Pixelmon SMP Server: Full Guide to Pokemon in Minecraft

Pixelmon brings a near-complete Pokemon experience to Minecraft: catching, leveling, battles, evolutions, gyms. Here is how to set up a stable Pixelmon Reforged server from scratch, which Forge versions to use, how to tune spawn rates, and how to fix the classic problem when the anticheat kicks players off their Charizard.

What Pixelmon and Pixelmon Reforged Actually Are

Pixelmon is a Forge mod that overhauls Minecraft gameplay into Pokemon mechanics. Instead of vanilla mobs you get Pokemon spawning by biome, each with types, stats, abilities, and a damage type chart. You catch them with Poke Balls, train through battles, evolve via stones or trades, and fight other players or NPC trainers.

The original Pixelmon Mod was DMCA'd in 2017 after a Nintendo complaint. The community forked it and kept going as Pixelmon Reforged. That fork is what every modern Pokemon Minecraft server runs in 2026. There is also Pixelmon Generations, but Reforged has better support and handles larger player counts more reliably.

Legally this lives in a gray area, but Reforged has been alive for almost 8 years without takedowns. The unwritten rule: do not sell Pokemon for real money and do not run paid events tied to Pokemon IP. Cross that line and you invite a complaint.

Which Pixelmon Reforged Version to Pick

Two active branches exist:

• Pixelmon Reforged 9.x for Minecraft 1.16.5 + Forge 1.16.5. The most battle-tested version. Every plugin addon, guide, and server pack out there targets this. Big Pixelmon networks still run on 1.16.5.
• Pixelmon Reforged for 1.20.x. Modern Minecraft, new biomes and blocks, but the addon ecosystem is weaker and many plugins have not been ported.

In most cases I recommend 1.16.5. Better performance, more plugins, fewer surprises. Move to 1.20.x only if you specifically need newer Minecraft mechanics like wardens, sniffers, or the latest biomes.

Download only from the official reforged.gg site or modrinth.com/mod/pixelmon. Third-party mirrors regularly host repackaged jars with miners.

Installing a Pixelmon Server Step by Step

We will use 1.16.5 as the baseline. You need Java 8, not 11 or 17. Forge 1.16.5 crashes on newer JVMs.

# Create a directory
mkdir -p /opt/pixelmon-server && cd /opt/pixelmon-server

# Download the Forge installer (1.16.5-36.2.39 is the stable build)
wget https://maven.minecraftforge.net/net/minecraftforge/forge/1.16.5-36.2.39/forge-1.16.5-36.2.39-installer.jar

# Run the server install
java -jar forge-1.16.5-36.2.39-installer.jar --installServer

# After install you get forge-1.16.5-36.2.39.jar
mkdir mods
# Drop Pixelmon-1.16.5-9.1.13-server.jar into mods/

Folder layout after install:

/opt/pixelmon-server/
├── forge-1.16.5-36.2.39.jar
├── libraries/
├── mods/
│   └── Pixelmon-1.16.5-9.1.13-server.jar
├── eula.txt
└── server.properties

Accept the EULA in eula.txt, edit server.properties (port, MOTD, view distance) and start.

A reliable start.sh:

#!/bin/bash
java -Xms6G -Xmx8G \
  -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+ParallelRefProcEnabled -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 \
  -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+DisableExplicitGC \
  -XX:+AlwaysPreTouch -XX:G1NewSizePercent=30 -XX:G1MaxNewSizePercent=40 \
  -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=8M -XX:G1ReservePercent=20 -XX:G1HeapWastePercent=5 \
  -XX:G1MixedGCCountTarget=4 -XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=15 \
  -XX:G1MixedGCLiveThresholdPercent=90 -XX:G1RSetUpdatingPauseTimePercent=5 \
  -XX:SurvivorRatio=32 -XX:+PerfDisableSharedMem -XX:MaxTenuringThreshold=1 \
  -jar forge-1.16.5-36.2.39.jar nogui

The first start is long. Forge builds the entity-id cache and registers 1025+ Pokemon. Expect 2-3 minutes on slower disks.

