What is a Minecraft SMP?

A Minecraft SMP, short for survival multiplayer, is a server where many players share one survival world. You gather your own materials, build your own base and trade with the people around you, all in the same map, with the health, hunger and danger of survival mode. SMPs suit players who like survival but want neighbours, a shared economy and builds that other people will see. They differ in three big ways: who can join, whether the world resets, and which editions of Minecraft can connect. Sunday Market is one example, a public 18+ SMP where Java and Bedrock players share one persistent world, and this explainer uses it to show how those choices play out.

Survival mode and survival multiplayer

Survival is a game mode. You start with nothing, you punch a tree, and you work your way up from wood to stone to iron to diamond while mobs try to stop you. You can play survival alone in a single-player world.

An SMP is survival played on a server with other people. The rules of the game stay the same, but the world stops being yours alone. The cave you mined out is gone for the next player. The village you trade with may already have a neighbour. The shop down the road sells what someone else gathered. That shared state is the point of an SMP, and it separates one from a minigame server, where each match starts fresh, or a creative server, where players build from an unlimited supply of blocks.

Much of the word's popularity comes from invite-only groups of video creators who share one world. Those are SMPs too, closed to the public. The SMPs you can join yourself are run for ordinary players, and they range from a dozen friends on a rented server to public worlds with open slots for strangers.

The four common kinds

The first two rows describe access and the last two describe time, so a real server is one of each: public and seasonal, whitelisted and persistent, and so on.

Public or whitelisted

A whitelist is a list of accounts the server lets in. On a whitelisted SMP you apply, someone approves you, and only then can you connect. That keeps the group small and known, and it keeps strangers out, but it also means a wait before you can play.

A public SMP lets anyone with the address join. You can play within minutes. The trade-off is that the server has to protect players from each other with rules, moderation and tools. Sunday Market is public, with no whitelist and 20 player slots. It protects builds with Wards, claim blocks you place in your base so others cannot break or build inside, and staff keep a rollback log to reverse griefing. The server rules are short and enforced.

Seasonal or persistent

A seasonal SMP resets on a schedule. At the end of a season the map is archived and everyone starts again. Seasons bring fresh terrain, a clean economy and an even start for newcomers.

A persistent SMP keeps one world. Your builds stay, the map grows, and the server's history piles up. The cost falls on the operators: they have to take backups, handle new Minecraft versions without a reset and find room for new land. Sunday Market is persistent. Its world has run since June 2026 with no scheduled resets, and the essay why this Minecraft world is built to last explains how.

Java, Bedrock or both

Minecraft comes in two main editions. Java Edition runs on computers. Bedrock Edition runs on phones, tablets, Windows, Xbox, PlayStation and Switch. The two use different network protocols, so a server built for one edition does not accept the other on its own. Microsoft's guide to the differences between the editions goes as far as redstone: Java has quasi-connectivity and Bedrock does not, so a contraption built on one edition can fail on the other. On an SMP that matters, because shared farms and doors have to work for everyone who uses them.

Most SMPs run Java server software and stay Java-only. A crossplay SMP adds a bridge on the server so Bedrock players can join the same world. On Sunday Market, Java players connect to marketsunday.com on the default port, and Bedrock players use the same address on port 19132 with no Java account. As of September 2026, 19 of the 31 accounts that have joined are Bedrock players. The explainer Java vs Bedrock on a multiplayer server goes into the differences.

Vanilla, vanilla-plus or modded

SMPs also differ in how far they change the game.

• Vanilla servers change nothing. What you know from single-player is what you get.
• Vanilla-plus servers keep the vanilla game as the base and add systems on the server side, so you still join with an ordinary client.
• Modded servers change the game itself and need you to install the same mods before you can join.

Sunday Market is vanilla-plus. Its wiki puts the balance as "vanilla first and every addition opt-in". Crafting recipes, combat and the progression from wood to netherite stay vanilla, and the additions include a coin economy that pays for ordinary play, copper golems that take jobs and a brewing tavern. Neither edition needs client mods.

How to choose an SMP

Before you join a server, look for five facts:

1. Editions. Can your device connect, and can your friends on other devices join you?
2. Access. Public, or an application and a wait?
3. Reset policy. Will the world be there in a year?
4. Protection. How does the server stop griefing: claims, rollback, staff or all three?
5. Community. Is there an age rule, and are the rules written down?

Sunday Market answers them on its homepage and in its getting started guide. If the answers suit you, the address is marketsunday.com, and the join page walks both editions through their first connection.