The Explorer's Friend vs Worldlens

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.

Worldlens is a TypeScript port of BlueMap for rendering Minecraft worlds into 3D maps and browsing them. The project describes a Windows desktop app, two container images, and a separate Wharf desktop app for deploying a container locally or over SSH. The desktop app can render local worlds offline using BlueMap’s Java renderer, which requires Java, or connect to remote BlueMap servers through a token-gated proxy. A standalone CLI renders and serves the map web app, with a watch mode for map updates. Rendering can also run on another machine over SSH, in Docker, or through GitHub Actions. Documented integrations include Docker, SSH, GitHub Actions, GitHub Pages, remote BlueMap servers, and Home Assistant boolean entities for scheduled settings. The stated target world versions range from Minecraft 1.12.2 through 26.x. The repository is MIT licensed. Its public 1.0 compatibility contract is Windows-only, and Windows releases are unsigned and may prompt a SmartScreen unknown-publisher warning. An add-on system, static export, and multi-server dashboard are listed as future work.