Minecraft server proximity chat plugin: Simple Voice Chat setup, proxies, Bedrock and moderation

Proximity voice chat means players hear whoever is standing near them, quieter with distance, through the game rather than a Discord call. On a Java server it takes one plugin and one open UDP port, and the players need a small client mod. Simple Voice Chat is the one most servers run: free, updated within the week we checked, and built for Paper, Spigot, Purpur, Folia, Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt, with proxy plugins for Velocity, BungeeCord and Waterfall. Plasmo Voice is the alternative. Neither works for Bedrock players without a workaround.

The player-side guide on servers with voice chat covers installing the client mod and the two mods side by side. This one is the owner's side: the exact config, networks, Bedrock, and the part nobody writes down, which is what you do about a channel you cannot read back.

Install Simple Voice Chat and open the port

1. Download the server build for your platform from the Simple Voice Chat Modrinth page (Modrinth lists 1.8.8 through the 26.4 snapshots). Paper servers take the plugin; Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt servers take the mod.
2. Restart once. The config appears at plugins/voicechat/voicechat-server.properties on a plugin server, config/voicechat/voicechat-server.properties on a modded one.
3. Open UDP 24454 on your router or ask your host for the allocation. It is UDP, not TCP, so a rule copied from your game port will not work. Hosts that give you one port only: set port=-1 and the voice server uses the same port number as the game over UDP; the project's wiki warns this can crash some setups, so test it.
4. Set voice_host only if players reach voice at a different address than the one they join with, for example a host that maps ports. Otherwise leave it blank.
5. Test from the console: /voicechat test <PLAYERNAME> checks that the named player's client can reach the voice port. UDP has no handshake, so a "port open" tool that only checks TCP tells you nothing.

The server config, key by key

The two settings that shape the experience are max_voice_distance and groups. Short range makes a hub feel calm and a survival world feel lonely; long range makes spawn a wall of noise. Groups turn voice into a party channel for a team, which is what factions and SMP players use most, and the password option keeps strangers out of a group.

On a Velocity or BungeeCord network

On a network, players connect to the proxy, so voice has to go through it too. Simple Voice Chat ships a Velocity plugin and a BungeeCord/Waterfall plugin for exactly this. The project's wiki lays out the setup:

1. Install the proxy plugin on the proxy and the normal server plugin on every backend.
2. Open one UDP port on the proxy. By default it is the same number as the proxy's Minecraft port. Backends do not need their voice ports reachable from outside.
3. Ignore voice_host on the backends. With the proxy in place it is ignored; the proxy plugin detects each backend's address and port itself.
4. Set voice_host in the proxy plugin's config only if the address players join with does not reach the proxy over UDP (some DDoS-protection layers pass TCP and drop UDP).

If you are still choosing a proxy, the Velocity setup guide and BungeeCord vs Velocity cover the rest; on our list Velocity is by far the most common proxy in server version strings.

Plasmo Voice, the alternative

Plasmo Voice (2.1.17, September 15, 2026, free, on GitHub) does the same job with a different client mod, so a server picks one and its players install that one; the two are not compatible. The server side runs on Paper, Folia, Fabric and NeoForge, with BungeeCord and Velocity support. Its config is plugins/PlasmoVoice/config.toml (or config/plasmovoice/ on mods), with the address and port under [host]; the default port = 0 means it uses the same port number as the Minecraft server, over UDP, so a single allocation covers both. Players without the mod join and play normally. Its add-on system is the reason to pick it: sound occlusion through walls (via the Sound Physics add-on), priority speakers and more come as add-ons rather than config flags.

Bedrock players

Bedrock cannot install client mods, so a Bedrock player joining through Geyser hears nothing and cannot talk, on either mod. Two workarounds exist and neither is a drop-in. A community plugin, SimpleVoice-Geyser, lets Bedrock players join Simple Voice Chat through a web page in their browser; it needs the voice plugin, Geyser and a small web server component, it is built for Chrome, it supports Spigot, Paper, Purpur and Fabric with Velocity planned, and at the time of writing it is still pre-release. The other route is a Discord voice channel next to the game, which is not proximity at all. If Bedrock is a big part of your player base (the crossplay guide explains why it often is), say plainly in your listing that voice chat is Java-only.

Privacy, kids and moderation

Voice chat is the one channel on your server you cannot read afterwards. Text chat has logs; voice has whatever someone happened to record. That changes how you moderate it, and it changes who should have it.

• Recording. allow_recording is true by default. Setting it to false tells clients recording is not allowed, but treat that as policy, not protection: a client-side mod called Replay Voice Chat records other players' locational and group audio into ReplayMod replays, and anything that reaches a speaker can be captured anyway. Say in your rules whether recording is allowed and where clips may be posted.
• Younger players. Voice puts strangers' voices in a child's ears with no filter. If your server is aimed at or popular with under-13s, consider not enabling public voice at all, or enabling only groups with passwords so voice is friends-only. Our servers for kids guide is what parents read before letting a child join.
• Reports. You will not hear the incident. Give players a report path that accepts a clip (a Discord ticket works), and act on reports fast, because the reporter is the only evidence.
• Staff presence. A moderator who spends time at spawn with voice on hears more than any log would. Schedule it.
• Mute and range. Players can mute individuals client-side; tell new players that in the first-join message. Keep force_voice_chat off so nobody is kicked for not having the mod.
• Rules. Add a voice section to your rules: no recording others without consent, no soundboards at spawn, no doxxing, and what happens on a report.

The voice-chat badge on our list

Our pinger sets a "Voice chat" line on a server's page, and lists it on the voice chat servers page, when the server's own status reply includes a mod list containing the mod id voicechat (Simple Voice Chat) or plasmovoice (Plasmo Voice). Here is the honest limit: only Forge and NeoForge servers send a mod list in the status reply, and newer versions pack that list in a way we cannot read, so the badge cannot be set for a Paper server running the plugin. Nothing in your listing turns it on. At the time of writing exactly one server on the list shows it, which makes the voice-chat page a very short list to be on if your server does qualify.

Whether or not the badge appears, say "proximity voice chat (Simple Voice Chat)" in your description: players search for it, our search reads descriptions, and it is one of the few features that changes how a server feels before someone has even joined. List the server, put voice in the first line of the description, and put the client mod link in your Discord's server-info channel so nobody joins with the wrong mod.

Quick questions