How to make a Lifesteal server
A Lifesteal server is a Minecraft server where killing another player takes one of their hearts and gives it to you. On JetRift you make one by choosing Lifesteal, naming it, and sending your friends the address. It takes about ninety seconds, with no downloads, no port forwarding and no monthly fee. It runs Minecraft 26.2 on Java Edition.
What Lifesteal actually does
Everybody starts with the usual ten hearts. Kill somebody and you take one of theirs, so you are on eleven and they are on nine. Lose enough fights and you run out.
What happens at zero is up to you. By default the player becomes a spectator and has to be revived, which keeps the stakes real without ending anybody’s evening for good. You can turn that off if you would rather they just respawn.
How to make one
- Sign in with Google. There is no password to invent and no card to enter.
- Choose Lifesteal and give the world a name.
- Add your friends’ Minecraft usernames. Only the names on that list can connect.
- Send them the address. It looks like yourworld.play.jetrift.com and never changes.
Things you can change without editing a single file
Most guides to running Lifesteal are really guides to editing YAML. JetRift gives the plugin its own page on the site, so the settings that matter are controls rather than config keys.
- Set anybody’s hearts directly, between one and twenty
- Revive a player who hit zero
- Whether a natural death costs a heart, and whether it drops one
- Whether hearts can be crafted, and how long the combat tag lasts
What it costs
Nothing. You get three worlds and a hundred hours of server time a month across all of them, which is a couple of hours every evening.
A world sleeps ten minutes after the last person leaves, and those sleeping hours cost you nothing. Connecting wakes it back up, so in practice you only spend time you are actually playing.
Who can join
Minecraft Java Edition, on version 26.2 or anything newer. Friends on a later version do not have to downgrade, because JetRift translates for them.
Bedrock cannot join. That is phones, consoles, and the Microsoft Store edition on Windows. It is a Minecraft limitation rather than ours, and no host can work around it.
Make one now. Free, no card, and about ninety seconds from here to an address you can send your friends.
Start a worldCommon questions
Do my friends need to pay anything?
No. They need Minecraft Java Edition, which they already own if they are playing, and their username on your list. They do not need a JetRift account.
Could I just run it on my own PC instead?
You can, and it is free in the sense that you already own the computer. It means leaving that machine on whenever anybody wants to play, opening a port on your router, and handing out your home IP address. JetRift exists to skip those three things.
What happens when someone runs out of hearts?
By default they become a spectator until somebody revives them, which you can do from the web page in one click. You can switch that off so they simply respawn.
Can I get the world back if something goes wrong?
Yes. JetRift keeps your three most recent saves and takes a new one whenever the world stops. Restoring one is itself undoable, because the world as it is now is saved first.