Looking for an Aternos alternative?
Free cloud hosts like Aternos are a great way to start, but they come with queues, idle shutdowns, and shared hardware. There is another way to host for free: run the server yourself, on the Android phone already in your pocket. Mineora turns your phone into a real Minecraft server with a free public address, so your friends can join from anywhere with no port forwarding.
How it compares
| Free cloud hosts | Mineora | |
|---|---|---|
| Wait in a queue to start | Common at peak times | Never, it is your phone |
| Auto-shutdown when idle | Yes, server stops | No, runs as long as you like |
| Who owns the hardware | Shared cloud servers | You do |
| Java and Bedrock crossplay | Manual setup | Automatic (Geyser + Floodgate) |
| Modpacks | Supported | One-tap install from Modrinth |
| Price | Free with waits | Free with ads, one-time remove |
Bring your world with you
Already have a world on Aternos or another host? Download it as a zip and import it when you create a server in Mineora. Your builds, players and progress come along. When you want a copy back, Backup World exports the whole world to a zip on your device.
Got an old phone in a drawer? That’s a free 24/7 server
Your phone is the server, so the server is online while the app is hosting. The trick most people miss: it does not have to be your daily phone. Any spare 64-bit Android from the last several years makes a perfect dedicated server. Install Mineora on it, plug it in, leave it on the shelf, and your world stays up around the clock while your main phone stays in your pocket.
An old mid-range phone is more capable than it sounds: it runs the same server software as a paid host, sips a few watts of power, and has a built-in battery backup that keeps your server alive through a power flicker. Mineora keeps hosting with the screen off, and you can even keep server files on an SD card. Where a paid host still wins is raw capacity for big modded servers with lots of players; for a survival SMP with friends, the drawer phone does the job for free.
New to self-hosting? Read the 5-minute guide to hosting a Minecraft server on your phone.
