15 Essential Paper Plugins Every Minecraft Server Should Run
Table of Contents
A clean Paper install is a blank canvas. It runs Minecraft well — better than vanilla — but it doesn’t do much beyond that. No permissions, no land claims, no chat formatting, no protection against the first griefer who walks in. You add plugins.
The Modrinth catalog has over twenty thousand of them. Most you’ll never need. This list is the fifteen that, in some combination, end up on the majority of well-run public Paper servers — and the specific problem each one solves.
Each plugin is installable through the Mods tab in your Witchly server’s manage page (the in-browser plugin installer, no SFTP needed), or by dropping the JAR into /plugins manually.
The non-negotiables
These three appear on essentially every public server. Without them you’re either painting yourself into a corner or asking for trouble.
1. LuckPerms — permissions
The de-facto permissions plugin. Manages groups, users, inheritance, and per-world permissions through an in-game UI or web editor. Every other plugin that asks “does this player have permission to do X?” goes through LuckPerms.
Why you need it: Without a permissions plugin, every player is either op or not. Op gives full creative-mode authority over the server. There’s no middle ground. LuckPerms gives you that middle ground: Builder, Moderator, VIP, Default — whatever structure you want.
Source: Modrinth → LuckPerms.
2. EssentialsX — the swiss-army command pack
/home, /warp, /spawn, /tpa, /msg, /kit, /economy, /back, /help, AFK detection, motd, mute, jail. Hundreds of commands that vanilla Minecraft conspicuously lacks. EssentialsX is the package that makes a server feel like a server instead of a sandbox.
Why you need it: The first time a player asks “how do I get back to spawn?” you’ll wish you’d installed it. The second time you’ll install it.
Source: Modrinth → EssentialsX.
3. CoreProtect — block logging and rollback
Logs every block placement, break, chest interaction, and explosion to a SQLite database, with player and timestamp. When (not if) someone grief-bombs your server, you select the area, choose a time window, and roll it back. Five seconds of work undoes hours of damage.
Why you need it: Backups restore everything. CoreProtect lets you restore just the griefed area, surgically, without rolling back legitimate builds done in the same window.
Source: Modrinth → CoreProtect.
Land and area protection
Public servers without these get griefed within the first 48 hours. Private friends-only servers can usually skip them.
4. WorldGuard
Region-based protection. Define a cuboid around spawn, mark it build deny, and now nobody can break a single block there. WorldGuard regions support nested permissions, region groups, flags for PvP, mob spawning, fire, explosions, and more.
Source: Hangar → WorldGuard. Requires WorldEdit as a dependency.
5. WorldEdit
WorldGuard’s required dependency, and a powerful in-game terrain editor in its own right. //pos1, //pos2, //set stone, //replace dirt grass. Build a cathedral in a minute, then save the selection as a schematic.
Why you need it: Even if you don’t use the editing features, you’ll need it for WorldGuard. They’re separate plugins maintained by the same team.
Source: Hangar → WorldEdit.
6. GriefPrevention (alternative to WorldGuard)
If WorldGuard’s region system feels too admin-heavy, GriefPrevention gives players themselves the tools to claim land. A player creates a claim with a golden shovel; nobody else can build there. Trust permissions are managed in-game.
Why pick this over WorldGuard: WorldGuard is for admin-defined zones. GriefPrevention is for player-claimed land. Most large survival servers run both — WorldGuard for spawn and event areas, GriefPrevention for player builds.
Source: Modrinth → GriefPrevention.
Performance and diagnostics
These don’t add features. They keep the server fast and tell you why it’s slow when it’s slow.
7. Chunky — pre-generation
Generates chunks in advance so players don’t trigger world generation when they walk into new territory. World gen is the single biggest cause of mid-gameplay lag spikes. Pre-generate a 5,000-block radius around spawn at startup and you’ve eliminated the most common lag source for the first months of a server’s life.
We have a whole post on this — see Pre-generating Minecraft worlds with Chunky (covered as Step 4 of the optimization guide).
Source: Modrinth → Chunky.
8. Spark — profiling
When TPS drops and you don’t know why, Spark tells you exactly which plugin, function, or chunk is responsible. Records a sample profile, gives you a shareable web link with a flame graph, and you can see “BlockListener#onBlockBreak in PluginX is consuming 23% of tick time.” Then you know what to fix.
Why you need it: Performance complaints are useless without measurement. Spark is the measurement.
Source: Modrinth → Spark.
