Pl3xMap vs The Explorer's Friend

Pl3xMap is a free, MIT-licensed world map viewer for Minecraft servers, using the game's vanilla rendering style. It presents a top-down 2D map designed for navigation, with live updates, dimension maps, and markers or waypoints. Player markers can show yaw rotation, health and armor. Built-in render types include basic, night, biomes, inhabited and flowermap, and the browser interface uses Leaflet. The project lists CraftBukkit, Spigot, Paper, Purpur and Fabric as supported server platforms; Fabric requires Fabric API. Additional compatibility listings include Bukkit, Folia, Forge and Quilt. Pl3xMap installs as a jar in the server's plugins or mods directory and includes an internal web server that defaults to port 8080. Some server hosts restrict ports, so setup may depend on what the host permits. Integrations can hide vanished players, show world borders, or display public homes and warps. Addons can show claim areas, banners, signs, loaded mobs and player death spots, though addon support is not guaranteed. Developers can import the Pl3xMap API through Gradle or Maven; the project directs users to Discord for help.

The Explorer's Friend renders a live topographic map of a Minecraft world and serves it from an embedded web server. It runs on a server using Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge, Spigot or Paper, with different builds depending on the platform and Minecraft version. Explored chunks appear as players move through the world; full renders read region files on worker threads without loading chunks. Players can open the map in a browser using vanilla Minecraft clients, without installing a client mod. Separate layers show claims, player positions, markers and Waystones. Claim data can connect to several protection systems or be imported from JSON. Server administrators can disable or round player positions; invisible players and spectators are hidden by default. The server binds to 127.0.0.1 by default and has no built-in account system, so the project recommends a reverse proxy for public maps. Its optional outbound connection downloads the official vanilla client JAR once and verifies it by SHA-1. The MIT-licensed project is free, with live updates, dimension maps and read-only HTTP endpoints.