free · switching from playit.gg
A playit.gg alternative that does more than tunnel
playit.gg is a good tunnel with a deserved reputation, and if a bare tunnel is all you want, it may serve you well. This page is for people who have noticed that the tunnel is only step one of self-hosting.
Self Hostd treats "make my server reachable" as the beginning. The same free tier that gives your server a permanent hostdservers.com address also watches the server itself: a live console you can open anywhere, off-site backups twice a week, control from Discord and a crash doctor that answers in plain English rather than a stack trace.
Where playit.gg is strong
- Far more games. playit tunnels Bedrock, Terraria, Factorio, Valheim and plenty more. Self Hostd is Minecraft Java only for now.
- A mature global network that has been doing this for years, with regional tunnels available on its premium tier.
- A small, well-documented agent with an active community around it.
What Self Hostd adds on top of the tunnel
A permanent address of your own, free
Your server lives at yourname.na.hostdservers.com from day one. On playit's free tier the address is auto-generated, and reserved or custom addresses are part of the paid plan.
A console that follows you
Watch the live console and run commands from any browser or from Discord, even when you are nowhere near the PC hosting the server. A tunnel cannot tell you what your server is doing; the panel can.
Backups a tunnel cannot give you
A tunnel forwards packets; it cannot save your world from a dying drive. Self Hostd snapshots your world off-site every Tuesday and Saturday, restorable in one click, on the free tier.
Crashes explained in English
Wrong Java version, port already taken, missing mod dependency: the launcher and panel say what happened and what to do next, instead of leaving you to read a crash log.
Somewhere else to run
When your PC cannot cope with movie night, burst the world onto our hardware by the hour at the same address; it syncs home when you stop. A pure tunnel has nowhere else to put your server. We run a hosting fleet.
Side by side
| playit.gg (free) | Self Hostd (free) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A tunnel | A tunnel plus a hosting toolkit |
| Games | Minecraft Java and Bedrock, Terraria, Factorio, Valheim and more | Minecraft Java only, for now |
| Your address | Auto-generated; reserved and custom addresses are premium | Your own permanent hostdservers.com subdomain, free |
| Server console and panel | Tunnel management only | Live server console in the browser and Discord |
| Off-site backups | Not part of a tunnel | Twice a week, one-click restore |
| Crash help | Out of scope for a tunnel | Plain-English diagnosis in the launcher and panel |
| When your PC is off | Server offline | Offline, or burst to our hardware by the hour at the same address |
| Cost | Free; premium from $3/month | Free; bursting is optional at 1.5p per GB-hour |
Based on each product's published free tier as of July 2026. If something here has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
Trying it next to playit
- 1Keep your current setupTrying Self Hostd does not require touching your playit setup or your server files. Your world stays exactly where it is.
- 2Create a server and pair the launcherMake a free account, press Create your server and copy the 6-digit code. Drop the Self Hostd launcher next to your server jar (or the plugin into a Paper server), open it and paste the code.
- 3Compare for a weekRun your server through the launcher and see whether the console, the backups and the Discord control earn their place. If they do not, delete the server and nothing is lost.
- 4Move your players overPost the new address; players change one line in Multiplayer, and the old address simply stops being needed.
Full step-by-step instructions, including the modpack path, live in the Self Hostd setup guide.
Questions you'd be right to ask
Is this a "playit.gg is bad" page?
No. playit is well liked for good reason, and for Bedrock or non-Minecraft games it remains the sensible choice today. We built Self Hostd because after the tunnel you still had no console, no backups and no help when the server crashed, and we think that half of the job matters just as much.
Does Self Hostd support Bedrock or other games?
Not yet. It covers Minecraft Java in all its forms: vanilla, Paper, Purpur, Spigot, Fabric, Forge and NeoForge. If you need Bedrock or another game tunnelled today, playit will serve you better, and we would rather tell you that than waste your evening. More games are planned.
Do players need to install anything?
No, on either service. Players type an address into Multiplayer. The difference is on your side of the wire: what you get along with that address.
What does the free tier actually include?
The address, the tunnel, the web panel with live console, Discord control, twice-weekly off-site backups and crash diagnosis. Three servers per account, no player caps, and free servers show a short Hostd credit in the server list.
The tunnel was only ever half the job
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