Compare

There are three other ways to do this.

All of them are reasonable, and two of them are cheaper. Here is what each one actually gives you, so you can tell whether the difference is worth $12 a month.

No price lists below. They change by region and by month, and a comparison that quotes somebody else's number is wrong within a quarter. What does not change is the shape of the thing.

A Realms-style hosted world

A world hosted by the people who make the game. Nothing to set up, a small number of slots, and it stays up when you log off.

What is good about it. Genuinely the easiest thing there is. If all you want is somewhere for a few people to play vanilla, it is hard to beat.

Where it stops. It is vanilla and it stays vanilla. No mods, no plugins, no datapacks, and nobody in it who can build you anything. An empty map is an empty map until somebody places every block by hand.

A rented server from a hosting company

You pay for RAM and a control panel. Install what you like: plugins, datapacks, mods, whatever you can configure.

What is good about it. Total control, and the market is competitive enough that it is cheap.

Where it stops. You are now a server administrator. Somebody has to choose the plugins, keep them on the right version, and fix it at 9pm on a Sunday when a kid says it is broken. The AI in this market lives in the billing panel, not in the game.

A free AI companion mod

A mod, or a desktop app, that puts an AI character into your game.

What is good about it. Free, and some of them are clever. Worth a look if you are technical and playing on your own.

Where it stops. Everybody who wants to see it has to install it, on the right version, on their own machine — which in practice means it is a single-player toy. Nothing it does survives you closing the laptop, and the ones that generate code warn you not to point them at a server other people are on.

Side by side

The differences that are actually differences.

	A Realms-style hosted world	A rented server from a hosting company	A free AI companion mod	Cubelings
Friends join with unmodified Minecraft	yes	yes	no	yes
World stays up when you log off	yes	yes	no	yes
Nothing for you to configure	yes	no	no	yes
Something in the world that builds what you ask for	no	no	sort of	yes
New games written and loaded while you play	no	sort of	no	yes
It checks its own work and tells you	no	no	no	yes
Name it, skin it, set how it behaves	no	no	sort of	yes
Take the whole world with you if you leave	sort of	yes	yes	yes

● yes ◐ sort of, with conditions — no

Being straight about it

When one of the others is the right answer.

You only want somewhere to play vanilla with three mates. Get a Realms-style world. It is cheaper and it is enough.
You enjoy running a server. Rent one. Genuinely — plenty of people like choosing the plugins, and you will get more control than we give you.
You play on your own and you are happy installing things. The free mods are free. Try one.

Cubelings is for the case none of those cover: a world that is always there, that everybody can join with the game they already own, with something in it that builds what you describe and writes new games on request — and nobody has to administer any of it.

See what it has built →

Be in the first worlds.

We are opening a small number to begin with. Put your name down and we will tell you when yours is ready.