DGuard
Start for free

Best Minecraft survival server plugins in 2026: claims, economy, jobs

A survival server rests on three things: builds are protected, money means something, and players have something to do for weeks. Here are the plugins for each job — claims, homes, shops, an auction house, jobs, skills — in one table with facts from their official pages, a short card per plugin and a starter set.

The DGuard team9 min read

In short: claims — GriefPrevention (simple, golden shovel) or Lands (lands, nations, wars); homes and teleports — EssentialsX; economy — EssentialsX with the Vault bridge; shops — QuickShop-Hikari or ChestShop; auctions — Auction House Plugin; jobs — Jobs Reborn; skills — mcMMO or AuraSkills. Logging with rollback is CoreProtect, X-Ray is handled by Paper's built-in anti-xray, plus backups and an anticheat. The backbone every server needs — permissions, logging, versions — is in best server plugins.

Survival plugins compared

JobPluginPlatformsLicense and access
Player land claimsGriefPreventionPaper, Spigot, PurpurGPL-3.0
Claims, nations, warsLandsnot stated in the docsnot stated in the docs
Claims across a networkHuskClaimsSpigot, Paper, Fabriccode under Apache-2.0, official builds are paid
Admin regionsWorldGuard + WorldEditPaper, Spigot, FoliaLGPL-3.0 and GPL-3.0
Homes, warps, teleports, economyEssentialsXPaper, SpigotGPL-3.0
Homes and teleports across a networkHuskHomesPaper, Spigot, Folia, Fabric, SpongeApache-2.0
Economy bridgeVault or VaultUnlockedVaultUnlocked: Paper, Spigot, FoliaLGPL-3.0 for both
Chest shopsQuickShop-HikariPaper and forks, FoliaAGPL-3.0
Sign shopsChestShopPaper, Spigot, FoliaLGPL-2.1
Villager shopsShopkeepersBukkit, SpigotGPL-3.0
Auction houseAuction House PluginPaper, Spigot, FoliaGPL-3.0
JobsJobs RebornSpigot, Paper; needs CMILibsource code on GitHub
RPG skillsmcMMOSpigot, Paperpaid (SpigotMC, Voxel)
RPG skillsAuraSkillsPaper, Spigot, PurpurGPL-3.0
Block logging and rollbackCoreProtectPaper, Spigot, FoliaArtistic-2.0
X-Ray protectionanti-xraybuilt into Paper—
BackupsBackuperPaper, Purpur, FoliaMIT
AnticheatDGuard + PacketEventsPaper, Leaf 1.21–26.3free up to 30 players online
By job — not a ranking. Data from each plugin's official page (Modrinth, GitHub, the authors' sites) as of October 2026; links are in the sources. Versions change often: check the plugin version against your server version before installing.

Each plugin in brief

Claims: GriefPrevention, Lands, HuskClaims

  • GriefPrevention — claims players make themselves: the first appears around a new player's first chest, the rest are drawn with a golden shovel, no commands needed. Runs on Paper, Spigot, Purpur and other CraftBukkit derivatives. Commands and setup are in grief protection.
  • Lands — lands made of chunks with members and roles, nations, wars with capture flags, banks, taxes and upkeep. basic-mode switches off wars, nations and taxes if all you want is claims. It can import claims from GriefPrevention, WorldGuard, Towny and other plugins.
  • HuskClaims — golden-shovel claims with chat menus, customizable trust levels and trust for LuckPerms groups; claim blocks and claim lists can be managed across a server network. It imports claims from GriefPrevention. The source is open (Apache-2.0), while official builds and support are paid, through Spigot, Polymart and BuiltByBit.
  • WorldGuard — not player claims but admin-drawn regions: spawn, market, arenas. It needs WorldEdit — see WorldGuard.

Homes and teleports: EssentialsX, HuskHomes

  • EssentialsX — /sethome and /home, /warp, /tpa and /tpahere, /back, /afk, kits and a built-in economy with /pay, /sell and /worth. It's on almost every survival server — see EssentialsX.
  • HuskHomes — homes, warps, public homes, /tpa and /rtp with chat menus. With a MySQL database it works across a proxy: a player sets a home on one server of the network and teleports to it from another.

