Those who run Minecraft server networks will be intimately familiar with proxy software. This software allows server owners to link multiple servers together under one unified network. In this article, we will discuss the different types of proxy software to help you decide which one to use.
Bungeecord
The original Minecraft server proxy software, Bungeecord started back in the infancy of Minecraft server networks. When people refer to Minecraft proxies, Bungeecord is the first word that comes to mind. While it was the original proxy software, today it is laden with bugs, exploits, and other issues. It gets very little attention and maintenance. For these reasons, we highly recommend against running Bungeecord proxies.
Waterfall
The team from PaperMC created Waterfall as an answer to the shortcomings of Bungeecord. Waterfall fixes all of the bugs and exploits found in Bungeecord, and is actively maintained. Waterfall also retains support for all Bungeecord plugins, so you don't have to worry about incompatibilities. It is generally stable and trusted by hundreds of the largest Minecraft server networks. It also has a few additional features, and is slightly more performant than Bungeecord.
Unfortunatey, Waterfall is being deprecated by the PaperMC team in favor of Velocity. Read on to learn more about the most modern proxy software.
Velocity
Velocity is an rapidly growing Minecraft server proxy software. The biggest difference is that it uses an entirely different plugin system that is incompatible with Bungeecord and Waterfall. Most of the major proxy plugins already have support for Velocity, so check your plugins to see if they have equivalent Velocity versions, or if they have built-in Velocity support.
Velocity is significantly more modern than Waterfall and Bungeecord, and can be up to 8 times faster. For a network with hundreds or thousands of players, this makes a huge difference on CPU and memory load, allowing more CPU time to be spent on serving players.
Conclusion
For the reasons mentioned above, we recommend using Velocity as your proxy software. If you are unable to use Velocity due to plugin incompatibilities, then Waterfall is your next-best option. Both of these proxies are supported natively on Pufferfish Host, which also includes a server splitter function that allows you to run your proxy without purchasing a separate server plan. If you're looking for hosting for your network, check out our services!