Crafty Controller vs Pterodactyl vs Pelican vs PufferPanel (2026)

Game Server Panels Compared: Pterodactyl, Pelican, Crafty Controller, PufferPanel, LinuxGSM and AMP

Last updated: 4 October 2026 · Every project fact on this page was read from that project's own repository, documentation or website on this date

The comparison at a glance

Tool	Licence and cost	Docker	What you install, per its own guide	Multi-node	Games supported
Pterodactyl	MIT, free	Required on every node, where Wings runs each game server in its own container. The documented panel install is native.	Panel: PHP 8.2 or 8.3 with extensions, MySQL or MariaDB, Redis, a web server, Composer, a cron entry and a queue worker service. Each node: Docker plus the Wings daemon.	Yes, one Wings daemon per node	Anything with an "egg"; core eggs include Minecraft, Rust, Terraria, Garry's Mod and ARK, plus community eggs
Pelican	AGPLv3, free	Required on every node, under Wings. An official panel image exists, but the docs still call Docker deployment of the panel a work in progress.	Panel: PHP 8.3 to 8.5 with extensions and a web server; SQLite by default, or MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL; then a web installer. Each node: Docker plus Wings.	Yes, one Wings daemon per node	Eggs, and Pterodactyl eggs stay compatible. Official egg repos cover Minecraft, SteamCMD games, standalone games, bots, voice and more
Crafty Controller	GPLv3, free	Optional: official image, or run natively	Linux: installer script, or Git, Python 3.9+ and Java by hand. Windows: portable build. Docker: one container.	Not documented	Minecraft Java and Bedrock; Hytale since 4.9.0; SteamCMD support is an experimental alpha since 4.10.0
PufferPanel	Apache 2.0, free	Optional for the panel; recommended for game servers	One package from its apt or yum repo, or one container. SQLite by default.	Yes, documented "Creating Node" guide	JSON templates; 37 game and app folders in the official template repo
LinuxGSM (command line only, no web panel)	MIT, free	Not required; a separate official project packages it as Docker images	One shell script per game server, run under its own Linux user, with tmux and per-game dependencies	No; it manages servers on the machine it is installed on	140 game servers in its server list
AMP (CubeCoders)	Commercial, closed source; paid licence required, sold per edition	Optional per instance (Docker or Podman)	One installer script (getamp) on Linux; Windows is also supported	Yes, controller and target setup; the Standard edition is aimed at a single system	2 dedicated modules (Minecraft Java, Rust) plus 221 applications through its Generic module

Releases, stars and activity on 4 October 2026

Stars measure popularity only. Commit counts cover 6 July to 4 October 2026 on each project's default branch.

Project and repository	Language	Latest release	Stars	Commits, last 90 days
Pterodactyl Panel, GitHub pterodactyl/panel	PHP, React	v1.15.1, 14 August 2026	9,286	10 (last commit 14 August 2026)
Pterodactyl Wings, GitHub pterodactyl/wings	Go	v1.13.3, 14 August 2026	1,056	12 (last commit 28 September 2026)
Pelican Panel, GitHub pelican/panel (formerly pelican-dev/panel, which redirects)	PHP (Laravel, Filament)	v1.0.0-beta38, 16 August 2026	2,339	119 (last commit 4 October 2026)
Pelican Wings, GitHub pelican/wings	Go	v1.0.0-beta29, 16 August 2026	317	11 (last commit 29 August 2026)
Crafty Controller 4, GitLab crafty-controller/crafty-4	Python	v4.11.0, 16 September 2026	253	123 on master (last commit 16 September 2026)
PufferPanel, GitHub pufferpanel/pufferpanel	Go	v3.0.9, 14 July 2026	1,751	21 (last commit 1 October 2026)
LinuxGSM, GitHub GameServerManagers/LinuxGSM	Bash	v26.2.0, 19 July 2026	4,912	16 on master, 34 on the develop branch
AMP, CubeCoders	Closed source	2.8.0 "Proteus", 22 June 2026	Not applicable (the public CubeCoders/AMP repo is an issue tracker and docs, not the source)	Not applicable

Pterodactyl

What it is. Pterodactyl describes itself as a free, open-source game server management panel built with PHP, React and Go that runs every game server in an isolated Docker container. The licence file in the repository is the MIT licence; GitHub's licence badge shows "Other" only because the file carries a trademark line above the MIT text. The system has two halves: the Panel, a Laravel web application, and Wings, a Go daemon that runs on each machine that hosts game servers and talks to Docker.

