I found a small semi vanilla SMP that is still in testing right now. The server is not fully started yet and they say it will begin in about a week.
It is meant to feel close to vanilla and it sounds like a smaller group kind of place. If you want to join early and be around for the real start this is one to watch.
Rise of Kingdoms is a Bedrock Realm that is built around heavy RPG play and kingdom style roleplay. You can join a kingdom and be part of the society or you can go your own way and live like a bandit or an anarchist who hates the system.
It uses add ons that support an economy system and an RPG system. It is meant to make things easier and keep the gameplay moving.
The realm is still new and the community is small right now so it feels like the start of something. The main rule is you must be over 18 with no exceptions. You also have to join the Discord and stay active often. There are VC channels if you want to talk instead of type.
AtrixStudios is a community focused survival world that feels like a Hermitcraft style SMP. People build big projects explore a lot and team up so the world can last a long time.
It runs a custom vanilla plus setup made for this server. The point is to keep it feeling like normal Minecraft but smoother and more fun with extra quality of life.
Stuff you will notice includes XP orbs that fly to you and dirt paths giving a speed boost plus easy vertical ladder placing and a warning sound when your health gets low.
There are also progression perks like farming giving extra XP. Beating the Wither always gives a skull and player heads can drop on death. The world has biome discovery messages crafting sounds for special items and alerts when someone summons the Wither plus piglins can show up wearing rare trimmed armor.
For decoration you can pose armor stands using levers and they spawn with arms on. You can also sit on blocks with a command. There is playtime tracking with commands to check stats leaderboards and ping.
Build safety is taken seriously since CoreProtect is used so staff can track and roll back griefing or theft.
ArkumSMP is a community server running a competitive Duo Survival Games event on a hand made Desert Wasteland map. It does not use normal world generation so the whole place is built for fights and smart movement.
The gameplay is meant to feel like pure Survival Games with custom coded chest tables. Loot is made to be fair and it pushes you to explore the map.
You can bring a partner or get paired up in the lobby. Expect open dunes for long range fights and tight ruins for close up battles. The event is on Java 1.20.1 and it is whitelisted so you have to join first and get your IGN added then show up early for the briefing and kit selection.
I found this server where the spawn has an arcade that is fully playable. It has pool snake 2048 minesweeper and reaction time. It was meant to be a small thing to do between grinds.
Now it is the main event. People log in walk straight to the arcade and stay there for hours. The spawn arcade stays packed a lot.
There is still a bunch of other stuff too like custom armor sets world bosses a player driven economy bug catching and custom farming. It feels like there is always something to do even if you just want to chill at spawn.