Holograms in Minecraft: DecentHolograms, FancyHolograms

In short: DecentHolograms is the most versatile option: Paper, Spigot and Folia, pages, animations, click actions, hex colours and gradients, PlaceholderAPI placeholders, and import from HolographicDisplays, CMI and other plugins. FancyHolograms is built on display entities: scale, rotation, text background and shadow, MiniMessage formatting — but it runs on Paper and Folia only and has no pages or clicks of its own. The old HolographicDisplays is no longer developed: its repository has been archived since June 2024.

How holograms work#

Holograms used to be built from invisible armor stands with a name tag — one stand per line. Java Edition 1.19.4 added display entities: text_display, item_display and block_display. They have no hitbox, take no damage and don't collide with players, and in vanilla they can only be created with /summon. Hologram plugins usually don't spawn armor stands or display entities in the world at all — they send them to players as packets: the hologram exists only on the client, so each player can see their own text, such as their name and balance.

Hologram plugins compared#

DecentHolograms: first commands#

/dh h create spawn &aWelcome to the server
/dh l add spawn 1 &7Hi, &f%player_name%
/dh l add spawn 1 <#55FF55>Click to play</#2E8B57>
/dh p addaction spawn 1 RIGHT CONNECT:survival

• /dh h create <name> [text] creates a hologram where you stand; -l:<world>:<x>:<y>:<z> places it at given coordinates, --center centres it on the block.
• /dh l add <hologram> <page> [text] adds a line, /dh l set <hologram> <page> <line> <text> replaces one. Pages and lines count from 1.
• #ICON: <item>, #HEAD: and #SMALLHEAD: lines show a floating item or a head.
• Click actions (LEFT, RIGHT, SHIFT_LEFT, SHIFT_RIGHT) are added per page: MESSAGE:, COMMAND: (as the player), CONSOLE: (as the console), CONNECT: (to a network server), TELEPORT:, SOUND:.
• All permissions at once — dh.admin; per command — dh.command.<command>.<subcommand>.

FancyHolograms: first commands#

/hologram create text spawn
/hologram edit spawn setline 1 <gradient:#55FF55:#2E8B57>Welcome to the server</gradient>
/hologram edit spawn addline <gray>Hi, <white>%player_name%</white></gray>
/hologram edit spawn updatetextinterval 3s
/hologram edit spawn billboard center

• The type is set at creation: text, item or block. Text holograms have setline, addline, removeline, insertbefore and insertafter.
• billboard decides whether the hologram turns to face the player: center, fixed, vertical, horizontal. With fixed, set the angle with rotate and rotatepitch.
• scale, background, textshadow, textalignment handle the look; visibilitydistance sets how far away it can be seen.
• Per-line settings aren't supported — the FAQ puts it down to a display entity limitation: a differently styled line needs a separate hologram.
• linkwithnpc turns a hologram into the name of a FancyNpcs NPC — more on NPCs in NPCs on a server. All commands need fancyholograms.admin.

Gradients and hex colours#

Both plugins go beyond the 16 standard colours, but in different formats. FancyHolograms reads MiniMessage: a gradient is <gradient:#55FF55:#2E8B57>text</gradient>. DecentHolograms has its own formats: &#rrggbb, <#rrggbb>, and a gradient as <#start>text</#end>. You can build a gradient and copy it as MiniMessage or &#RRGGBB in our free gradient text generator.

Placeholders and load#

• Placeholders are parsed per viewer. In DecentHolograms %player_name% shows each player their own name — in lines, actions and animations. What placeholders are and where they come from is in PlaceholderAPI.
• Don't refresh more often than needed. In FancyHolograms updatetextinterval sets how often the text refreshes — the docs suggest it precisely for placeholders. A kills leaderboard doesn't need updating every half second.
• Placeholders inside DecentHolograms animations are off by default to avoid performance issues; allow-placeholders-inside-animations in config.yml turns them on.
• If placeholder holograms still load the server, find the culprit with a profiler — see the spark profiler.

Which one to pick#

• You need clicks, pages, animations or a Spigot server — DecentHolograms.
• Paper or Folia and good-looking text: scale, background, exact rotation — FancyHolograms, especially if your NPCs already run on FancyNpcs.
• You had HolographicDisplays — move on: /dh convert HolographicDisplays brings its holograms into DecentHolograms.

Leaderboard holograms and fair play#

Holograms often show leaderboards: kills, minigame wins, resources mined. A leaderboard is only as honest as the game behind it — one player with KillAura or an AutoClicker takes the top line in an evening. DGuard — the best anticheat for a modern Minecraft server — watches combat, movement, packets, inventory, building and the world and covers all 47 cheat types in our comparison. It gathers evidence and doesn't rush to a verdict, and you set how strict punishments are. DGuard is free up to 30 players online, with the same protection as on paid plans.

FAQ#