TERMS OF SERVICE

Who can use the Service

• You must be at least 13 years old. If you are under the age of legal majority where you live, you may only use the Service with permission from a parent or guardian.
• You need a Microsoft account that owns Minecraft: Java Edition. PufferHost is not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft, and you are responsible for keeping your Minecraft account in good standing.
• One account per person. Do not create multiple accounts to get around limits, the fair-use queue, or a suspension.
• Use a valid email address you control, and keep your password private. You are responsible for everything that happens through your account.

What the free service includes

PufferHost offers a free Minecraft server tier: currently one dedicated CPU core (two threads), about 3 GB of RAM, about 4 GB of SSD storage, and 10 player slots, with one server per account. These specifications are what we aim to provide, not a contractual guarantee — we may adjust, add, or remove resources as the platform changes.

Free capacity is shared. Only a limited number of servers can run at the same time, so a start request may join a fair-use queue and begin when a slot frees up. Running servers stop automatically after a short period with no players online, and players who stay idle to hold a server open are kicked. Your files stay saved across stops.

The Service is provided on a best-effort basis. There is no uptime guarantee, no service-level agreement, and no promise that a server will be available at any particular moment. Planned maintenance, hardware issues, node migrations, abuse investigations, and demand peaks can all interrupt access.

The free tier is supported by advertising shown in the dashboard. While ads are enabled, using an ad blocker may gate access to the dashboard.

Your account and security

You are responsible for the security of your account and for all activity that occurs through it. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us promptly so we can help you secure it or disable access.

We may suspend or restrict an account to protect the Service or other users — for example when we detect credential stuffing, automated account creation, or an account being used to attack the network.

Acceptable use

The Service exists to host legitimate Minecraft servers. You agree not to use it, or attempt to use it, for any of the following:

• Anything illegal, malware, phishing, spam, fraud, or content that sexualizes minors.
• Attacking others: denial-of-service traffic, port or vulnerability scanning, intrusion attempts, or using your server to harass or grief other people or their servers.
• Cryptocurrency mining, distributed computing, file sharing, VPN or proxy exit traffic, or any workload that is not a Minecraft server.
• Reselling, renting, or transferring free servers or queue positions, or creating bulk accounts to farm resources.
• Evading or interfering with the fair-use queue, idle sleep, anti-AFK kicks, ad gate, resource limits, or a suspension.
• Scraping, flooding, or otherwise overloading our website, API, or panel, or attempting to bypass authentication or authorization.
• Uploading content you do not have the rights to, or violating the license terms of plugins, mods, or other software.
• Harassment, hateful conduct, doxxing, or sharing other people's private information without consent.

Your content and backups

You own the worlds, builds, configurations, and other files you upload or create on the Service. You grant us the narrow permission needed to store, copy, transmit, and display that content solely to operate and support the Service.

You are responsible for your content and for keeping backups. The free tier does not guarantee backups: hardware fails, and data can be lost. Download copies of anything you care about regularly. We are not liable for lost worlds, files, or progress.

We may access your files and logs when it is necessary to provide support, investigate abuse, respond to a security incident, or comply with the law. We do not browse server files for fun or sell their contents.

Minecraft and third-party software

You must accept and follow the Minecraft End User License Agreement and any applicable Mojang or Microsoft terms while running a server here.

PufferHost is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Mojang Studios or Microsoft. Plugin and mod authors keep their rights; it is your responsibility to comply with their licenses.

If we receive a credible complaint that content on your server infringes someone else's rights or violates this section, we may remove it or restrict the server.

Ads and ad blocking

Advertising pays for the free tier. You agree not to tamper with the ads, the ad gate, or ad-block detection, and not to use the Service in a way that deliberately hides or strips advertising.

If an ad blocker is detected while the ad gate is active, the dashboard may be unavailable until advertising is allowed. You can always reach this page, the guides, and the knowledge base without ads.

Availability, changes, and suspension

Servers routinely stop to free capacity — when nobody is online, when their fair-use slot ends, or during maintenance. Files stay saved, and the Service does not delete your server data simply because you have been away.

We may change, pause, or discontinue features of the Service at any time, and we may suspend or terminate access when these Terms are broken, when the Service or other users are at risk, or when the law requires it. Where practical, we will give notice and a chance to fix the problem first. Serious abuse — attacks, illegal content, or threats to other users — can lead to immediate action.

You are not entitled to a slot, a specific node, a specific address, or any particular feature remaining free. If a server name or address is reclaimed, we may reassign it.

Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time and request deletion of your account and server data by contacting [email protected].

When your access ends, your right to use the Service ends immediately. We will delete or anonymize your data as described in the Privacy Policy, except where we must keep records for legal, security, or dispute-resolution reasons.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including content ownership, disclaimers, liability limits, and governing law — continue to apply.

Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or that data will not be lost. You use the Service at your own risk.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, PufferHost and the people who operate it are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost data, lost worlds, lost profits, or lost goodwill arising from your use of the Service.

Because the Service is free, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim — which for the free tier is zero — or the minimum amount required by applicable law.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, and nothing removes mandatory consumer protections you have where you live.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless PufferHost and its operators from claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising from your content, your use of the Service, or your breach of these Terms — including claims brought by other players or by rights holders.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws that apply at the operator's principal place of business, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Mandatory consumer protection rules in your country of residence still apply and are not overridden by this section.

Before starting formal proceedings, please contact us — most disagreements are resolved faster by email. If a dispute cannot be resolved informally, the courts at the operator's principal place of business have jurisdiction, without limiting any right you have to bring a claim in a court that local law requires to be available to you.

Contact

Questions about these Terms, abuse reports, and legal notices all go to [email protected]. Include your account email and any relevant server name so we can respond quickly.