Minecraft Realms is a very strange type of server. To me it’s the Apple of Minecraft servers. Its customizability is low, but it always works. I have never had a Realm crash the way other servers have crashed.
Realms are hosted on Microsoft Azure servers around the globe. Global reach with proper data centers owned and operated by Microsoft mean that Realms just work. That’s the Apple philosophy that things just work, and that usually comes with the price tag.
There are two Realms plans that define Realms.
In my experience, if you have friends, then you need Realms Plus. They offer strict player caps which make medium to large servers impossible.
If you have that few of people to play Minecraft with, just make a normal world, don’t get Realms Core.
Mojang and by extension Microsoft are extremely unclear about physical servers. They don’t disclose RAM about the servers. I am unaware of any specifications about the physical servers.
There are some major advantages to having Mojang “host” your server. Control of the server is in the game and in the game, which is convenient.
Realms are designed as invite only, which makes sense. Realms seem built for friend groups and small private servers. There is no IP that players need to connect to Realms. If a small private server is your goal, then Realms is perfect.
Compared to other hosting services Realms is not very expensive, BUT other factors such as stability, ease of member management, and convenience of control being in the game makes Realms pretty awesome. I pulled some numbers from other server hosting services just for some comparison.
| Provider | Price | RAM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScalaCube | Free | 8GB | |
| ShockByte | $11.99/mo | 3GB | |
| BisectHosting | $17.99/mo | 6GB |
Now I can not attest to the quality of these servers, and as you can see servers vary greatly. How ScalaCube keeps 8GB of RAM free is beyond me. Realms at $7.99 USD/mo slots in pretty well among the others.
I currently have a 26.2 Minecraft Java server, running GeyserMC for Bedrock translation. I remember that while playing with only a few friends it was demanding 4GB of RAM. That makes me think realms allocate for Vanilla anywhere from 4GB of RAM to 8GB of RAM. No official statement, to my knowledge, has told us the exact RAM. My numbers are pure speculation.
I have used Realms in the past and enjoyed it while I used it. I had an era before I hosted Minecraft servers on my own hardware at home and I used Realms for servers. I mainly hosted Bedrock realms and I have to say they were really good. My reason for a 7/10 rating is based on my experience with servers on my own. My standards mean you have to beat me buying an old computer of sorts from eBay, putting more RAM in, and then running for free forever.
I currently have multiple physical servers set up and 2 dedicated to running game servers. For me to switch to a paid cloud provider would need to mean one of two things. The game and amount of players, or mods physically can not run at home, or that this is a big public server I’m starting which loops back to the first.
HOWEVER someone not in my position, with hardware to run servers. I can deploy a Minecraft server in a minute like it’s nothing, but that’s because of my position. For most people, who want a private, stable server for them and their friends Realms is perfect. For that kind of person I would rank this 9/10 only knocking off because of lack of mod support, where ease of use would really help. Personally I have to give Realms a 7/10 since I don’t need the major features it offers.