How to play Minecraft with friends: every method, honestly compared

"How do I play Minecraft with my friend" has seven honest answers, and they trade off against each other in different ways: cost, whether your PC has to stay turned on, how many people can join, and whether mods work. Most pages that rank for this question push one answer, usually a paid host, because that is what pays them. This page compares all seven straight, including the free ones, so you can pick the one that actually fits how you and your friends play.

The comparison, up front

If you read nothing else, read this table.

Setup difficulty and who each one suits, in one line each:

• LAN: trivial. Same room or house, one evening.
• Realms: trivial. Friends who want it to work without anyone administering it.
• Port forwarding: moderate, you need router access. Fine if you are comfortable in a router admin page and your PC is on anyway.
• Tunnelling: easy. The answer when you cannot get at the router, for example on student halls or a landlord's wifi.
• Free hosting: easy. Two friends, weekend sessions, willing to wait out a queue.
• Paid hosting: easy to moderate. A regular group, mods, and wanting it up whether anyone is home or not.

LAN: Open to LAN

The zero-setup option, and the right one if everyone is on the same WiFi, whether that's the same room or the same house.

How: Start a Singleplayer world, press Esc, choose Open to LAN, pick a game mode and whether cheats are allowed, and click Start LAN World. Minecraft prints a port number in chat. Anyone on the same network opens Multiplayer, adds a server with your local IP and that port (or it often shows up automatically under LAN Games), and joins.

The real limits: it only works across the same local network, not across the internet, so "my friend two towns over" cannot join this way without one of the other methods layered on top. The host has to physically stay in the world; closing it or leaving to singleplayer's main menu ends the session for everyone, and nothing saves as a persistent server between sessions the way a dedicated server does. If you want the same LAN convenience but reachable from outside the house, that is what port forwarding and tunnelling exist for.

Minecraft Realms

Realms is Mojang's own hosting: you pay a monthly subscription, they run the server, and you invite friends by username.

As of this writing, Java Realms costs $7.99 per month and supports up to 10 other players plus the owner, 11 total. Bedrock's Realms Plus is priced the same with the same player cap. Two honest caveats on that number: it is the US price, and Mojang bills in your local currency, so what your account is charged can differ. Check the price your own account is shown before subscribing rather than trusting any guide's figure, this one included.

What you get: the world runs on Mojang's servers 24/7, nobody's PC has to stay on, backups and world resets are built in, and setup is genuinely just "subscribe, invite friends by name." The real limits: the 10-friend cap is hard, there is no server console or plugin support, and mod support on Java Realms is restricted to a curated add-on list rather than arbitrary mods, so a heavily modded pack like the ones in our modpack requirements guide is not going on a Realm. It is the right call for a small, casual group who wants zero admin work and doesn't need mods.

Port forwarding your own PC

Running a real dedicated server jar on your own machine and forwarding a port so friends outside your network can connect. Our full server setup guide covers the jar and server.properties in detail; this is the networking piece specifically.

How, briefly: run the server jar, find your router's admin page (usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1), forward TCP port 25565 to your PC's local IP, and give friends your public IP address. You'll want that IP to stay put, which usually means setting a static local IP for the server PC and, if your ISP rotates your public IP often, a dynamic DNS service to give friends a stable hostname instead of an address that changes.

Be honest about what this means: forwarding a port opens a door from the public internet straight to a program running on your PC. That is not a reason to panic, it's what every self-hosted server anywhere does, but it is worth understanding plainly: you are exposing your home IP address to anyone you give it to (and, if they share it further, anyone they give it to), and the Minecraft server process itself becomes reachable by anyone who finds that IP and port, not just people you invited. Keep the server jar updated, keep whitelist on if the group is small and known, and don't be the kind of guide that either pretends this is totally risk-free or scares you off it entirely. Millions of home servers run this way without incident. The other real limit: your PC has to stay on and running the whole time anyone might want to play, which rules this out for a server meant to be up while you're at work or asleep.

Tunnelling services: playit.gg, ngrok

A middle ground between LAN and full port forwarding: a tunnelling service gives your locally-run server a public address without you touching your router at all.

How: run the server jar locally as normal, then run the tunnel client (playit.gg and ngrok both have straightforward installers) which creates an outbound connection to the tunnel provider's servers. Friends connect to an address the provider gives you, and traffic routes through the tunnel to your machine. No router login, no forwarded ports, works even behind restrictive networks like university WiFi or CGNAT connections where port forwarding isn't possible at all.