9. ViaVersion (+ ViaBackwards)
Lets clients on different Minecraft versions connect to one server. Without ViaVersion, your 1.21 server only accepts 1.21 clients. With ViaVersion + ViaBackwards, the same server accepts 1.20, 1.19, and most older clients seamlessly.
Why you need it: Every Minecraft update fragments your player base. ViaVersion glues it back together with zero config.
Source: Hangar → ViaVersion.
Chat, social, and integrations
10. PlaceholderAPI
A framework, not a feature. Other plugins use PlaceholderAPI to expose variables (player balance, faction name, online time) that you can drop into chat formats, scoreboards, MOTDs, or tab lists. If you install any chat/scoreboard plugin worth using, it’ll list PlaceholderAPI as a dependency.
Source: Hangar → PlaceholderAPI.
11. DiscordSRV — Discord ↔ Minecraft chat bridge
Mirrors your in-game chat to a Discord channel and back. Players in Discord see what’s said in-game; messages in the Discord channel show up in-game with their Discord name. Also handles join/leave broadcasts, death messages, role sync, and console-channel relay.
Why you need it: Half your community lives in Discord. This connects the two halves.
Source: Modrinth → DiscordSRV.
12. Simple Voice Chat — proximity voice
Adds proximity voice chat to vanilla Minecraft. Players install the matching client mod (Fabric or Forge); the server-side plugin handles voice routing. Works with vanilla clients too via Voice Chat Interconnect. Distance-based volume, voice groups, push-to-talk — all in.
Why you need it: Voice chat over Discord forces players into a separate app. Proximity voice keeps everything in-world and dramatically changes the feel of a survival server.
Source: Modrinth → Simple Voice Chat.
Cross-platform and accessibility
13. Geyser (+ Floodgate)
Lets Bedrock Edition players (mobile, console, Windows 10/11 store) connect to your Java server. Geyser does protocol translation; Floodgate handles authentication for the Bedrock clients (since they don’t have Microsoft Java accounts).
Why you need it: Adding Geyser + Floodgate roughly doubles your potential player base overnight, especially on family/friend servers where one person is on a Switch and the rest are on PC.
Source: Hangar → Geyser, Hangar → Floodgate.
World tools
14. Dynmap (or BlueMap) — live web map
Renders your world as a Google-Maps-style web map that updates in near-realtime. Players (and you) can pan and zoom around the entire world from a browser. BlueMap is the modern alternative — better looking, 3D, slightly heavier on CPU during render.
Why you need it: New players orient themselves on a web map far faster than wandering in-game. Also great for showing off builds to people who don’t play.
Source: Modrinth → Dynmap or Modrinth → BlueMap.
15. Multiverse-Core — multiple worlds
Lets you run additional worlds on one server with per-world permissions, gamemodes, and teleport portals. Useful for: minigame worlds, creative worlds alongside survival, separate nether/end management.
Source: Hangar → Multiverse-Core.
What we deliberately left out
A few popular plugins we didn’t include, and why:
- AuthMe — only needed for offline-mode (cracked) servers. Most public-facing servers run online-mode, where Mojang/Microsoft handles authentication.
- Vault — historically a required economy bridge, but EssentialsX now provides its own economy that most plugins target directly. Install Vault only if a specific plugin asks for it.
- ProtocolLib — a low-level packet library, only needed as a dependency for specific plugins. Install when something asks for it, not preemptively.
- mcMMO / Jobs / Towny — these are gameplay-altering plugins, not infrastructure. Whether to install them depends on the server you’re trying to build. They’re great, just not “essential.”
How to install on a Witchly server
- Open your server’s manage page in the dashboard
- Go to the Mods tab — the installer searches Modrinth, Hangar, and CurseForge in one query
- Pick the right version for your Minecraft version (the installer pre-filters compatible builds)
- Click Install. The JAR drops into
/pluginsand the server queues a restart - After restart, look in the Console tab to confirm the plugin loaded without errors
For plugins not in any of the three sources (rare), download the JAR manually and drop it into /plugins via the Files tab or SFTP. The Mods tab only appears on Minecraft and Hytale servers — other game types install plugins/mods via the file manager.
Wrapping up
Plugin sprawl is real. Servers with eighty plugins are usually three plugins of value buried under seventy-seven dependencies and abandoned utilities. Start with this fifteen, add only what you genuinely need, and remove anything you haven’t used in a month.
For deeper performance work after you’ve got your plugin set:
- Optimizing your Minecraft server for maximum performance — the technical optimization guide
- Why your Minecraft server won’t start — debugging plugin conflicts and startup failures
- Forge, Fabric, and Paper modding explained — when to switch off Paper entirely