What the documented install asks for. The Panel needs PHP 8.2 or 8.3 with a list of extensions, MySQL 5.7.22 or newer or MariaDB 10.2 or newer, Redis, a web server such as NGINX, Apache or Caddy, and Composer. After unpacking the release you create a database and user, run the environment setup commands, run the database migrations, create the first admin user, set file ownership, add a cron entry that runs every minute, and create a systemd queue worker. Then, on each game node, you install Docker and the Wings binary, paste the node configuration generated by the Panel, and run Wings as a systemd service. If the Panel uses SSL, Wings needs its own certificate too. The docs are blunt about the audience: "If you expect to be able to install this with no understanding of basic linux system administration you should stop and turn around now."

Games. Games are defined by "eggs" grouped into "nests". The docs list core eggs including Minecraft (Spigot, Sponge, Bungeecord, Waterfall and more), Rust, Terraria, Teamspeak, Mumble, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Garry's Mod and ARK: Survival Evolved, with many more from the community. Docker images used by eggs must be built to work with Pterodactyl.

Users, nodes, backups. One Panel manages any number of Wings nodes. Server owners can add subusers with granular permissions (Pterodactyl's own security advisories refer to subuser permissions such as file.create). Backups are a Panel feature that stores archives either locally through Wings or in S3-compatible storage.

Docker. Docker is mandatory on every node, because Wings runs each game server as a container. The Panel itself is normally installed natively per the docs, though the repository ships a docker-compose.example.yml with MariaDB and the Panel. If you want game servers in containers with no panel at all, our game server Docker guide has compose files, ports and volumes for 14 games.

The thing that trips people up. The VPS type. Wings needs a Linux system that can run Docker, and the docs warn that Virtuozzo, OpenVZ and LXC virtualisation will most likely not work, while KVM is guaranteed to. Wings does not run on Windows at all. The other trap is the encryption key: the docs tell you to back up APP_KEY off the server, because if it is lost, encrypted data is unrecoverable even with database backups.

Security record. Pterodactyl publishes advisories on GitHub. The most serious recent Panel one is GHSA-24wv-6c99-f843 (CVE-2025-49132), unauthenticated remote code execution, published 19 June 2025 and fixed in 1.11.11. On the Wings side, GHSA-77pg-7gfq-9hjr (CVE-2026-104261), a host filesystem path traversal through backup identifiers, was published 14 August 2026 and fixed in Wings 1.13.1.

Pelican

What it is. Pelican says plainly in its docs: "Pelican is a fork of Pterodactyl." It describes itself as a free, open-source game server control panel built on Laravel and Docker, running each server in an isolated container through its own Wings. The repository was created on 19 March 2024 and now lives at github.com/pelican/panel. The panel is licensed AGPLv3; Pelican's Wings is MIT.

Status. Every Pelican release is still a beta, and Pelican's install guide carries the warning "Pelican is currently in Beta! Some things might change / break between beta versions!" By commit count it is one of the two most active projects on this page, with Crafty Controller.

What the documented install asks for. PHP 8.5 (recommended), 8.4 or 8.3 with extensions, a web server (Apache, NGINX or Caddy), and Composer. A separate database server is optional: SQLite is supported, and MySQL 8+, MariaDB 10.6+ or PostgreSQL 14+ are the alternatives. After setting file permissions you finish in a browser-based web installer. Nodes need Docker and Wings, installed the same way as Pterodactyl's. There is an official panel image (ghcr.io/pelican/panel) with a one-file Compose setup that defaults to SQLite and an integrated Caddy web server, but the docs say Docker deployment of the panel "is still a work in progress" and recommend the standard install for now.

