I found this survival server called Smithtainment Minecraft and it feels like a real home online. They have been running games for over ten years so it feels pretty stable and well made. The server is on hard mode and it still feels kind of vanilla but with a bunch of extra quality of life stuff.

There are jobs you can take and you can level up skills and fight stronger mobs. There is a resource world so the main world does not get wrecked. Mobs and spawners can stack and there are both server shops and player shops so you can trade a lot. You can also set up player warps and use commands like rtp home and sethome which makes exploring way easier.

If you die you meet this fairy who lets you buy back your items which is actually pretty cool because hard mode can be rough. There are playtime ranks that give you more perks the longer you stay so it rewards people who stick around. The spawn area is custom built and looks really nice and there is a PvP arena under it for people who want to fight.

There are custom Ender Dragon fights so you can team up with other players and take her down together. The community seems really welcoming and they help new players when they join. The server runs on Minecraft Java version 1.21.10 so it is updated and ready for new adventures.