Velocity vs Waterfall
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted game servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Velocity | Waterfall |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 62 · Good |
| Category | Game Servers | Game Servers |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Java | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, binary | bare-metal, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,260 | ★ 753 |
| First released | 2018 | 2016 |
| Replaces | BungeeCord | BungeeCord |
What are Velocity and Waterfall?
Velocity
Velocity is a modern, high-performance Minecraft server proxy that lets players move between multiple backend Minecraft servers seamlessly. It is designed for scalability and is a faster alternative to BungeeCord.
- Multi-server proxy
- High performance
- Modern plugin API
- Server switching
Waterfall
Waterfall is a fork of BungeeCord maintained by the PaperMC project that acts as a proxy connecting multiple Minecraft Java servers into a single network. It improves stability and adds fixes over upstream BungeeCord.
- Proxies multiple servers
- BungeeCord plugin compatible
- Stability improvements
- Network-wide player routing
Velocity vs Waterfall: key differences
Velocity is written in Java, while Waterfall is built with Shell. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Velocity versus MIT for Waterfall. Waterfall is the more established project (first released 2016), while Velocity arrived in 2018. Velocity has the considerably larger community, at 2,260 GitHub stars versus 753.
Why pick each one
Choose Velocity if…
- Fast and scalable
- Active maintenance
Watch out for
- Network setup complexity
- Requires multiple servers
Choose Waterfall if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Shell
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Velocity or Waterfall better?
Neither is universally better. Velocity has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Velocity and Waterfall free and open-source?
Yes. Velocity is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Waterfall under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Velocity and Waterfall with Docker?
Velocity: yes. Waterfall: yes.