Advanced Anti-Cheat vs ExploitShield

Advanced Anti-Cheat vAlpha is a free, self-hosted anti-cheat plugin for PocketMine-MP servers. It is described as defending servers against malicious users through checks for movement, combat and other gameplay behavior. Listed movement protections are Anti Fly and Anti Speed. Combat checks include Anti Aimbot, Anti Reach, Anti Hit Box and Fix Hit Delay. Other listed checks cover Anti Auto-Gap, Anti Dup, Anti Xray and Anti Smallking. The plugin manifest identifies version 0.0.2, author LearXD and API version 2.0.0; the README says APIs at version 2.0.0 or earlier are supported. The project is labeled vAlpha and uses the GPL-3.0 license. The GitHub releases page lists 0.0.2 as latest, dated October 1, with notes about fixing several fly bugs and an anti-auto-clicker issue. The README warns that unchecked feature options may still be in development or testing. It includes a demonstration section identified as a video from the maintainer’s channel. The listed feature set does not include replay analysis.

ExploitShield is a free, open-source Minecraft server plugin that guards against packet exploits, crash attempts, invalid NBT data, malicious payloads, and duplication methods. It filters and validates packets, limits their rate, detects malformed traffic, and checks payloads and plugin messages. NBT checks cover oversized content, invalid UTF-8, illegal characters, and invalid stack sizes. Listed crash protections address books, signs, payloads, chat overflow, TabComplete, and invalid packet cancellation. Duplication defenses cover inventory, creative, hoppers, containers, pistons, minecarts, boats, and vehicles, alongside chunk detection and item signature tracking. Administrators can configure protection modules, thresholds, packet and rate limits, alert messages, and punishments. Responses include alerts, cancellations, kicks, bans, IP bans, and custom commands. It supports Minecraft 1.17.x–1.21.x on Paper, Spigot, and Folia, and requires Java 17+, PacketEvents 2.13.0+, and ProtocolLib 5.4.0+. The license is GPL-3.0; modified distributions or projects incorporating its source must use that license and publish their complete source code.