Games. Eggs, the same idea as Pterodactyl. Pelican's FAQ says original Pterodactyl eggs "will always work". The README's egg table covers Minecraft (Paper, Sponge, Bungeecord, Waterfall), SteamCMD games such as 7 Days to Die, ARK, Enshrouded, Palworld, Project Zomboid, Satisfactory and Sons of the Forest, standalone games such as Factorio and Terraria, plus bots, voice servers, databases and generic runtimes.

Users, nodes, backups. Multi-node through Wings. Pelican's comparison page lists roles and permissions for admins, node ownership assigned to roles, OAuth login, webhooks, a first-party plugin system (released with beta30) and remote backups.

The thing that trips people up. Add-ons. Pelican's FAQ is explicit that Pterodactyl "addons" (code modifications) and Blueprint extensions do not work with Pelican, which has its own plugin system instead. If your current Pterodactyl install depends on a theme or extension, check for a Pelican plugin before you plan a move.

Security record. GHSA-2jvg-3c5p-rh99, "Unrestricted file upload in admin settings allows RCE", rated high, was published 7 September 2026 and fixed in v1.0.0-beta35. GHSA-2vm3-965q-cxpg, a host header poisoning issue in password reset that could lead to account takeover, was published the same day and fixed in beta37. Stay on the newest beta.

Pterodactyl vs Pelican

Why the fork happened. Pelican's FAQ answers "Why move away to make your own project?" with "Difference of visions, directions, and opinions." Asked whether there are hostilities, it says "Not at all. We also gave the previous team 2 months of advance notice." On Pterodactyl's future it says that is up to Pterodactyl's maintainer and that the two are separate projects.

Question	Pterodactyl	Pelican
Release status	Stable 1.x line; v1.15.1 on 14 August 2026	Beta; v1.0.0-beta38 on 16 August 2026
Panel licence	MIT	AGPLv3, relicensed from MIT at the fork. Per Pelican's FAQ, you need a commercial licence only if you modify the panel source, keep those changes closed, and make the panel public. Plugins and private panels are not affected.
Panel database	MySQL 5.7.22+ or MariaDB 10.2+, plus Redis	SQLite, MySQL 8+, MariaDB 10.6+ or PostgreSQL 14+; Redis optional
Install flow	CLI commands for environment, database, mail and first user	One CLI command, then a web installer
Panel in Docker	Example Compose file in the repo	Official image and Compose guide, marked work in progress
Eggs	Nests and eggs	Eggs (nests replaced by tags); Pterodactyl eggs compatible
Extensions	No plugin system documented	First-party plugin system; Pterodactyl addons and Blueprint extensions do not work
API	Pterodactyl API	FAQ says it stays backwards compatible with the original API
Wings	Pterodactyl Wings	Pelican Wings; FAQ says the latest original Wings remains compatible

Which one. If you already run Pterodactyl and it works, there is no urgent reason to move: it is releasing, publishing advisories and fixing them. If you are installing for the first time and want SQLite, a web installer and a plugin system, Pelican is the more modern codebase, as long as you accept beta status. Pelican's FAQ promises a migration guide from Pterodactyl; we could not find a migration page in Pelican's documentation index on 4 October 2026, so test any migration on a copy first. If you want a Pterodactyl alternative that is not a fork, PufferPanel is the lighter multi-game panel, AMP the paid one, and Crafty Controller the simpler choice for Minecraft alone.

Crafty Controller

What it is. Crafty Controller 4 is a Python-based web control panel and launcher for Minecraft servers, developed by Arcadia Technology. It officially lives on GitLab at crafty-controller/crafty-4, licensed GPLv3. Crafty's own homepage reports over 32,000 Linux, 13,000 Windows and 36,000 Docker installs.

Install and requirements. On Linux there is a one-line installer script from Crafty's installer repository, or a manual install with Git, Python 3.9+, pip and a service user; you need Java before starting any Minecraft server. There are portable Windows builds, macOS and Unraid guides, and an official Docker image for amd64 and arm64. It is one application, with no separate node daemon to install. By default its web interface is reachable on your local network; Crafty's site says you port forward it for outside access.

Games. Minecraft Java, tested on 1.8 to latest, and Minecraft Bedrock. Version 4.9.0 (January 2026) added Hytale server support, and 4.10.0 (March 2026) added an "Experimental SteamCMD Alpha". Treat Crafty as a Minecraft and Hytale panel today, with Steam games as an early experiment.

