Howlbound SMP is a small Bedrock survival realm that is meant to be chill and long term. It is a place where you can build explore and just play without drama.
The world is survival SMP and there are no resets planned so your progress sticks. Achievements are enabled too so it feels like regular Minecraft.
The rules are simple. No hacking no griefing and respect other players builds. There are also community events and the player base stays small so it feels more friendly.
I found a public ATM 10 server that started as a friends server but now it is open to everyone.
The big idea is letting people play how they want. You can team up and make a nation with rules and laws or you can travel thousands of blocks away and live alone.
There are rules but they are just the normal basic ones you would expect. The server also has basic commands like home back and tpa so getting around is easier.
If you have questions the owner says you can ask and they will try to respond.
Loop de Loop is a fresh SMP that is trying to grow a real community. It feels like normal survival but with a lot of extra stuff added on.
You can pick an elemental race like Fire Air Earth or Water and each one has its own passive effects stats and specialty items. It makes choosing your play style feel like a big deal right away.
The world is not normal either since it uses Terralith Nullscape and Structory. That means more biomes to run into and more structures to find while you explore.
There are custom mobs that still feel pretty vanilla like goblins and haunted armor plus elite mobs with special abilities that drop extra resources. They also plan to add minibosses and bosses later.
If you like upgrading gear there are over 80 custom enchantments and you can get them with the enchanter command. The server also has an economy with a shop auctions and even useful commands you can buy like workbench and disposal.
For building and safety you can claim land with a gold shovel. You can buy and sell claim blocks and also get them from voting and daily logins and your first vote gives you 100 free claim blocks.
Mythvale is a worldbuilding survival server where players make the history. It is about building towns and nations then seeing what happens when people trade team up or fight over land.
The server uses Towny so you can start a town claim land and grow it into something big. There is also SiegeWar so nations can go to war and try to take territory. The world is custom made so it feels like it was built for exploring and settling.
The economy is run by players so trading resources goods and services actually matters. Politics are also player driven so alliances diplomacy and rivalries can change the map over time.
It supports Java and Bedrock crossplay and it is launching soon on version 1.21.11.
Straight Up is a straight vanilla survival server that is trying to be a forever world. The overworld has not been wiped since April 1st 2019 and the point is to keep it going with real history and old places to find.
There are no land claims and no protected areas. PvP and griefing are allowed so you have to watch your back and play smart.
There is no tpa and no home commands. There is also no currency factions or economy stuff. It is just survival the way it normally feels.
Proximity voice chat is supported with Simple Voice Chat if you want it. The server is tuned for stable performance and it uses an anticheat that tries to stay out of the way while stopping unfair exploits.
This server is built to be brutal and it feels like nobody is safe for long. Every time you die you permanently lose a max heart and it can drop all the way down to 4.
You cannot just eat and heal like normal because there is no health regen from full hunger. To get max hearts back you have to sleep near a campfire or use golden apples so healing is a real plan not a free thing.
Travel is scary too since there are no coordinates and no teleports. You have to use maps compasses and lodestones or you will get lost.
Getting to the End is harder because the Eye of Ender recipe needs items from four different structures. The End portal only stays open for 30 seconds and if everyone inside dies the whole End instance gets deleted forever. The dragon fight also has custom Ender Ghasts.
Beds do not set your spawn point. You rely on a Respawn Banner and if it gets destroyed you go back to spawn. Random Blood Moon events can happen too so nights can turn into chaos.
The first player to kill the dragon earns a Crown and the right to found the first nation and nobody has done it yet. It is for players who want a challenge on Java 1.21.11.
I found EchelonMC and it is a hand built survival server on 1.21.1. It has been in active development for about 2 months and the owner Eddy keeps building it based on player suggestions. They say over 100 suggestions already got added and updates happen every week.
The vibe is long term building and real progression with a strong community. It is not pay to win and they say there are no resets planned. It also tries to avoid that recycled plugin pack feeling since the systems are made for this server.
There is an Echelites currency you earn by just playing like mining farming fishing exploring and building. There is advanced land claiming with visual borders and lots of protection options like TNT and creeper control fire spread protection raid prevention and more. There are teams with member management and private team chat.
It also has auto pathing where paths form under you and can give speed bonuses and you can toggle it. Public builds can be listed so people can visit vote and climb rankings. There are timed graves so your items are protected with balanced recovery mechanics. The server is hosted in Canada.
This is a nations roleplay server where players can create a nation or join one that already exists.
People build towns and explore a huge world that is a 1:500 scale replica of Earth. You can also go to war when nations clash.
The community is said to be friendly and welcoming so new players can fit in fast. It supports both Java and Bedrock so more friends can play together.
Rosedalean SMP is a Java server on 1.21.11 that feels like vanilla but with extra stuff added in. It is made for both casual players and hardcore players so you can play how you want.
The server has an application system to help keep trolls out. People run community events and there are factions you can join or even start yourself.
It uses add ons so you do not need to download any mods. It also has simple voice chat and a world map you can look at to see what the explored world looks like. There is a ticket system if you need help and they do weekly game nights. They also listen to suggestions and try to improve the server with the community.
RefinedVanilla is a true vanilla anarchy server where you can do almost anything. The only real rule is no hacked clients so it stays fair in that way.
People build huge bases then other players can find them and wreck them. You can explore far out and just mess around with whatever you want.
It also runs custom software that adds multithreading so it can handle high player counts while still feeling like vanilla. Nether roof is enabled and chunkloaders work and lazy chunk cannons work too.