Economy and shops: Vault, QuickShop-Hikari, ChestShop, Shopkeepers, auctions

One provider plugin holds the money (EssentialsX, for example), and the rest find it through the Vault bridge or its fork VaultUnlocked — how to wire it up and keep inflation in check is in server economy.

  • QuickShop-Hikari — a shop in a chest: click, type a price, done. It handles items with NBT and enchantments, taxes, H2 or MySQL storage, and rolls back a trade if the inventory or money operation fails. It needs Minecraft 1.20+, Vault and an economy plugin; recent versions no longer support Spigot — use Paper or a fork.
  • ChestShop — the classic chest-and-sign shops, around since 2011. Works with almost any economy through Vault.
  • Shopkeepers — villager shopkeepers: admin shops with infinite stock and player shops that pull stock from a container.
  • Auction House Plugin — an auction house on /ah: buy-it-now listings and bidding, with listing limits by permission. It needs Vault (VaultUnlocked on Folia) and an economy plugin.

Jobs and skills: Jobs Reborn, mcMMO, AuraSkills

  • Jobs Reborn — professions that pay for normal play: miner, farmer, hunter, builder, fisherman and more. Money and experience for breaking and placing blocks, kills, fishing, crafting; levels, daily quests, sign leaderboards. It needs the CMILib library; Spigot and Paper are officially supported.
  • mcMMO — an RPG plugin since 2011: combat, gathering and crafting skills, a super ability for every skill, plus parties and leaderboards. Its site lists Minecraft 1.20.5 and newer, compatible with 26.2. It's paid: sold on SpigotMC and Voxel.
  • AuraSkills (formerly Aurelium Skills) — skills and stats, mana, a /skills menu, level-up rewards, leaderboards and MySQL for cross-server sync. Free, GPL-3.0.

Logging, X-Ray and backups

  • CoreProtect records who placed and broke each block and who took what from chests, and rolls griefing back with one command — see CoreProtect.
  • Anti-xray in Paper hides ores from X-Ray and is off by default: anticheat.anti-xray.enabled: true in config/paper-world-defaults.yml. Modes and block lists are in X-Ray protection.
  • Backuper makes scheduled backups — locally and to FTP, SFTP, WebDAV or Google Drive — and keeps a set number of archives. What to copy and where to keep it is in server backups.
  • Chunky pregenerates the world before launch so new chunks don't tank TPS — see pregenerating the world.

Which to pick for your server

If you needLook atWhy
Simple claims without commandsGriefPreventionClaims are drawn with a golden shovel; the first appears around the first chest
Lands, nations and warsLandsNations, wars, banks and taxes; basic-mode turns the extras off
Several survival servers behind a proxyHuskClaims, HuskHomesClaims and homes work across the whole network
Free and open sourceGriefPrevention, EssentialsX, QuickShop-Hikari, ChestShop, AuraSkillsGPL, AGPL and LGPL licenses are stated on their pages
A market without adminsQuickShop-Hikari or ChestShop plus an auction housePlayers trade with each other, not only with the server
Long-term progressionJobs Reborn and mcMMO or AuraSkillsJobs pay money, skills give a goal for months
Picks based on what the plugins state about themselves, not on our own testing

A starter set for a survival server

  1. 1

    Permissions and anticheat

    LuckPerms, the latest PacketEvents release and DGuard — before launch, while the server is empty.

  2. 2

    Build protection

    GriefPrevention or Lands for players, WorldGuard for spawn, CoreProtect for rollbacks.

  3. 3

    Commands and money

    EssentialsX with Vault: homes, teleports, balances. Then one shop plugin and, if you want it, an auction house.

  4. 4

    Something to do for months

    Jobs Reborn for income and mcMMO or AuraSkills for progression — one plugin per job.

  5. 5

    World and backups

    Turn on Paper's anti-xray, pregenerate the world with Chunky and set up daily backups.

