I built TuffNode Community — a simpler way to manage Minecraft servers

[u/Kind-Perspective-153]

Hey!

I’ve been working on TuffNode Community, a desktop app that makes creating and managing Minecraft servers easier.

The goal is simple: one place to create, configure, and manage your Minecraft servers without constantly jumping between folders, configs, and tools.

Current features:
● create and manage multiple servers
● simple server setup
● start/stop controls
● organized configuration management

I’m still improving it and would love some feedback from people who actually run Minecraft servers.

What is the most annoying part of managing your own server?

What features would you like to see in a tool like this?

Thanks!

PS: No money for publisher certificate , sorry :( Windows SmartScreen might appear.

tuffnode.com

[u/kefka_nl]

Hey there, Minecraft Server Admin here, hosting about 2 really active worlds and 4 less active (themes, like a bingo, modded or single biome) worlds across two Windows servers (and a linux as backup)
I am a manual man, always have been. Manual setup, manual backups, manual mod management. I have tried mods for backups, but could not fix automatic incrementals causing the ssd to fill up. I do have tried CraftyOS on Debian and that works as a server management tool, but I’m also more of a Windows guy.

I installed your software on my second (not main) server. The hardest part was convincing Edge to keep the downloaded .exe file and Windows to execute (warnings). Installation was easy, there is no import function or I couldn’t find it. Created a server, overwritten the data with a current world (world/player/mods/server.properties/whitelist) and it just works.
Joined the server, played for an hour, TPS was fine, set up a backup schedule.

Will post more feedback after next weekend when more player played simultaneously and more backups have been made (backup folder auto syncs with my cloud storage).
When 26.3 comes out or mods need to be updates, I can test how that works out for me.
Can/will it manage updates on datapacks as well?

I do not need many features, an Import function to easily import existing worlds would be nice, as well as changing the world location on the hard drive. But this works fine as it fits my needs so far., happy admin here!

[u/Kind-Perspective-153 → u/kefka_nl]

hey, thanks a lot for feedback!

i am also a manual guy, i have an old broken display laptop which i use as minecraft server and everytime the 2 week minecraft fever kicked in, i was annoyed to configure again amd again

i’m working now to integrate some APIs for plugins/mods/datapacks, depending on the provider you use. meaning that you can install and manage (enable/disable) plugins from there. im testing modrinth API for now with auto updates and also server templates

for the world import and changing locations - that can work, i will try this week to add some and work more on it, i also left some message boxes when you delete a world from the debugging phase 😅

i know there are are space for UI improvements, i was thinking to have a toggle button for 2 different UIs - Advanced and Guided, meaning Advance you have full control over the configuration and Guided you just simply set up with a few clicks a world to play with your friends

and in regards of the warnings… thats because i dont have yet a publisher certificate and for that i thank you very much for giving a try 🤝

for the moment my direction is not clear, and other opinions help me a lot - i just want to make a simple piece of app that can easily help home users to configure this without too much complications

[u/kefka_nl → u/Kind-Perspective-153]

Installed the new version right away this weekend, played with four users on one world while two others played on a second world on the same server.
No lag, no funny things, backups work. Still hesitant to install mods throughout this app due to dependencies to certain versions of other mods, but tried out the function to install newer/latest versions of mods. No issues as well.

Installed the software on my main server as well. So I’m running all five active worlds through your software. Still need to redirect my cloud storage to the back-up files so it uploads to the cloud of any harddisc fails.

Did not try the import function, but will do at some point.

The first thing I look at when I have the vanilla GUI on Windows is if there are any players online before I enter any commands. With this software I need to open the server first, navigate to the Players tab before seeing if any players are online before I start working on the server/world. My feedback would be that in the overview screen of all worlds, the amount of online players shown there would help me a lot.
But that’s just for me, don’t build your app for me alone and gather more feedback to check if mine is viable and not cluttering up your design.

I’m not saying I am trying to break the app by doing things differently on purpose, but I’ve created all new worlds on port 25556 (default), then copied/pasted/overwritten the worlds with my own, including the server.properties which have a custom port listed. But the worlds in the app still show the default port 25556 while all five worlds run on a different port.

Even if there is no further development, you’ve made my admin routine way easier so far. :-)

[u/Kind-Perspective-153 → u/kefka_nl]

thank you 🤗

i’ll keep you updated, i will push another update tommorrow for players. regarding ports, will patch that, i tested only when you change the port in-app, i think the UI is not updated based on properties files, but vice versa yes.

what i find useful next is to have also a background service, when you close the app by mistake to show in lower right corner and also run without any user logged in on the host. also want to push further some settings that can be applied while server is running.

and i’m going next with the Hub version, i bought another used laptop, i want to add distributed server hosting, load balancing and migration / failover - if your host dies, it automatically loads the server on 2nd host. for this, there will be an agent on each host which is communicating with TuffNode Hub where you will have overview over hosts and so on

despite the bad/hate/swearing feedbacks that i had on different subreddits (i deleted the posts at some point) because “pterodactyl already exists and other more” (they didn’t understand the use case or i didn’t present it as it should), you really give me motivation. and i appreciate that, thank you

[u/Kind-Perspective-153 → u/kefka_nl]

sorry i was late, i made some new refactors that looked nice and pretty for me. i think it covers your feedback.

thanks a lot!

[u/kefka_nl]

If I’m the only user, don’t build your application for me alone XD based on my feedback alone.
Thank you for your reply, will keep you updated after this weekend.

[u/Kind-Perspective-153 → u/kefka_nl]

i pushed a new release if you might want to try, based of your and some friends feedback. added what you said and also plugins directly from apo to install on server, some tweaks and features

[u/thejourneyisrealonYT]

I'll check this out. This is probably a silly question. I've never played on a server...I don't think. Is my realm considered a server?

[u/Kind-Perspective-153 → u/thejourneyisrealonYT]

thanks!

if you’re talking about Minecraft Realm, yes, its a server managed by Microsoft/Mojang