Minecraft server status website: give players a live status page

A status page for a Minecraft server is not a big project. Players want one answer, "is it up and is anyone on", and they want it before they open the game. You have three ways to give it to them, and they stack: your server page on this list (already live, already tracked), the is-it-down checker for a quick look, and a small widget on your own website that reads our API. Behind all three, put an outside uptime monitor with an alert to your staff, because the status page you need most is the one that tells you the server dropped at 3am.

This guide covers each, with what the pages actually show, the API fields, the monitors, and what going offline does to your ranking here.

What players check before they join

Watch someone pick a server and the sequence is always the same: they see the count in the list row, they open the page to check it is not fake and not dead, they copy the address. If the page says offline, or the count says 0, they never copy it. So a status page has one job: show that the server is up and alive right now, with numbers that match what they will see in the game. That means live data, not a screenshot, and a version number, because "Outdated server" is the second most common reason a first join fails after "can't connect" (our connection guide covers the player's side of both).

The status page you already have

Every listed server gets a page and a stats page, and both are public. This is what they show at the time of writing:

• Live pill and count. Online or offline, players and maximum, refreshed every minute while anyone has the page open. We check all 2,947 listed servers at least every five minutes regardless.
• Version and edition. The version string your server reports and, if our Bedrock probe gets an answer, the Bedrock address too.
• Uptime. A percentage over the last 7 days, and over 30 days once we have tracked you that long. We only started checking in late September 2026, so new listings show "Measuring" until there is enough history.
• Stats page (/server/your-server/stats). Uptime windows, a player-history chart with average and daily peak per day (and the highest peak marked), days that were mostly down shaded, and a list of outages in the last 30 days. Outages are counted in whole hours with no successful check, so a two-minute restart does not show up as one.
• A copyable vote link. The page hands you the HTML for a "Vote for your server" link to paste on your site.

The address to share is 9minecraftserver.com/server/your-server. It is a fair thing to pin in Discord as "status" because it does not depend on your server being alive to load. If you have not listed the server yet, listing is free and takes a couple of minutes.

Is it down? A checker anyone can use

The is-it-down page takes any address, Java or Bedrock, and checks it right then, the same way the game does. If it answers, you see players and max, the version, the reply time from our checker in milliseconds, and the MOTD. If it does not, the page says so and lists the likely reasons: the address, port or edition is wrong, or the server is blocking our region. Results are reused for a minute, so refreshing does not hammer your server.

Below the form there is a list of reliable servers that are down right now: servers that were up at least 90% of the last week but are not answering at this moment, newest outage first. If your server is on it, your players are seeing it too. For a listed server the result links straight to its stats page and outage history; for an unlisted one it offers to list it.

Put live status on your own website

If you run a website, the public API gives you the same numbers with no key, up to 120 requests a minute per visitor address, and it allows requests from any browser origin, so a plain page can call it. Replace your-server with the name in your server's page address:

GET https://9minecraftserver.com/api/v1/servers/your-server

The JSON has name, address, edition, online, players, maxPlayers, version, votesThisMonth, votesTotal, lastCheckedUtc, countFlag, url and voteUrl. A widget is a few lines inside a script on your page:

const r = await fetch("https://9minecraftserver.com/api/v1/servers/your-server");
const s = await r.json();
document.querySelector("#status").textContent = s.online
  ? `Online: ${s.players} of ${s.maxPlayers} players on ${s.version}`
  : "Offline right now";

That endpoint returns our last scheduled check. When the freshest possible number matters, use the one our own server page polls, /api/v1/servers/your-server/live: it pings your server first if the last check is more than a minute old and returns online, players, maxPlayers, countFlag, checkedUtc and ageSeconds. Poll it once a minute, not once a second; you share the 120-a-minute allowance with every visitor behind the same address. The website guide covers the rest of the page around the widget.

Third-party status checkers and what they miss

Two public checkers most players know are mcstatus.io and mcsrvstat.us. Both take an address, check Java or Bedrock, and offer a JSON API that returns the count, version, MOTD and icon; mcsrvstat.us caches results for five minutes and requires a User-Agent header on API calls. They are fine for a one-off "is it up" and for a quick widget. What they do not have is history: no uptime percentage, no outage log, no player chart, and no way to tell a server that is flapping from one that is solid. They also check from their own location, so a server that blocks a region can read as down on one checker and up on another. That is exactly what our is-it-down page says when a server does not answer, and why an uptime figure needs repeated checks from one place, not a single ping.

Get alerted when the server drops

Your players should never be the ones who tell you the server is down. Put a monitor outside your network and send its alert somewhere staff will see it.

1. Pick a monitor. UptimeRobot's free plan, at the time of writing, gives 50 monitors at a five-minute interval including port checks, and its pricing page limits the free tier to hobby and non-profit use. Any service with a TCP port check works for Java (port 25565 by default); Bedrock needs a UDP check, which fewer free tiers offer.
2. Monitor the game port, not the website. A port check on play.example.net:25565 fails when the server process dies even if the machine is up. A ping check on the host will not notice.
3. Send alerts to a private staff channel. Most monitors post to a Discord webhook directly; the Discord status guide has the payload if you build your own.
4. Add a heartbeat from the server itself if your monitor supports it: a script on the box pings the monitor every minute and the monitor alerts when it stops. This catches a frozen server that still accepts connections.
5. Write down what happens next. Who restarts it, how, and who posts in the public status channel. An alert nobody acts on is noise.

If your outages are crashes rather than host problems, the lag guide is the next stop; a monitor tells you when, not why.

What going offline does to your ranking

Going offline works on your rank in three ways here. First, an offline server sorts below every online one on every list page, so each outage drops you under servers with fewer votes and players. Second, players are 38 of the 100 points in Server Score, and an offline server reports zero players until it is back. Third, paid placements are hidden automatically while your server is offline, so a Promoted spot pays for nothing during an outage. Freshness (4 points) also slides while you are down. How we rank has the full weighting. We do not have enough history yet to put a number on what outages cost in players; our pings only began in late September 2026, so the uptime figures on stats pages are still filling in.

Votes are the one thing an outage does not cost you: votes cast while you are down still count toward your monthly rank, and vote delivery to NuVotifier is retried for a few hours, as the NuVotifier guide explains. So the practical priority is simple: keep the server up during your busy hours above all, and if you must restart, do it at your quietest hour and keep it under an hour so it never shows as an outage on your stats page.

The owner's next step is to claim your listing from its server page (a code in your MOTD proves it is yours), fill in the description, Discord and website so the status page also sells the server, and pin the page link in Discord as your status link.

Quick questions