Paper

Paper is a server software maintained by the PaperMC team. It started as a fork of Spigot and keeps compatibility with the Bukkit and Spigot plugin APIs, so almost every plugin written for those platforms runs on Paper without changes. On top of that it adds its own API, its own plugin format and a long list of performance patches.

Why it matters for server owners

For a plugin server, Paper is the usual default. Compared with vanilla and plain Spigot it moves work such as chunk loading and generation off the main thread where possible, fixes many vanilla bugs and gives you far more settings to trade vanilla accuracy for performance. That directly affects TPS and MSPT once a world gets busy.

Paper does change some vanilla behaviour by default. Certain exploits and duplication glitches are patched, and some technical-player mechanics behave differently. Many of these patches can be switched back in the config if your community relies on them.

Where the settings live

• config/paper-global.yml — server-wide settings, including proxy forwarding for Velocity.
• config/paper-world-defaults.yml — per-world defaults such as entity limits, despawn ranges and redstone behaviour.
• A paper-world.yml inside a world folder overrides the defaults for that world only.

bukkit.yml, spigot.yml and server.properties are still read as well.

Practical tip

Before tuning, measure. Current Paper versions ship with the spark profiler built in; run /spark profiler during a laggy period and look at what actually uses the tick time. Changing settings blindly usually costs vanilla behaviour without fixing the real cause. If you want even more gameplay options, Purpur is a drop-in fork of Paper.