The Vanilla game is the original, untouched, unmodified Minecraft server created and distributed directly by Mojang. You can build and play with anyone who loves to survive or create. Building on the Vanilla game play would be a great example of what hard work and the imagination can achieve.

CraftBukkit is lightly modified version of the Vanilla software allowing it to be able to run Bukkit plugins. CraftBukkit prides itself to be able to offer many configurable features that Vanilla simply doesn’t have. If you like having the ability to run Bukkit plugins, this is your type of server!

Spigot is the newer Minecraft server software in the world. Spigot is a modified version of CraftBukkit. You can try configuration of many internal server values such as crop growth rates, hunger, entity tracking, map seeds. It comes with some useful API additions for developers so you can build the server you desire.

Forge is well known for being able to use Mods that can change the game drastically. Forge Mods are modifications to the Minecraft code while Plugins are modifications that use the already-coded Minecraft properties to perform certain functions. For this very reason, Forge Mods generally require the Client to have to same Mods as the Server. This is where Plugins become advantageous, they do not require changes to the client-side.