BungeeCord vs Waterfall: Which Proxy Should You Use?

BungeeCord is the original Minecraft proxy. Waterfall is its modern, actively maintained fork. Here's how they compare and which to pick.

Quick verdict

Pick Waterfall for new networks. It's a drop-in replacement for BungeeCord with bug fixes and performance improvements. BungeeCord is essentially in maintenance mode.

Why Waterfall exists

Waterfall was created by the PaperMC team in 2017 because BungeeCord's official development had slowed down. It maintains 100% plugin compatibility with BungeeCord but adds:

• Performance improvements
• Bug fixes BungeeCord ignored
• Extra configuration options
• Better security features

Plugin compatibility

Identical. Every BungeeCord plugin works on Waterfall. Most plugin authors now develop with both in mind, and many are listed as "BungeeCord/Waterfall" plugins.

Performance

Waterfall is slightly faster, especially under load. The differences are small but real.

Update cadence

Waterfall updates regularly with bug fixes. BungeeCord updates much more slowly — sometimes only when Minecraft itself releases a new protocol version.

Configuration

Waterfall adds extra config options not in BungeeCord:

• Per-server compression thresholds
• More granular tab list controls
• Throttling and connection rate limits

Switching from BungeeCord to Waterfall

It's literally a JAR swap. Stop BungeeCord, install Waterfall, restart. Your config.yml, plugins, and player data all carry over because they use the same format.

What about Velocity?

Velocity is a newer proxy from the PaperMC team that's even faster than Waterfall but uses a different plugin API. Most BungeeCord plugins do NOT work on Velocity. Waterfall is the right choice if you want BungeeCord plugin compatibility; Velocity is the choice if you're starting fresh and want maximum performance.

When BungeeCord still makes sense

Honestly, very rarely:

• You're maintaining a legacy network and don't want to switch
• You have a very specific reason to stick with the official upstream

When Waterfall is clearly better

• Anything new — start with Waterfall by default
• You want active development and bug fixes
• You want better performance at the proxy layer

Bottom line

For 99% of new Minecraft networks, pick Waterfall. The only reason to stick with BungeeCord is legacy compatibility. Both are free on FreeMCServers.org.