Nukkit

Last reviewed Sep 13, 2026 · 762 words

Before you download Nukkit, check which Bedrock version your players' devices are on. Bedrock clients on phones and consoles auto-update and cannot be rolled back, a server must speak the exact protocol version the client sends, and Nukkit has lagged the current Bedrock release for most of its life. The catalogue's "lags behind official feature parity" is the entire risk in one line: the day Mojang ships an update, a Nukkit server may reject every player until a community build catches up, and for the last few years those builds have been slow to arrive.

Why Nukkit existed and why it still gets downloaded

In 2015 there was no official Bedrock (then "Pocket Edition") server. Nukkit filled the gap with a Java server whose plugin API deliberately mirrored Bukkit, so the enormous pool of Java-edition plugin developers could write for Bedrock players with familiar classes. It was lightweight, ran on a 512 MB VPS, and had a plugin ecosystem that the official server still does not have. Those are real advantages: Mojang's Bedrock Dedicated Server (BDS) has no plugin API beyond behaviour packs and scripting, and it is a closed binary that runs on Ubuntu and Windows only.

The repository now sits under CloudburstMC, the group that maintains both Nukkit and its successor, Cloudburst Server, plus the Bedrock protocol libraries that many other projects depend on. Nukkit itself is in maintenance mode: bug fixes and protocol bumps when someone has time, around 1,400 stars, and a Discord where the honest advice is often "use something else".

Running it, if you have a reason to

java -Xms512M -Xmx1G -jar nukkit.jar

First start generates nukkit.yml (server settings, world generation, spawn protection), server.properties (name, port, gamemode, max players), and a plugins/ directory. The server listens on UDP 19132, the same port every Bedrock client tries by default, so opening that one UDP port is the whole firewall story. Plugins are JARs dropped into plugins/; the classic ones (permissions, economy, world protection, multi-world) still exist on the Cloudburst forum and on GitHub. Java 8 through 17 are the versions people report working, and the catalogue's 512 MB floor holds for a handful of players.

A small survival world for 5 players idles under 400 MB. That efficiency is genuine and is the last thing Nukkit still does better than the official binary, which wants 1 GB and a dedicated core.

The protocol treadmill is the deciding factor

Bedrock ships a minor version every 4 to 8 weeks. Each one can change the network protocol, and when it does, an unpatched server refuses new clients with a version mismatch. Java-edition servers have the same issue but their community (Paper, Purpur) patches within days. For Nukkit the wait can be weeks or never, and a family whose kids' tablets updated overnight has a dead server with no fix available. Running Nukkit in 2026 means accepting that gap or freezing every client device on a specific version, which is only possible on PC.

The two setups that dodge the problem

Official BDS in a container. The docker-minecraft-bedrock-server image downloads the current Mojang binary on start, so it tracks client updates automatically; no plugins, but no protocol gap either. This is what most Bedrock-only households should run.

A Java server with a Bedrock bridge. Run Paper and add Geyser, which translates Bedrock clients onto a Java server in real time. You get the entire Java plugin ecosystem, a server that is patched within days of any release, and Bedrock players on phones and consoles joining alongside Java players. It costs about 2 GB of RAM instead of 512 MB and a few evenings of configuration, and it is the setup I see in nearly every serious mixed-edition community.

Either one drops in behind PufferPanel or another game panel if you want a web UI for restarts and backups.

What I'd do

Nukkit only for a LAN party where every device is on a known version and I want a 512 MB server with a couple of plugins running in 5 minutes. For anything that has to survive the next client update, run BDS in Docker if plugins do not matter, or Paper plus Geyser if they do. The Java plugin API that made Nukkit attractive in 2015 is exactly what Geyser now gives you on a server that is still maintained, and that is the real successor.