TrueTick vs Aternos: free hosting vs never-oversold paid hosting

Aternos is how a huge number of people run a Minecraft server with friends: its homepage counter shows more than 140 million users. It's free, and starting a server is, in their words, "just as easy as pressing a button". For a lot of people that's all they need. TrueTick is paid only, metered or flat, and admission control reserves a CPU share for every running server. We're the paid host writing this page, so every claim about Aternos below links to their own site for you to check.

Who each one is for

Aternos is for trying Minecraft with zero commitment. You and a couple of friends want to mess around for an evening, or you're not sure a long-running server is worth it yet. Free, and "There is no possibility to pay for anything". For that, it works well.

TrueTick is for a server you rely on. A weekly SMP with a real community, a modpack run you don't want held up by a queue, an event server where "it's not ready yet" isn't an option. We charge for the hours the server is awake, or a flat monthly rate if you want it always on.

We had a free tier; it has ended

For a while we ran a small free tier of our own: 20 hours a month on a reserved CPU share. It ended on November 5, 2026, and TrueTick is paid only now. If free is what you need, Aternos is the one to use.

The comparison

A free service paid for by ads makes different trade-offs than a paid one. Checked November 2026. Every Aternos cell links to their own site:

	Aternos	TrueTick
Cost	Free: "There is no possibility to pay for anything"	Metered: $0.012 per active GB-hour, or flat $3/GB-month
Paid for by	Ads: "completely financed through advertisements"	Paid plans; no ads
Starting a server	A queue when their servers are at full capacity; at the front you confirm with a click	No queue; if the node can't back the server's CPU share, the start is refused, not queued
When it's empty	A countdown stops an empty server; to start it again you press Start on their site, or join through their Dawn launcher, which starts it for you	Sleeps when empty; a player connecting to its address wakes it, from any Java Edition launcher
Performance	"it's not possible to guarantee a lag-free experience, especially for a free service"	A reserved CPU share per running server; admission control won't overcommit a node
Tick metrics	TPS on the server page, Java Edition 1.16 and up	TPS and MSPT on Paper, Purpur, Forge and NeoForge; on Vanilla and Fabric from Minecraft 1.20.3
Mods and plugins	Plugins, mods and preconfigured modpacks from their own lists; no custom uploads, no FTP	The Modrinth and CurseForge catalogues, your own .jar uploads, and SFTP
Locations	Data centers in Europe	EU (France) and NA (Canada)

Every limit in the Aternos column is one Aternos states on the page it links to. We're not quoting a queue time: their queue shows you your own estimate while you're in it.

Where Aternos is the right call

For a lot of people, it still is:

• You're not sure Minecraft hosting is worth paying for yet. Try it free on Aternos first. If a queue doesn't bother you, you may never need to spend a cent.
• It's a one-off session. A quick build with a friend on a Saturday afternoon, with no world to keep, doesn't need a paid server.
• You want no hour cap and no bill, ever. Aternos is "Free. Forever." with no playtime limit. We don't have a free tier.
• You play Bedrock Edition. Aternos hosts Bedrock servers. We host Java servers; Bedrock players can only join one through a crossplay add-on on the flat plan.

Where it hits a ceiling

The trade that keeps Aternos free is written down in their own help center: servers only run while someone is actively using them, a queue forms when their machines are full, and they say plainly that "it's not possible to guarantee a lag-free experience, especially for a free service". If that's fine for your group, it's a good deal. If your group plays at peak hours like everyone else and you want to know why it lags, this is what we offer:

• A reserved CPU share per running server. The platform's admission control won't start a server if that would overcommit the node. When a node is full, the start is refused, so a new server can't take CPU from the ones already running.
• Metered billing that stops when the server sleeps. A 2 GB server that's awake five hours a week costs $0.12 that week on the metered plan, and a 4 GB one $0.24; awake time runs until the server hibernates after the last player leaves, a delay you set per server.
• MSPT next to TPS. TPS tells you the server has fallen behind. MSPT, the milliseconds each tick takes, shows how close it is to its 50 ms budget before TPS starts to drop. Both are on the server page on Paper, Purpur, Forge and NeoForge, and on Vanilla and Fabric from Minecraft 1.20.3.

Verdict

If unlimited hours with no monthly cap is the hard requirement and a queue doesn't bother you, Aternos is still the right choice. If you've outgrown the queue, see what your server would cost or create one and watch its tick line.