The iPad, the Switch, the Xbox and the PC, all in the same world. Your daughter on a tablet and her friend on a laptop play together, and neither of them has to care which.

And a server with a bedtime. It closes the world at nine, tells you who has been playing and for how long, and lets in only the people you name.

Most Minecraft hosting is sold to whoever plays. This one answers to the person who pays for it.

The parental controls, at a glance

• Everyone in one world. Console, phone, tablet and computer players together, with no separate server and no arguing about who bought which version.
• Who is on, right now. Names, and how long each of them has been playing this session.
• How long they have played today. Per child, today and across the past week, on the first screen rather than buried.
• A bedtime that closes the world on its own. Different hours for school nights and weekends, with warnings in the game before it shuts.
• Who is allowed in. A list you control, and nobody else gets in.
• A push notification when they join or leave. On your phone, at a glance, with nothing to install.
• No chat reading. Deliberately. See below.

All of it included, on every server, with no separate tier.

Who is this for?

Parents, mostly. Every group that plays together hits the same wall: somebody hosts, everyone else can only play when that person is home and awake, and the world lives on one laptop. A hosted server fixes that. What makes this one different is that it also answers to the adult who pays for it.

Can I see who is playing, and for how long?

Yes. Every server comes with a private web panel, signed in with your ElfHosted account. Your children cannot reach it and do not need to.

• Who is playing right now, and how long each of them has been on this session.
• How long they have played today, and across the past week, per child.
• Who is allowed in, as a list you control.
• An invitation to copy and paste, with the right address for whichever device their friend plays on.

How do I set a bedtime on a Minecraft server?

Open the panel, choose Bedtime, and set the hours the world is closed. School nights and weekends get different hours. Anyone still playing is warned in the game ten minutes before, then at one minute, and then the server closes to everybody at once rather than singling a child out.

The world and everyone's builds are exactly as they were. If tonight is special, open it for one night: tomorrow's bedtime still happens, so one late pass does not switch the whole thing off.

Bedtime runs on your timezone, which you choose in the panel the first time you open it.

My child plays on an Xbox or an iPad. Does that work?

Yes. Console, phone and tablet players join the same world as the computer players, which is the thing most Minecraft hosting cannot do. It is handled by Geyser and Floodgate, both installed for you, and nobody needs to own the game twice.

Computer players type the address on its own. Console, phone and tablet players use the same address plus your own port. The panel's invitation card writes out both, filled in, ready to send.

One thing worth knowing, because it trips up every other host: a child on a tablet is a different account from the same child on a computer. Type the name however they normally write it and the panel works out which kind it is, adds the right one, and tells you which it added. Capital letters do not matter. A child who plays on both genuinely needs two entries, and the panel will add both.

Can I stop strangers joining?

The server ships locked to the people you name, so a guessable address is not an open invitation. If somebody is turned away at the door, they appear in the panel with a button to let them in, so you find out from the panel rather than from a disappointed child.

Blocking somebody binds their Minecraft account rather than the name they typed, so they cannot come back by renaming.

Does it read my children's chat?

No, and it never will. The panel shows presence, playtime and who is allowed in. It does not record messages, does not show you what they said, and cannot tell you who they said it to. This is a way to run a household rule, not a way to watch over a shoulder.

What about mods and plugins?

• Paper by default. A drop-in replacement for the standard server that holds up better with a group on it, and takes the whole Bukkit and Spigot plugin ecosystem. Drop the jars in and restart.
• Version pinning. Choose your Minecraft version and stay on it, so a plugin built for one release does not quietly stop loading.
• How the game plays. Game mode, difficulty and the settings that matter to a household are switches in the panel, in plain English. Turn off players hurting each other, keep their things when they die, stop creepers wrecking what somebody built.

Will I know when they join?

Yes, and this is the feature parents end up leaning on most. Add ElfHosted to your phone's home screen and a push notification arrives the moment somebody joins or leaves. No app to install, nothing to configure, and it works on the phone you already have in your pocket.

One glance at the lock screen tells you who is on. You do not need to open anything, and you do not need to ask.

If you would rather they went elsewhere as well, send them to a family Discord, Telegram, ntfy, Pushover or an email address, which is the usual way to get them to the other parent or to a phone that never installed anything.

Alerts can be muted on their own if they get chatty, without losing anything else.

What do I not have to deal with?

• Always on. The world is there at 2am and while everyone is at school. No PC left running.
• Nothing opened on your home network. No port forwarding, no router configuration, nothing exposed at your house.
• One address, forever. Friends save it once. Point your own domain at it with a single DNS record if you would rather.
• Backed up. Worlds live on the same backed-up storage as the rest of your apps. The build somebody spent a month on is not one failed drive from gone.

Frequently asked questions

Do console players need to buy Java Edition? No. That is the whole point of the crossplay: they join with the version they already own.

Do I need a Minecraft account? Yes, every player needs their own. We host the server, not the game.

Can I move an existing world in? Yes, upload it through the file manager that comes with your server.

Will my children know the panel exists? Only if you tell them. It is behind your ElfHosted login, at a different address from the one they use to play.

What happens at bedtime if somebody is mid-build? They get warned twice, then the server closes. Nothing is lost, and it reopens on schedule.

Can I turn the parental controls off? Yes. Set no bedtime and the server simply stays open. Nothing is forced on you.

Is there an extra charge for the panel? No. It comes with the server.