PEX vs Paper, on the same world
PEX is a Minecraft server written in Rust. It's our fork of Pumpkin, and the main difference from Paper is that it spreads each tick across several CPU cores instead of running the whole game on one thread. There's no Java heap to size or garbage collector to tune either, so memory stays low and flat.
We wanted to know how much that matters with real players on, so we ran it against Paper 26.3 for 2½ hours on identical copies of one world, with bots playing the same schedule on both. This page is what we found. The test was in October 2026 and it's one run, so take it as a first look rather than the final word.
The numbers
A server has 50 ms to finish each tick and hold 20 ticks a second. Lower is better on every row except the last two. Memory, disk and network were measured from each server's container over the whole run. Both servers had the same limit of 4 CPU cores.
| PEX | Paper | |
|---|---|---|
| Average tick, 8 players | 9.1 ms | 17.7 ms |
| Average tick, 24 players | 12.9 ms | 20.4 ms |
| Slowest 5% of ticks, whole run | 13.9 ms | 21.2 ms |
| Ticks over the 50 ms line | 0 | 0 |
| Peak memory | 1,062 MiB | 2,109 MiB |
| Average memory | 680 MiB | 1,877 MiB |
| Disk written | 256 MiB | 383 MiB |
| Busiest thread, 24 players | 21% of a core | 40% of a core |
| Threads doing real work | about 3.3 | about 1.4 |
| Total CPU, 24 players | 0.64 cores | 0.61 cores |
| Sent to players, 24 players | about 44 MiB a minute | about 27 MiB a minute |
The 24-player phase was short, about 15 minutes, so those rows are rougher than the 8-player ones.
Tick time over the run
Average milliseconds per tick, minute by minute. Hover or tap the chart for the exact numbers.
Where Paper still wins
- Network. With 24 players PEX sent about 44 MiB a minute to players, against about 27 for Paper. That's roughly 50% more bandwidth, and we're still tracking down why.
- Total CPU. At 24 players both used about the same CPU overall: 0.64 cores for PEX, 0.61 for Paper. PEX finishes ticks sooner because it spreads the work out, not because it does less of it.
- Plugins. PEX doesn't run Bukkit, Spigot or Paper plugins. If your server depends on them, stay on Paper.
- Maturity. PEX is young. Not every vanilla mechanic is in yet, and Paper has years of fixes behind it. Back up your world before you switch.
How we tested
- PEX and Paper 26.3 ran side by side on one host, each limited to 4 CPU cores, on identical copies of the same world.
- Bots played the same schedule on both: builders placing blocks, mining and opening chests, miners tunnelling, AFK players and an explorer. An egg farm and a wheat farm ran on their own.
- 8 players for the first 2 hours, then 24 players on the same running servers until minute 150.
- Tick time came from
tick queryevery 30 seconds. Memory, disk and network came from each server's container.
The test harness is on GitHub: Conman1533/mc-gameplay-bench. PEX builds for Linux (x64 and ARM64) and Windows are on the releases page. Players join with a normal Minecraft Java client, no mods needed.
Free PEX server
Members of the Bacon MC Discord get one PEX server each, free, always on: 3 GB of RAM, 2 CPUs, 5 GB of disk, no sleeping and no time limits. It runs Minecraft Java Edition 26.3.
Join the Discord
Free servers are for members of the Bacon MC Discord. One per person, and alt accounts don't get extra ones. Join the Discord
Sign in to the panel
Open the panel and choose Login with Discord. Your panel account is created the first time you sign in. Sign in with Discord
Claim it
Open Free server in the panel and click create. It's up in about a minute. Then pick your own
name.baconmc.netaddress under Subdomain. Claim my server
PEX doesn't run Bukkit or Paper plugins. If you need plugins, a modpack, or you'd like us to run the server for you, see hosting.