SqueejCraft is a hard difficulty semi vanilla survival SMP that cares a lot about staying close to vanilla. The server is tuned to feel almost like single player with only a few quality of life changes.

It has great view and simulation distance and it keeps vanilla mechanics for stuff like spawn rates and mob farms. Redstone builds work well and it is friendly for mega projects with generous entity caps.

There are home points and chest shops that unlock automatically plus a land claim system so you can protect your area. The economy is meant to be balanced and PvP is optional with protection for your items.

The world is long term with no resets and a 300k world border. It is also made to be nearly impossible to xray and the setup is lightweight and future proofed.

There are server rules and guides for beginners plus help for land claims chest shops and chat features.