An anarchy anticheat shouldn't catch everything — it should catch what breaks fights and the server: CrystalAura, AutoTotem, ElytraFly, BoatFly, PacketMine, Nuker, Blink, Timer, BadPackets and BookBot. The rest is up to your rules: plenty of anarchy servers tolerate what a survival server bans on sight. So what you need here isn't a high ban count but accuracy, plus strictness you set yourself.
What makes anarchy different
Anarchy has no claims, no rollbacks and barely any moderation. Players fight with end crystals, fly thousands of blocks on elytra, break into other people's bases and probe the server itself for holes. The anticheat isn't a rules cop here — it's the line between a strong player and a program.
- Crystal PvP. Fights are decided in ticks: who places and pops a crystal first, and who has a totem of undying in hand. A cheat does it faster than any human.
- A huge world. Fast elytra or vehicle travel forces the server to load and generate chunks faster than it was meant to — and TPS drops for everyone.
- Exploits. People come to anarchy not just for PvP but to take the server down: impossible packets, bot-written books, action spam.
Which cheats matter on anarchy
Crystal PvP
CrystalAura / AutoCrystal places and pops end crystals at the target by itself — faster and more precisely than a person. It's the defining anarchy cheat, and it's also the worst covered: in our comparison none of the five popular anticheats has a dedicated check, and GrimAC only checks the hit distance to a crystal. DGuard has 8 crystal rules against it.
AutoTotem puts a totem of undying in hand 0 ticks after the last one pops. No human is that fast, and with the cheat every fight drags on forever. Next to them sit PacketMine, which mines blocks with packets, and CivBreak, which re-breaks a block instantly — say, the obsidian around an opponent.
Movement
ElytraFly gives controlled elytra flight, BoatFly / EntitySpeed flies and speeds up boats and other vehicles, and Timer speeds the whole client up. That's not only an unfair speed but load: the server has to serve new chunks faster than it's built for. Blink holds packets back and teleports the player all at once — to escape a fight or skip a trap.
The world and the server
Nuker breaks everything around at once — that's how tunnels get dug and bases get opened in minutes. BadPackets are packets an honest client never sends, and server exploits are built on them. BookBot writes books with a bot; in our comparison nobody but DGuard fully checks it — GrimAC only catches invalid books, and a bot within the limits gets through.
| Cheat | DGuard | GrimAC | Vulcan | Polar | Intave | Matrix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrystalAura / AutoCrystalplaces and pops crystals by itself | partly: no dedicated check — only the hit distance to a crystal | |||||
| AutoTotema totem in hand in 0 ticks | partly: no dedicated check — only inventory clicks while moving | partly: a check was added in 2021; today's config doesn't have it | partly: not named — only a generic inventory check | |||
| PacketMinemines with packets | partly: no dedicated check — only the order of digging packets | partly: not named — only a generic block-interaction check | partly: not named — only break time and slot switches | partly: only the digging-packet order, weighted 0 by default | ||
| CivBreakre-breaks a block instantly | partly: no dedicated check — only FastBreak timing | partly: not named — only a generic block-interaction check | partly: only clients below 1.14, never punished | |||
| ElytraFlycontrolled elytra flight | partly: not named — the simulation recreates 'most' movements | |||||
| BoatFly / EntitySpeedflies and speeds up on vehicles | ||||||
| Timerspeeds the game up | ||||||
| Blinkholds packets, then teleports | partly: no dedicated check — partly, via the experimental BadPacketsR | |||||
| Nukerbreaks everything around at once | partly: FastBreak limits the pace; the dedicated MultiBreak is experimental | partly: not named — only a generic block-interaction check | partly: not named — only the break time of a single block | partly: not named — only the generic block-breaking checks | ||
| BadPacketsimpossible packets | ||||||
| BookBotwrites books with a bot | partly: only invalid books; a bot within the limits passes |
Strictness: what to ban on anarchy
Anarchy tolerates a lot, and an anticheat that bans every odd movement will kill the server faster than the cheaters. Decide up front where your line is. For example:
- Ban for what decides fights and breaks the server: CrystalAura, AutoTotem, BadPackets, BookBot.
