Hello Everyone,

Andrew here with another blog. Today, I will be discussing both the Pro's and Con's of starting your own Minecraft server. I decided to do this because whenever I go through the "Servers" page, I notice that an abundance of players are always removing/creating servers. I decided to share this blog as I have a quite fruitful experience with servers, and I wanted to share my ideas with the community.

To begin with, the pros of having your own Minecraft server. Minecraft servers are a great way to make new friends and meet new people. A Minecraft server can either be a large community of players or many small communities of players, split up into groups. Minecraft servers can make you money, if it is managed properly and if everything is smooth. Personally, I find them being very fun to set up. I love learning about new things, such as configurations and Java coding. Server management is a large and bulky task. Yet, with all the pros of having your server, come many cons.

The cons of having your own server is a large list. If you plan on having your own server with you and your friends, go for it! But if you plan on starting up a huge network, it takes a lot of commitment. To have your own network start up, it would take many months of preparation, many investors/sponsors (if you don't have the money) to start up, you need a strong host with good support, and you would need a lot of experience. As I go through the server lists on various sites, I learn that more and more people are creating servers day-to-day. I personally don't find it being useful as it takes a lot of effort for your server to get big. You need to find commited staff members, web designers, forum developpers, plugin developpers, etc. I put a bold on the plugin developpers because as we see from all the huge server networks out there like Hypixel, HiveMC, Mineplex, etc. we notice that all of these servers have their own handful of plugin developpers. It's key to have this because it allows you to virtually create anything you want for your server. If you strictly use the bukkit/spigot plugins lists, you will not be able to find the plugin(s) essential for your server's growth. Having a server will take up large amounts of your time, so you will have to put in a lot of dedication, resources, and external help to get it up and running. 

Although I personally think the cons outweigh the pros, I believe that if you want to start a Minecraft server, go for it! When I made my first server, I had a 10-player community. It was a very small server that shut down within three months. But because of this small server I was running, my knowledge on plugin development and server management continued to grow. It takes baby steps and a lot of mistakes to start up your own network, and if you think you have what it takes to be big, do it!