Useful Companion Mods

Vanilla Pixelmon plays fine, but a server usually wants extras:

• Pixelmon Extras - admin commands like /teach, /heal, /stats, /wiki. Effectively must-have.
• Better Spawner Config - per-biome configs so dragons do not spawn in plains.
• KingOfTheHill - PvP zone control, great for events.
• PokeBuilder - GUI to edit Pokemon as admin, handy when testing.
• Biomes O' Plenty - extra biomes for rare spawns. Pixelmon already knows BoP biomes out of the box.

All install by dropping a jar into mods/. Just match versions to your Pixelmon build, otherwise the server crashes with ClassNotFoundException.

The pixelmon.hocon Config: What to Tune

After the first start you get config/pixelmon.hocon. The file is huge, but 80% of defaults stay. The keys people actually change:

# Shiny rate (default 1/4096 like the original games)
shinyRate = 4096

# Default level for wild spawns
defaultSpawnLevel = 5

# Max level for PvE battles
maxLevel = 100

# Allow legendaries to spawn naturally
allowLegendariesInWild = false

# Max Pokemon per loaded chunk
maxPokemonPerChunk = 8

Shiny rate 4096 is canon. Dropping to 1000 works for casual servers, but veterans complain. Going higher than 4096 sends people to competitors with friendlier rates.

maxPokemonPerChunk = 8 matters for performance. With 30+ players online and no cap, TPS drops through the floor.

Gyms and Progression

In the games a trainer challenges 8 gyms. Pixelmon recreates this three ways:

1. Pixelmon Gyms plugin (Sponge or Forge via KubeJS) - prebuilt gym leaders and badges.
2. Manual WorldGuard regions on Sponge cores, where trainer commands hand out badge items.
3. Pixelmon Trainers built into Reforged. Spawn an NPC with /npc and load it with up to 6 Pokemon.

Minimal setup using built-in trainers:

# Create an NPC trainer at the current location
/npc create pokemontrainer "Brock" rock

# Add their first Pokemon
/npc edit team add Geodude 12

# Set the win reward
/npc edit reward money 500

After winning, the player gets 500 PokeDollars and a script can hand out a badge item. A quest plugin can then check badge inventory and gate the final boss.

PvP and Ranked Battles

Pixelmon Reforged ships with PvP: walk up to a player, click them with a Poke Ball, and a turn-based duel starts. For ranked play and matchmaking, run the Pokemon Battle plugin or write your own through the Pixelmon API.

A solid event format that works:

• Team of 6, level synced to 50 via arena level cap.
• Legendaries and mega forms blacklisted in the plugin.
• Best of 3.
• Winner gets PokeDollars and an ELO ranking entry.

ELO ranks live in MySQL. The plugin grabs results from the BattleEndedEvent exposed by the Pixelmon API.

Anticheat and Pokemon Flight

The number one Pixelmon server pain: vanilla anticheats like NoCheatPlus or Spartan break flight on flying Pokemon (Charizard, Pidgeot, Salamence). Player mounts up, takes off, and a second later gets kicked for Fly speed or IllegalMovement.

Fixes depend on what you run:

• NoCheatPlus: disable MOVING_FLYING and MOVING_SURVIVALFLY checks in permissions.yml for the pixelmon.rider group.
• Matrix / Vulcan / Spartan: add pixelmon:ride events to the exempt list. Some are smart enough to detect this, some are not.
• Pure Forge with no Bukkit anticheat: no problem, but also no anticheat.

In most cases people run Magma or Mohist hybrid Forge+Bukkit cores so a Bukkit anticheat plugin can be configured properly.

There is a second issue: entering a Pixelmon battle freezes the player in place with a temporary god-mode. If your anticheat checks no-move, it kicks them mid-battle. Add that to the exempt list too.

Magma, Mohist, and Bukkit Compatibility

Pure Forge cannot run Bukkit plugins. If you want EssentialsX, LuckPerms, Vault, and other infrastructure, you need a hybrid core:

• Magma 1.16.5 - stable, actively maintained.
• Mohist 1.16.5 - slightly faster, but occasionally breaks Pixelmon mechanics after big updates.
• Arclight 1.16.5 - more modern, but Pixelmon throws weird errors on it. Skip.

Magma takes almost any Bukkit plugin alongside Pixelmon. You lose 5-10% performance versus pure Forge, but you gain a working admin stack.

