How long do Minecraft servers last? What our listings show

Most listed Minecraft servers that stop do it in their first months, and the ones that make it past six months tend to keep going. Of the 119 servers listed on serverlist.net at least six months ago, 59 were playable at some point in the last 30 days, and 43 were up at least 90% of the time.

Listing dates and vote records since October 2025, pings from our own pinger since 2 September 2026, all times UTC. The live figures are recalculated from our latest pings, and tables marked "first look" are dated analyses that do not change.

Forum answers say "most last a couple of months". Our listing data says that is close for small servers and wrong for the ones that get going.

Headline

Across all 212 listings we measure, 129 were playable at least once in the last 30 days and 83 were up at least 90% of the time. For listings published six months ago or more, this is the share that still runs:

50%Listings six months or older that still ran in the last 30 days

Measured 19 Oct 2026, 22:55 UTCHow we measure

Every listing on the list, by how long ago it was first published:

New listings nearly all run, but not always steadily: some sit on a free host or a tunnel to a home computer, and others go up and down on their own domains.

The survival curve

Playable 90% or morePlayable at least onceNot playable

1. Nov 202512/26
2. Dec 202518/33
3. Jan 20266/18
4. Feb 20263/11
5. Mar 20265/12
6. Apr 20268/10
7. May 20264/9
8. Jun 20269/14
9. Jul 202614/22
10. Aug 202613/16
11. Sep 202614/15
12. Oct 202612/12

Of 119 listings that are six months or older, 59 were playable at least once in the last 30 days (50%).

Measured 19 Oct 2026, 22:55 UTCHow we measure

How to read it:

• The drop happens between month one and month six. The share still running falls in the first months, then levels off.
• The oldest listings flatter the long run. Many of our first listings, from late 2025, were established servers that list everywhere at once. A server that already had players when it listed is not comparable with one that listed on its first day.
• For now this compares ages, not a curve over time. Our ping history starts on 2 September 2026, so the chart compares listings of different ages today rather than following each month's listings from launch.
• Some stopped servers are missing. Listings removed before our current system are not here, so the real share that stops is higher, by an amount we cannot measure. Removed listings are kept as records from now on.

When servers stop: first month or later

Three things we can measure directly.

Almost every new listing runs at first. 88% of listings under three months old were playable in the last 30 days. Servers end later, when the launch is over and the player list is still short.

Stops in the last six weeks. Over the last 42 days, 129 listings were playable for at least an hour on three or more days, and 19 of them have since gone at least a week without a single playable ping.

First look, 18 October 2026, for the 46 days from 2 September: of 121 listings that ran, 15 had stopped. By listing age the middle months stood out:

The 15 had been listed for anything from 12 days to almost a year when they stopped, and the middle one for 107 days, three and a half months.

The long view from votes. Our vote records go back to October 2025, much further than the pings. In the first look, 21 listings that were not running had collected at least 10 votes. Their last vote arrived a median of 42 days after listing, for half of them between 3 and 11 weeks after, and for 9 of the 21 within the first month. Players stop voting when they stop playing, so the last vote is a rough marker of when a community ended.

Put together: nearly every server starts out running, most stops come within the first six months, and in the first look servers past six months stopped at a third of the rate of the three to six month group. Six weeks and 15 stops are a small sample, so read the rates as a direction, not a forecast.

What survivors have in common

First look, 18 October 2026: the 116 listings that were at least six months old then, 60 that still ran in the 30 days before and 56 that did not.

Size told the same story more sharply. Of the 121 listings that ran in the first look's window, by how many players each averaged while it was up:

One listing is left out of this table because its reported count jumped overnight in October 2026 and we could not verify it.

These are correlations, not causes. A server that arrives with a Discord, a video, Bedrock support and players voting from day one usually had a community before it listed. Adding a Discord link does not keep a server alive. Having people who want to play does. Note what does not help: Votifier was just as common on the servers that stopped, and their descriptions were longer. Plenty of servers set up rewards, wrote a careful description and still stopped.

Why servers shut down, and how it shows

We cannot ask a server that has gone why it went, but its address tells us how. At the latest ping, the 83 listings that were not playable once in the last 30 days failed like this:

Many did not close so much as vanish: the address no longer exists, and nobody updated the listing on the way out. The reasons are familiar to anyone who has run a server: a monthly bill against a short player list, an owner with less time, staff who drifted away, a host that closed. Our numbers back the first: in the first look, 12 of the 15 servers that stopped averaged fewer than two players.

For owners: plan for month three

The data puts most stops within the first six months, and in the first look the middle stop came at three and a half months. Plan for that stretch before you launch.

1. Decide your runway in advance. Pick how long you will run even if it stays quiet, and pay for that much hosting up front if you can. Six months is a fair minimum on this data, and a decision made at launch is easier to keep than one made on a quiet Tuesday in month three.
2. Have a core group before you list widely. In the first look, of the six-month-old listings that collected 10 or more votes in their first month, about two thirds still ran, against about four in ten of the rest. That says less about votes than about people who show up. Getting your first 100 players covers how to build that group.
3. Measure the right thing. A flat average can hide a core group that keeps coming back, or one that is drifting away. Watch returning players and your busiest hour, week over week.
4. Stay joinable. A server that sleeps on a free host or runs on a home computer looks dead to a passing player. The uptime report shows how common that is, and choosing Minecraft server hosting covers what to pay for.
5. Use a season as a restart. A new season is when a small server competes best, because nobody has a head start.
6. If you stop, say so. Keep the domain for a few months with a goodbye MOTD, post in your Discord, and update or remove your listing. Players who loved the server deserve better than a timeout.

For players: when your server is gone

• Check from outside first. The server status tool shows whether a server is down for everyone, asleep on a free host or just unreachable for you.
• Ask in the Discord. Closures, new addresses and new seasons are announced there first, and a server that seems dead sometimes returns under a new name. Some owners also share the world download when they close.
• Pick the next one by its record. The mode lists sort playable servers first, and every server page shows 30-day uptime and an outage log.

How we measured

• Listing date. The day a listing was first published on serverlist.net, from October 2025 on.
• Running. At least one playable ping in the last 30 days. A ping is playable when the server answers with more than zero player slots and no placeholder text such as sleeping, offline or maintenance.
• Up 90% of the time. Playable pings divided by all pings in those 30 days, counted from the first ping for newer listings.
• Stops. Playable for at least an hour on three or more days in the last 42 days, then no playable ping in the last 7 days. One ping is not enough, because a free host's front proxy can answer as playable for a few minutes while the server behind it sleeps.
• Votes. Our own vote records since 13 October 2025, for listings with at least 10 votes.
• How servers failed. The error at the latest ping.
• Exclusions. Listings that sit on a shared hosting lobby or point at another network's address are left out, 4 of 216 public listings right now. The live figures count every other listing on its own. The first look of 18 October 2026 also counted duplicate listings of one server once.
• Blind spots. Listings removed before our current system are missing. A server can live on after leaving our list, or move to a new address with a new listing. And some closed servers reopen under another name, which this data counts as one stop and one new listing.

The ping method and the playable rule are on the methodology page. How reliable running servers are from day to day is in how reliable are Minecraft servers.