Home › Host a Server › Host Your Own Server

Host your own Axe'n'Stax server

You don't need our servers to play together. Axe'n'Stax is self-hostable — you can run your own server on a spare computer, a little home server (NAS), or a cheap cloud box, and invite whoever you like. Your world, your rules.

This is the short version of what it is and why you'd want it. When you're ready to do it, the Run Your Own Server page has the exact steps, and the Operator Console page covers managing it.

Why run your own?

  • Play with friends and family — one shared world that everyone joins, from the browser or the app, no accounts required.
  • You own it. The world saves live on your machine. Nothing phones home, and no one can take it away or change the rules on you.
  • You set the rules. Who can join (open, invite-only, or sign-in-required), the game mode, the name, the privacy posture — all yours to decide.
  • It's a great thing to learn. Running your own server is real, hands-on ownership — the same idea as running your own website or your own wallet.

What you need

  • A computer that stays on while people are playing — a spare laptop/PC, a NAS (Synology, QNAP, a Raspberry Pi), or a small cloud server (VPS).
  • Docker installed on it. That's the only thing you install — Docker fetches everything else.
  • Players on the same network (home/LAN) can join straight away. To let people join over the internet, you'll either forward a port on your router or use a cloud box with a domain name — the Run Your Own Server page walks through both.

That's it. No game files to compile, no command-line wrangling beyond a couple of copy-paste commands.

How it works, in one picture

One small Docker container runs two things behind one secure web address:

  • the game server — the real, authoritative world (blocks, mobs, carts, economy, saves), running without a screen;
  • a web front that serves the browser version of the game and the connection for the app, so a browser trusts the security certificate once and reuses it.

Players just open https://<your-box> in Chrome/Edge, or pick Join Game in the app and point it at your box. Both land in the same world.

Getting started

  1. Run Your Own Server — install + start it, and get people joining (home network, then over the internet).
  2. Operator Console — a small web page where you sign in with your own identity to manage who can join, the server's name and limits, and privacy — no command line.

Good to know (alpha honesty)

This is early. Today a self-hosted server is a single shared world, players join as guests by default, and a couple of multiplayer pieces are still being wired up (listed at the bottom of the Run Your Own Server page). It's real and it works — just know it's a moving target while we're in alpha.