport-cooldown and teleport-delay values prevent teleport abuse by requiring players to stand still and adding a delay between teleport uses.

Essential Commands Reference

Here are the most commonly used EssentialsX commands and their purposes:

/home            - Teleport to your set home
/sethome         - Set your current location as home
/warp [name]     - Teleport to a server warp
/setwarp [name]  - Create a warp at your location (op or permission required)
/tpa [player]    - Request to teleport to a player
/tpahere [player]- Request a player teleport to you
/msg [player]    - Send a private message
/r               - Reply to last private message
/kit [name]      - Claim a configured kit
/balance         - Check your economy balance
/pay [player] [amount] - Send money to a player
/mute [player]   - Mute a player from chat
/jail [player]   - Jail a player
/god             - Toggle invincibility (op/permission required)
/fly             - Toggle flight (permission required)

LuckPerms Integration for Command Permissions

By default, non-op players have access to a limited set of EssentialsX commands. To control exactly which commands each group of players can use, you need a permissions plugin. LuckPerms is the standard choice and works seamlessly with EssentialsX.

EssentialsX permission nodes follow the pattern essentials.commandname. For example, essentials.fly grants access to /fly and essentials.kit grants access to /kit. To give all players access to basic teleport and home commands, add these to your default group in LuckPerms:

lp group default permission set essentials.home true
lp group default permission set essentials.sethome true
lp group default permission set essentials.tpa true
lp group default permission set essentials.tpahere true
lp group default permission set essentials.msg true
lp group default permission set essentials.r true

EssentialsX Chat also reads prefix and suffix metadata from LuckPerms groups. Set a prefix on your moderator group with lp group moderator meta set prefix "&c[Mod] &f" and the chat formatter will show it automatically.