An anticheat for survival: DGuard

A survival economy breaks not only from dupes but from mining cheats: Nuker and FastBreak flood the server with resources, AutoFish and AntiAFK farm with nobody at the keyboard, and jobs and skills lose their meaning. DGuard — the best anticheat for a modern Minecraft server — checks all 47 cheat types in the comparison on every front at once: combat, movement, building, inventory, packets and the world. It runs on Paper and Leaf 1.21–26.3; the main version is 1.21.11, and the other versions are supported but not yet proven on live servers.

CheatDGuardGrimACVulcanPolarIntaveMatrix
Nukerbreaks everything around at oncepartly: FastBreak limits the pace; the dedicated MultiBreak is experimentalpartly: not named — only a generic block-interaction checkpartly: not named — only the break time of a single blockpartly: not named — only the generic block-breaking checks
FastBreakbreaks faster than possiblepartly: not named — only a generic block-interaction check
FastPlaceplaces blocks too oftenpartly: only several blocks in a tick, via an experimental checkpartly: not named — only a right-click CPS limitpartly: only with timing checks on — off by default
XCarrycarries items in crafting slotspartly: not named — only a generic inventory check
AutoFishfishes by itself
AutoEateats by itself
AntiAFKfakes a player at the keyboard
Mining and automation cheats: which anticheats have a full checkAll 47 kinds of cheats in the comparison

One flag doesn't ban anyone: DGuard collects evidence and takes its time over a verdict, and you set the strictness — from a kick to a ban per cheat feature. How to set a gentle mode for regular players and what to do with a cheater's loot after the ban is in anticheat for survival. DGuard is free up to 30 players online, with the same protection as the paid plans.

FAQ

What plugins does a survival server need?

Claims (GriefPrevention or Lands), homes and teleports (EssentialsX), an economy with the Vault bridge, shops (QuickShop-Hikari or ChestShop), logging with rollback (CoreProtect), Paper's anti-xray, backups and an anticheat. Jobs and skills are optional.

GriefPrevention or Lands for claims?

It depends on the mode. GriefPrevention gives simple golden-shovel claims. Lands adds roles, nations, wars and taxes; if you only want claims, its basic-mode turns the rest off.

Is mcMMO free?

No — according to its official site, mcMMO is sold on SpigotMC and Voxel. A free, open-source alternative is AuraSkills (GPL-3.0): skills, stats, mana and leaderboards.

How do I protect a survival server from X-Ray?

Turn on Paper's built-in anti-xray: anticheat.anti-xray.enabled: true in config/paper-world-defaults.yml. Anticheat plugins can't see X-Ray, and players who already used it are found through CoreProtect logs.

Which anticheat should a survival server use?

One that catches mining and automation cheats as well as combat: Nuker, FastBreak, AutoFish, AntiAFK. DGuard has a check for each, and it's free up to 30 players online.

Sources

Read next

All sections
Server protection6 min readAnticheat for survival / SMP: economy, X-Ray and automationOn survival a cheater doesn't just win — he wrecks the economy: Nuker and FastBreak inflate resources, AutoFish and AntiAFK farm with nobody at the keyboard, and the leaderboards stop meaning anything. Here's which cheats hurt an SMP, what an anticheat catches, what server settings take care of, and how to set gentle strictness for casual players.ReadPlugins8 min readEssentialsX: core server commands — modules, permissions and setupEssentialsX is a free suite of core commands for Paper and Spigot: homes, warps, teleport requests, kits, economy, private messages and moderation. The main jar does most of it; chat, spawn and Discord come as separate modules. The key step after installing is giving players permissions through LuckPerms.ReadServer protection7 min readGrief protection: regions, claims and rollbacksNo single plugin stops griefers — a system does: regions and claims stop the damage, block logs find the culprit and roll it back, and permissions and backups cover the worst case. Here's each piece, with commands checked against the docs, and what an anticheat adds.Read

Run the best anticheat for modern Minecraft

DGuard catches all 47 kinds of cheats in our comparison — the closest rival, Intave, has 27. Full protection on every plan, free up to 30 players online.

Protect your server for freeLook inside the panel