Aethera

Overview

Aethera is a free, open-source, self-hosted control panel for managing Minecraft game servers — built for teams and
server owners who want full control without paying for managed hosting. It runs entirely on your own hardware inside
Docker containers and is managed through a clean, modern browser-based interface. No SSH. No FTP. No third-party
cloud.

Whether you're running a single Spigot server for friends or managing a network of Vanilla, Paper, Forge, and Fabric
instances across a team — Aethera gives you one place to do it all.

Free forever. Self-hosted forever. Aethera will never have a SaaS tier, a usage cap, or a phone-home
requirement. MIT licensed. Pull requests welcome.

✨ Features

️ Projects & Teams

- Group any number of servers under named projects
- Invite teammates via email and assign roles (Owner, Admin, Manager, Viewer)
- Per-project audit log — every significant action is recorded

️ Full Server Lifecycle

- Create, start, stop, soft-stop, recreate, and delete servers
- Real-time console output streamed directly from Docker — send commands from the browser
- Live CPU and RAM graphs pulled from Docker stats
- Auto-start flag to bring servers back up with the panel
- Custom JVM args per server
- In-panel server.properties editor
- Environment variable overrides

Supported Server Types

- Vanilla-like: Vanilla, Paper, Spigot, Purpur
- Modded: Forge, Fabric
- Pack-driven: CurseForge modpacks, Modrinth modpacks (version/loader auto-resolved from pack metadata)

Mods, Plugins & Content

- Install mods from Modrinth or CurseForge — injected automatically on every start
- Dedicated plugin management for Bukkit/Spigot/Paper servers
- Datapack upload and management per-world
- Upload .mrpack files directly without a hosted URL
- Exclude specific mods bundled with a modpack without modifying the pack

Blueprints (Server Templates)

- Define reusable server templates with a name and RAM cap
- Managers can initialize a blueprint into a live server — capped at the blueprint's RAM limit
- Prevents unauthorized over-provisioning of resources

Backup System

- Selective component backups — choose any combination of world, config, mods, plugins, datapacks
- Large backups run as async background jobs; the UI shows live progress and never freezes
- Download any backup as a .tar.gz archive or restore it in-place
- Import .zip or .tar.gz archives from external backup tools
- Stuck async jobs are automatically resolved on panel restart

File Manager

- Browse the full server data directory in-browser
- Read and write individual files — no FTP client, no SSH session

Extensible Module System Install optional Docker-based add-ons from the admin panel with one click:

- Discord Bot — server events, live-chat-sync and whitelist-requests in your Discord, automatically
- SMTP Mailer — transactional email (password resets) via any SMTP server
- Paperview File Sharing — share backups via a public link with optional expiry
- Async Backup Worker — offload heavy backup processing to a dedicated external service

️ Admin Panel

- User management — create, enable/disable, and manage accounts
- Custom role definitions with granular permission sets
- Live host CPU and memory overview
- First-run setup wizard (no CLI needed to bootstrap the admin account)


Installation

Requirements:

- Docker & Docker Compose on any Linux host
- The panel container must be able to reach the Docker socket

git clone https://github.com/jaameypr/aethera-next && cd aethera-next
./run.sh up

That's it. On first run, run.sh automatically generates secrets, creates data directories, waits for MongoDB health,
and starts the full stack. The panel is available at http://<your-host>:3000 and the first-run wizard walks you
through creating the admin account.


Tech Stack

Built on battle-tested open source: Next.js 16 · TypeScript · MongoDB 7 · Docker · Tailwind CSS v4 · shadcn/ui · JWT
Auth · Vitest


Links

- Homepage: https://getaethera.de
- GitHub: https://github.com/jaameypr/aethera-next
- Discord: https://discord.getaethera.de
- License: MIT — free to use, fork, and self-host


Notes

- Aethera is not a plugin — it is a standalone server management panel that runs alongside your servers in Docker.
- It manages the Spigot (and Paper/Purpur) server container, not the Minecraft server process directly via a plugin
API. Think of it as a self-hosted alternative to Pterodactyl or Crafty Controller, purpose-built for simplicity and
team collaboration.
- Plugin management for Bukkit/Spigot/Paper servers is supported through the mod & content management UI.