The anti-cheat landscape for Minecraft has changed considerably over the last few years. Older plugins that were the standard in 2018 struggle to keep up with modern hacked clients, and server owners who haven't revisited their setup in a while are often running protection that provides more false confidence than actual security. Here's what the state of anti-cheat actually looks like in 2025.
The Plugin Tier List
Grim Anticheat is the current best option for Paper/Spigot servers. It was built from the ground up with modern Minecraft's collision and movement model in mind, which means far fewer false positives than plugins like NoCheatPlus or AAC. The project is actively maintained, has a strong community, and the detection accuracy for killaura, reach, and movement hacks is substantially better than alternatives.
NoCheatPlus is still widely used but is showing its age on servers running 1.17+. If you're on 1.8 specifically, it performs better, but for anything modern you should be running Grim instead. Spartan is a paid option that performs reasonably well but doesn't clearly outperform Grim on most tested metrics.
- ✓Grim Anticheat (free, Paper 1.8–1.21) - best detection accuracy, low false positives
- ✓Matrix Anticheat (paid) - solid paid alternative with active development
- ✓NoCheatPlus (free) - still viable on 1.8 servers, struggles on modern versions
- ✓Vulcan (paid) - solid option, particularly for 1.8–1.12 PvP servers
Velocity and BungeeCord Considerations
If you're running a proxy network, anti-cheat gets more complicated. Most plugins run on individual backend servers, not on the proxy itself. This means a player can potentially exploit differences in detection between your lobby and game servers. Make sure your anti-cheat is consistently configured across all backend servers, and consider whether proxy-level detection plugins like Sonar (for bot/join spam) are appropriate for your setup.
Configuration Is Everything
Installing Grim with default settings is a starting point, not a finished setup. You need to tune it for your specific player base. Servers with high-latency players need looser movement thresholds. PvP servers need tighter combat checks than survival servers. Creative servers need griefing detection that survival configs don't require.
The Grim Discord is genuinely useful here - there are shared configs optimized for different server types, and the developers respond to false positive reports. Expect to spend a few hours on initial configuration and plan to revisit it whenever you update the plugin or your Minecraft version.
What Plugins Can't Catch
Every anti-cheat plugin has blind spots. Extremely subtle combat modifications that stay within normal variance ranges. Macros that play on the edge of human speed. Clients that adapt to detection patterns over time. No plugin will catch 100% of cheaters, and any vendor claiming otherwise is lying.
This is why a multi-layer approach is necessary. Anti-cheat plugins catch the obvious stuff. Staff spectating and reviewing reports catches the subtle stuff. And a shared ban network handles the cheaters who move between servers - catching them before they ever join based on their history elsewhere.
The Human Layer
Your moderation team is still your most important anti-cheat tool. Train moderators to spectate without alerting the player, to use F5 view to check reach and aimbot patterns, and to record evidence before acting. A ban issued on solid evidence that survives appeal is far more valuable than ten automated flags that get overturned.
Ban Synchronization Across the Network
Once you're catching cheaters, the next problem is that they simply move to a different server. If you're part of a community of similar servers - Dutch Minecraft communities especially tend to share player bases - a shared ban network means your enforcement actually sticks. A player banned by three servers in your network for hacking is not going to find safe harbor on a fourth.