Advanced Anti-Cheat vs Shard

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.

Shard is a Minecraft server anti-cheat service combining a plugin for self-hosted servers with a cloud dashboard. Its behavior analysis is trained on real gameplay, and Shard says it detects cheaters without manual review. Listed detection coverage includes killaura, aim assist and triggerbot. The dashboard brings statistics for connected servers together. To set it up, users install the plugin, create a server in the dashboard and connect it with the /shard connect command. The plugin requires Java 17 or newer and a Paper or Folia server; supported storage options include SQLite and MySQL, with MariaDB also described in the documentation. Shard describes its software as open source, and the plugin is licensed under GPLv3. Shard 1 Flash is available on any plan; the more accurate Shard 1 Pro is available on paid plans after account verification. A credit covers 400,000 checks with Flash or 100,000 with Pro. The Free plan is free and includes five monthly credits, one server and up to 10 online players.