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Sign up for a free account, then click New server in your dashboard. Pick a name, choose a server type (Paper is recommended for most), and your server provisions in under 60 seconds. No credit card required for the free tier.

Once provisioned, your server gets an address like yourserver.lowlight.host. In Minecraft: Multiplayer → Add Server → paste the address → Done. Click your server and hit Join. You can also copy the address from your dashboard with one click.

Share your server address. By default, anyone with the address can join. For a closed group: enable the whitelist (in-game with /whitelist on, or via the server console) and add players with /whitelist add <username>.

• Vanilla: Pure unmodified Minecraft. No plugins, no mods.
• Spigot: A lightly modified vanilla server that supports plugins (small server-side mods).
• Paper: A heavily optimized fork of Spigot — recommended for almost everyone. Same plugin support, much better performance.
• Forge / Fabric / NeoForge: Mod loaders. Required for full content mods like Create, Tinkers' Construct, or modpacks.

Open your server's settings, toggle Discoverable ON, then add a tagline, category, and longer description. Your server appears in the directory within an hour after a quick review for AUP compliance.

Eight tiers: Free (2GB), Essential (4GB), Standard (8GB), Advanced (16GB), Pro (24GB), Ultimate (32GB), Titan (48GB), Titan+ (64GB). Pick monthly, quarterly (−10%), or yearly (−20%) billing. See the full pricing breakdown →

Yes. No time limit, no card required. We may suspend servers that have been inactive (zero player logins) for 30+ days, but you get an email warning first and can reactivate anytime by logging back in.

Under UK Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013:

• 0 – 36 hours after payment: Full refund, no questions.
• 36 hours – 14 days: Pro-rated refund of the unused time.
• After 14 days: Discretionary, case-by-case.

Request a refund from your Billing page or by emailing hello@lowlight.host. Read the full policy in our Terms (5.5).

Yes, any time. Upgrades are immediate with pro-rated billing (you pay only for the time on the new plan). Downgrades take effect at your next renewal — no fees, no questions. Your server's address, players, and worlds all stay the same.

When paid plans launch, Stripe handles all payments: Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay. We never see or store your card details — everything is tokenised through Stripe. Bank transfers and crypto aren't supported.

Yes. We automatically generate VAT-compliant invoices for every payment. Download them from your Billing page at any time. If you need to add a company name or VAT number to your invoices, set that in your billing details.

Three options, fastest to slowest:

1. Deploy a bundle: Browse the bundle marketplace, find a pre-made setup, click Deploy. Done in seconds.
2. Save and reuse: If a friend's server has plugins you want, ask them to share via "Save as bundle" → use the 8-character code.
3. Manual upload: Drop JAR files into the /plugins/ folder via the file manager or SFTP, then restart the server.

All three work the same once installed. Bundles just save you the search-and-download step.

First, switch your server type to Forge, Fabric, or NeoForge in Settings (this is different from plugin servers like Paper). Then upload the mod JARs to /mods/ and restart. For full modpacks: paste a CurseForge or Modrinth modpack URL into the one-click installer.

File manager → drag and drop a ZIP of your world folder, or use SFTP for larger worlds. Place the world in /worlds/ (or the root for older versions). Then edit server.properties → set level-name=YourWorldName. Restart, and your world loads.

Automatic daily backups run on every plan. Slot count depends on plan: Free = 1 slot, Essential = 3, Standard = 5, Advanced = 7, Pro = 10, Ultimate = 15, Titan = 20, Titan+ = 25. For manual backups: Server Manager → Backups → Create now. Restoring a backup is one click.

TPS = Ticks Per Second. Minecraft is designed to run at 20 TPS — that's a "perfect" server. Below 18 you start noticing lag (mobs stutter, redstone misfires). Below 15 is rough. Check your TPS in your server dashboard. Low TPS usually means too many entities, intensive redstone, or too little RAM — try upgrading your plan or running /spark profiler to find the bottleneck.

File manager → click server.properties → edit inline → save. Restart the server for changes to take effect. Common edits: max-players, motd, difficulty, view-distance, simulation-distance, spawn-protection.

A bundle is a saved combination of plugins — e.g. a "Survival starter pack" with EssentialsX, LuckPerms, GriefPrevention, and CoreProtect. One click deploys all of them to any server, configured with sensible defaults. Browse the community marketplace at /bundles.

Two ways:

1. From a running server: Open your server in Server Manager → click Save as bundle. We capture the current plugin list, you name and describe it, done.
2. From scratch: Go to My Bundles → Create bundle → name, tags, server type, MC versions. You can add plugins by editing the bundle later.

When ON: the bundle automatically updates to the latest plugin versions as they release. We check weekly. When OFF: your bundle stays pinned to the exact versions you set. You can still trigger a manual update any time with the "Update plugins now" button.