The real limits: the free tiers are genuinely free but capped, expect lower priority and sometimes a bandwidth or connection ceiling that pushes a large group toward a paid tunnel tier. Traffic makes an extra hop through the provider's infrastructure, which adds latency compared to a direct connection or true port forwarding, usually small but noticeable on already-laggy connections. And the tunnel is tied to the client program running: close it, and the address stops working immediately, same as LAN in that sense, except the world itself keeps running locally if you leave the server jar up. Your host PC still has to be on the whole time, same constraint as port forwarding.

Free hosting: Aternos, Falixnodes

Actual dedicated hosting, running on someone else's hardware, for no money. This deserves a straight answer instead of a dismissal: for two friends who play on weekends, free hosting is often the correct choice, not a compromise you settle for.

What you get: a real always-on-ish server (see the honest caveat below) with a web control panel, plugin and light mod support on most providers, and no cost at all. Setup is a web form: pick a version, pick vanilla or a modpack, click start.

The honest tradeoffs, because pretending these don't exist is what makes the rest of this page worth reading:

• Queues. Free tiers are shared hardware serving a lot of free users, so starting your server can mean waiting in a queue, sometimes seconds, sometimes several minutes, especially at peak hours.
• Sleep when empty. The server shuts down after a period with nobody online and has to be manually restarted (and re-queued) for the next session. This is by design, not a bug, it's how the free tier stays free.
• Limited RAM. Free plans typically cap around 1-4 GB depending on the provider, which is fine for vanilla or Paper with a handful of players per our RAM guide, but rules out heavier modpacks.

For exactly the audience it targets, a small friend group playing in scheduled sessions rather than needing the world always live, these tradeoffs barely matter. It stops being the right fit once you want the world reachable at 2am on a whim, want a big modpack, or the queue times become the thing you complain about every session.

Paid hosting

What paid hosting actually buys you, beyond "no ads and no queue":

It is the right call once a group is playing regularly enough that "the server is asleep" or "whoever's PC is hosting isn't online" becomes the actual bottleneck to a session happening, or once mods are involved that free tiers can't run.

Which one should you actually pick

• Same house, one evening: Open to LAN. Nothing else comes close for zero setup.
• Small casual group, no mods, want zero admin: Realms, if the $7.99/month and 10-player cap fit.
• Technical, PC already on all the time, comfortable with routers: port forwarding, understanding what you're exposing.
• No router access, or on a network that blocks forwarding: a tunnel like playit.gg.
• Two friends, weekend sessions, budget is zero: free hosting, and don't feel bad about it.
• Regular group, want mods, want it always up: paid hosting.

FAQ

Can you play Minecraft with friends for free?

Yes, several ways. Open to LAN is free and instant for the same network. Port forwarding your own PC is free but exposes your home IP and needs the host PC to stay on. Tunnelling services like playit.gg have free tiers. Free hosts like Aternos and Falixnodes run a real always-available-ish server at no cost, with queues and sleep-when-empty as the tradeoff. None of these require paying Mojang or a hosting company anything.

Do you need to pay for Realms?

Yes, Realms is a paid subscription; there is no permanently free tier, though Mojang periodically offers free trial periods. If you don't want to pay for Realms specifically, LAN, port forwarding, tunnelling, and free hosting are all no-cost alternatives with different tradeoffs, covered above.

How many people can join a Realm?

Ten other players plus the owner, so 11 people in the world at once, on both Java Realms and Bedrock's Realms Plus. The invite list is much larger than that, so you can have a big roster of friends who are allowed in while only 11 can be connected simultaneously. If your group is regularly larger than 11, Realms is the wrong tool and a rented server is the right one.

Is port forwarding safe?

It opens a route from the internet to a program on your PC, which is exactly what any self-hosted server does and is not inherently dangerous, but it does mean your home IP address and the Minecraft server process become reachable by anyone who has or finds that address and port. Keeping the server jar updated and using a whitelist for a small known group covers the practical risk for most home setups.

What's the difference between a tunnel and port forwarding?

Both make a locally-run server reachable from outside your network. Port forwarding configures your own router to accept connections directly. A tunnel (playit.gg, ngrok) instead runs a small client program that opens an outbound connection to the provider, who gives you a public address, no router configuration needed, at the cost of a small amount of added latency and reliance on the tunnel staying open.

Will free hosting work for a modpack?

For light mods or a small plugin list, often yes, RAM permitting. For a large modpack like the ones in our modpack requirements guide that want 8+ GB before anyone even joins, free hosting's RAM ceiling usually rules it out, and paid hosting or a well-specced port-forwarded PC becomes the realistic option.

Can Bedrock and Java friends play together?

Not natively; Java and Bedrock use different protocols. On a self-hosted or rented Java server, installing Geyser lets Bedrock players join, covered in the crossplay guide. Realms handles this differently depending on edition and does not use Geyser.