What is Steel?

Steel is a Minecraft Java Edition server implementation written in Rust, targeting Minecraft 26.2.
It’s designed for performance, reliability, and a clean developer experience.

Unlike traditional Java-based servers, Steel leverages Rust’s memory safety guarantees and zero-cost abstractions to deliver exceptional performance.

Who is Steel for?

Server Administrators

If you’re running a Minecraft server and looking for:

• Better performance - Lock-free data structures and efficient concurrency
• Lower memory usage - Rust’s efficient memory management
• Reliability - Memory-safe code means fewer crashes and exploits

Developers

If you’re building tools or contributing to server software:

• Modern codebase - Rust 2024 edition with 10 focused workspace crates
• Type safety - Catch errors at compile time, not runtime
• Behavior system - Extensible block and item behaviors

Current Status

Steel is under active development (v0.15.2).

Steel currently supports:

• TCP networking with Java Edition clients
• Mojang authentication and encryption
• Zlib packet compression
• World generation
  • 100% vanilla parity checked over 2500 chunks in all dimensions
  • Currently the fastest cpu chunk generation ever written
  • Check the performance in our Benchmark page
• Chunk loading, generation, and persistence
• Block placement and breaking
• Player movement with collision and speed validation
• Chat system with signed messages
• Inventory and container management (barrels)
• Entities with AI goals
• Block entities
• Custom favicon and server links
• Command auto completion in console

Check in our community for the latest updates.

Community

• Discord: https://steelmc.dev/discord
• GitHub: https://github.com/Steel-Foundation/SteelMC

Next Steps

Ready to get started? Head to the Installation guide.