- Kick for movement that loads the world: ElytraFly, BoatFly, Timer.
- Flag for moderators only for anything your anarchy officially allows.
In DGuard you set a ban or a kick for each cheat feature, and evidence weights and thresholds in the config — from a soft mode to zero tolerance. A single trigger never bans anyone. Each one is evidence with a weight (VL × the rule's weight), evidence halves every day, and a ban comes only when the player reaches 400 points across three separate episodes. On a busy server where lag happens, that keeps a random lag spike from turning into a ban.
Allowed mods and binds are written into DGuard's code and give no evidence. And hidden mode — no cancelled hits, no setbacks — gives nothing away: the cheater doesn't know he's caught, so he can't tune his cheat against the anticheat while DGuard collects evidence.
What to set in the server software
The anticheat catches client cheats, but part of an anarchy's defence lives in Paper's settings. All the keys below are in config/paper-global.yml:
chunk-loading-basic.player-max-chunk-generate-rate— a cap on how fast chunks generate for a single player. The default is-1, meaning no cap; setting one reins in players racing through new land. A pre-generated world takes even more load off.packet-limiter— a per-player packet limit: by default 500 packets per 7 seconds, then a kick. It's a blunt guard against packet spam, not a replacement for checks.item-validation.book-size— book size limits (page-max,total-multiplier).unsupported-settings— by default Paper closes vanilla exploits: breaking bedrock and end portal frames (allow-permanent-block-break-exploits), headless pistons (allow-headless-pistons), duping TNT, carpets and rails (allow-piston-duplication). Some anarchy servers turn them back on for vanilla gameplay — do it knowingly: Paper doesn't officially support these settings.
Anarchy servers often run a big player count on a heavy world, so the anticheat mustn't eat ticks. DGuard runs its checks on network threads, not the server's main thread: on a live server it costs 0.03 % of one core on the main thread — 0.38 ms of a 10.9 ms tick with 121 players. More in anticheat performance.
Setting up DGuard on an anarchy server
DGuard runs on Paper and Leaf 1.21–26.3. The main version is 1.21.11: DGuard is tested on it and runs on production servers; the others are supported but haven't been checked on production servers yet. It needs the latest release of the PacketEvents plugin.
Setup is four steps: a key from the panel, PacketEvents and DGuard.jar in plugins/, the key in plugins/DGuard/config.yml, a restart. Step by step on the install page. Up to 30 players online DGuard is free, with no time limit and no card, and protection is the same on every plan. If you're on another anticheat now, don't switch blind: run DGuard next to it and compare the logs after a week — see switching anticheats.
FAQ
Does an anarchy server with no rules need an anticheat?
Yes. Even if your anarchy allows cheats in combat, the server needs protection from packet exploits, BookBot and flight that loads the world. And if fights are meant to be fair, they won't stay fair for long without CrystalAura and AutoTotem checks.
Which anticheat catches CrystalAura?
In our comparison against source code and documentation, none of GrimAC, Vulcan, Polar, Intave and Matrix has a dedicated CrystalAura check. DGuard has 8 crystal rules against it.
Will lag cause false bans?
A single trigger in DGuard never bans: a ban comes only when the player reaches 400 evidence points across three separate episodes, and evidence halves every day. Every ban comes with a report breaking down the evidence.
Can I allow some cheats on my anarchy server?
Yes. DGuard lets you set a ban or a kick for each cheat feature, with evidence weights and thresholds in the config. Ready-made anarchy settings from other owners are in the config store.
Does an anticheat catch X-Ray on anarchy?
No, no plugin anticheat can see X-Ray: the cheat only changes what the client draws. Paper's anti-xray works against it — the server never sends the client ores the player can't see. It's off by default, so turn it on in the config.