Terminology

I know that especially when you are just starting to get into Game servers, the amount of new words can be quite overwhelming. I hope that this document can help you with that!

General Terms

Client

The client is effectively the game that you start on your local computer. Lets compare it to a plane for now.

Server

An instance of Minecraft running in your terminal without a graphical preview, this is what your client connects to. You can imagine this like a big airport.

Terminal

The Terminal, Console, Command Prompt or "CMD" is a Windows Application that lets you run "commands". It lets you interact with apps that don't have a graphical user interface (GUI)

Vanilla

This word in general describes the unmodified version of a game, directly as it came from the game developer. This definition is not unique to Minecraft.

Server Software

Once we want plugins and mods to work on our server, the vanilla server software will not be sufficient anymore. Therefore developers created their own "Server Software", which includes all the features from the vanilla server as well new ones like plugin support.

Mod Loaders

Similar to Server Software, Mod Loaders describe modified Version of the vanilla client that include further features like mod support and performance