Run Magma instead of Forge:

java -Xms6G -Xmx8G -jar magma-1.16.5-server.jar nogui

Mods and plugins live in separate directories without conflict.

How Much RAM Pixelmon Needs

Pixelmon is 2-3x heavier than vanilla. Each Pokemon entity carries NBT with around 50 fields (stats, ability, nature, IVs, EVs, moveset, owner, ball type, and more). With 30 online, 800-1200 Pokemon happily live in loaded chunks.

Sizing baselines:

• 10 online: 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU.
• 30 online: 8 GB RAM, 4 vCPU.
• 60 online: 12-16 GB RAM, 6 vCPU, NVMe required.
• 100+ online: 24 GB RAM, 8 vCPU, dedicated proxy (Velocity), and consider sharding by world.

Without NVMe, Pokemon-heavy chunks load slowly and during mass teleport events TPS drops to 15. Keep view distance at 6-8 chunks, no need for more.

G1GC with the right flags (see the start script above) saves 20-30% on GC time. Without them, 12 GB heaps stutter on 200 ms collection pauses.

DDoS Protection for a Pixelmon Server

Pixelmon servers attract attacks, especially as the Pokemon-fan audience grows and competition between networks heats up. Standard scenarios: Layer 4 UDP/TCP flood on the port, Minecraft ping flood, fake-bot flood with forged handshakes.

Baseline protection:

• An IP-level filter in front of the server (like MineGuard) that drops parasite traffic before it touches Forge.
• Whitelist in server.properties for closed events.
• BungeeGuard or Velocity Modern Forwarding when running behind a proxy.
• Connection rate limit per IP, otherwise bot floods saturate the player slot table.

Pixelmon falls over faster than a Paper server during attacks. Each handshake-stage connection burns CPU because it pushes the modpack list to the client. Without a filter, 10-20 thousand PPS already drops TPS to 5.

FAQ

Does Pixelmon work on Paper or Spigot?

No. Pixelmon is a Forge mod and needs a Forge core or a hybrid. Paper and Spigot are pure Bukkit and cannot load mods. If you want Bukkit plugins together with Pixelmon, run Magma 1.16.5 or Mohist 1.16.5.

Is Pixelmon Reforged free?

Yes, fully free. Download from reforged.gg or Modrinth. There is no paid version, and anyone selling Pixelmon is running a scam. You can monetize a Pixelmon server through donations and cosmetics (capes, prefixes, perks), but never by selling Pokemon themselves or Pokemon-IP content.

Can you play Pixelmon on Bedrock?

No, Pixelmon only exists for Java Edition. Bedrock has separate addons like Cobblemon Bedrock or various Pokemon behavior packs, but those are unrelated projects. Pixelmon partially works through Geyser and Floodgate, but without the modpack on the client, Bedrock players see Pokemon as default mob entities with no models.

How do I add custom Pokemon?

Through Pixelmon Reforged datapacks or the Forms system. Pixelmon supports custom forms (like Alolan variants): drop the model in pixelmon/forms/your_form.json, textures in assets/pixelmon/textures/, and register it in the spawn config. Brand new Pokemon are harder and require a Java plugin that registers through the Pixelmon API. There is no GUI tool for this.

What hosting fits Pixelmon?

Any VPS with at least 8 GB RAM and NVMe. Cheap shared Minecraft hosts with overcommitted RAM struggle: GC stalls become visible. Take a dedicated VPS or bare metal, run Pterodactyl panel, and put a DDoS filter in front.

Cobblemon vs Pixelmon - which one?

Cobblemon is lighter, runs on Fabric, and is in active development. Pixelmon is older, has more content, and deeper mechanics. If you want the full Pokemon experience with gyms, evolutions, and legendaries, pick Pixelmon. If you want a lightweight Pokemon flavor on modern Minecraft, pick Cobblemon. They are not compatible with each other.

What Next

Stand up a test Pixelmon Reforged 1.16.5 on an 8 GB VPS and try it with 5-10 friends before going public. The first month always surfaces addon-specific bugs and unexpected spawn behavior, and catching it early beats fixing it under 50 angry players.

In parallel, set up backups (Pixelmon data lives in world/data/pixelmon), traffic filtering, and at least a basic anticheat. Two weeks of testing later you can open registration and start a season.