Yes. Every bundle has an 8-character code (e.g. k4m92hx8). Share the code; anyone can import it via Bundles → Import code. Or publish your bundle to the public marketplace where anyone can find it via search.

Private (default): only you can see and deploy it. Share with friends via the 8-character code. Public: listed on the marketplace, scanned for Mojang EULA compliance, can collect reviews and ratings. Anyone can deploy a public bundle to their own server.

Open any bundle (yours or a marketplace one) → click Deploy → pick which of your servers to deploy to. We fetch the plugins directly from their sources (Modrinth, Hangar, etc.), verify file integrity, and install them. Your server restarts and the plugins are live.

Discover is the public directory of Minecraft servers running on LowLight. Players browse by category — Survival, PvP, Modded, Creative, Minigames, Anarchy — see live player counts, read reviews, and copy server addresses to join. All servers in Discover are hosted on our infrastructure with verified uptime.

Server settings → toggle Discoverable ON → add a tagline (one line summary), pick a category, write a longer description, optionally upload screenshots. Your listing goes live within an hour after a quick review for AUP compliance.

Any logged-in LowLight user can leave a 1–5 star rating and an optional text review after visiting your server. Reviews are public. You can reply to any review from your server settings. Fake or harassing reviews can be reported and removed.

We remove listings that violate Mojang's EULA (pay-to-win mechanics, gameplay-affecting purchases), our Acceptable Use Policy (illegal content, harassment, scams), or have been offline for 90+ consecutive days. You'll receive an email explaining the reason and you can appeal by replying.

Share your referral link. When someone signs up via your link and starts a paid subscription, you earn 10% of every payment they make — recurring for as long as they stay subscribed. No cap, no expiry, no gimmicks.

Earnings appear as account credit immediately after the referred user's payment clears (typically within minutes). Credits automatically apply to your next bill. Creator-tier members can also withdraw to cash — see below.

• Standard (default for everyone): Earn 10% per referral, use as credit on your own bill.
• Pro (auto-upgrade at £25 lifetime earned): Adds the ability to transfer credits to other users.
• Creator (apply on Discord): Adds cash withdrawals, custom referral slug, monthly performance reports.

Creator-tier only. Apply for Creator status on our Discord — typical requirements are a public Minecraft community, content creator status, or being an active LowLight referrer. Payouts via UK bank transfer or PayPal (international), minimum £25 balance.

Your account → Referrals. Your link is lowlight.host/r/yourusername. Creator-tier members can pick a custom slug like lowlight.host/r/youtube.

Settings → Profile for email, Security for password. Email changes require confirmation via the new address before they take effect (security measure). If you've forgotten your password, use the "Forgot password" link on the login page.

Settings → Security → Two-factor authentication. We support TOTP apps (Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, Bitwarden). Scan the QR code, enter the verification code, save the backup codes somewhere safe.

Settings → Privacy → Delete account. We use a 14-day cool-off period during which your account is deactivated but recoverable (just sign back in). After 14 days, all your data — servers, bundles, reviews, settings — is permanently deleted. We retain anonymised billing records as legally required for tax purposes (UK HMRC: 6 years).

All user data is stored in EU/UK regions (account data via Supabase EU, server data in London, UK). LowLight is UK-based and registered with the ICO (UK data protection regulator). Full details in our Privacy Policy.

Settings → Privacy → Export my data. We email you a ZIP file containing all your account data (profile, billing history, server configs, bundles, reviews) within 7 days — required by UK GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018.

• Free node (at launch): AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (96MB L3 V-cache), 128GB DDR5-5200, 10Gbit network with TCPShield DDoS filtering.
• Premium nodes (paid tiers): AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (64MB L3), 192GB DDR5-5800.

All nodes are bare metal (no virtualisation overhead). The 7800X3D's V-cache is particularly good for Minecraft — its single-threaded performance is among the best you can buy for Java servers.

London, UK. Sub-10ms latency for UK, sub-20ms for most of Western Europe, sub-40ms for Eastern Europe. North American players typically see 70–120ms. We don't currently have US or APAC regions — coming after launch grows.

Java Edition: every version from 1.8 through the latest 1.21.x. Vanilla, Paper, Spigot, Purpur, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge are all supported. Bedrock Edition isn't currently supported but is on the roadmap.

Yes — TCPShield on every plan, including free. Attacks are filtered upstream before they reach your server. You won't notice a thing.

Yes. Server Manager → Settings → SFTP credentials. Use any SFTP client (FileZilla, WinSCP, Cyberduck, or the terminal's sftp command). The web file manager works for most tasks, but SFTP is faster for large transfers.