Users, nodes, backups. Users and roles with per-server permissions for commands, terminal, logs, schedules, backups, files, config and players. The backup manager supports multiple backup configurations, retention limits, exclusions, and an option to shut the server down during backup, which Crafty recommends because its backups copy live files. Multi-node: not documented.

The thing that trips people up. Docker on Windows. Crafty's README warns that Minecraft running in Docker under WSL or WSL2, Windows 11 or Docker Desktop is broken upstream, and that on stop or restart "there is a 90% chance the World's Chunks will be shredded irreparably". On Windows use the portable build, not Docker.

Security record. Crafty's changelog for 4.11.0 lists CVE-2026-18516 (XSS in activity logs) and CVE-2026-90821 (XSS in webhooks) as fixed in that release.

PufferPanel

What it is. An open-source, web-based game server management panel written in Go, licensed Apache 2.0, "designed for both small networks and personal use".

Install and requirements. The lightest web-panel install on this list. On supported Ubuntu, Debian and Red Hat systems you add PufferPanel's package repository, install one package, create an admin user and enable the service; or you run one Docker container. It listens on port 8080 for the web UI and 5657 for SFTP. SQLite is the default database, with MySQL or MariaDB, PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server supported; changing database engine after install is not supported. Version 3 removed Windows support.

Games. JSON templates that describe install steps, run commands and variables. Since v3, community templates are pulled from the official GitHub templates repository, which had 37 game and app folders on 4 October 2026, including Minecraft and its server variants, 7 Days to Die, ARK, Palworld, Rust, Satisfactory, Valheim, Terraria, Project Zomboid, Vintage Story and Discord bot runtimes.

Users, nodes, backups. You can give other users their own servers or access to yours. Additional nodes are added by installing the same package on another machine and pasting the config the panel generates. Backups in v3 are, in the project's own words, "a basic backup system" that makes a compressed copy on disk; the release notes recommend pointing it at a network drive.

The thing that trips people up. The server environment. PufferPanel can run servers directly on the host or in Docker. Its install guide says the "standard" host environment "is NOT a secure environment" and lets servers access host files, and v3 notes that its unshare isolation "is NOT perfect". Use the Docker environment. PufferPanel's FAQ also says it provides support for personal use only and does not consider itself the right panel for selling servers.

LinuxGSM

What it is. "The command-line tool for quick, simple deployment and management of Linux dedicated game servers." There is no browser UI, no panel user accounts and no multi-node controller. It is a Bash tool, MIT licensed and maintained since 2012.

Install and requirements. Per game: create a Linux user, download linuxgsm.sh, run it with the game's short name, then run ./gameserver install. It needs tmux 1.6 or newer and each game's dependencies, which it will try to install if the user has sudo. Docker is not required; the separate official docker-gameserver project packages LinuxGSM servers as Docker images.

Games. The server list in the repository had 140 game servers on 4 October 2026. Updates work for all SteamCMD games plus some others such as Minecraft, Teamspeak, Mumble and Factorio.

Users, backups, monitoring. The "user model" is Linux itself: the docs recommend one Linux user per game server installation. backup makes a full tar archive of the whole server every time, so set its maximum count and age or the disk fills up; it can also stop the server during backup. monitor checks that the process runs and answers queries, restarts it and sends alerts (Discord, email, Slack, Telegram and others) if not.

The thing that trips people up. Nothing is automatic until you schedule it. Monitoring and updates are designed to run from cronjobs you write, and the docs recommend checking for updates once an hour. You also cannot run LinuxGSM inside your own tmux or screen session, because it manages tmux itself.

AMP by CubeCoders

What it is. AMP is commercial, closed-source game server management software that runs on Windows and Linux. CubeCoders sells editions (Standard, Professional, Advanced, and Enterprise for hosting businesses). Its licensing FAQ says licences are tied to the product tier and number of instances, not the number of machines, and can be moved between systems freely. The standard editions are pay once: CubeCoders confirmed in May 2026 that it remains "committed to the pay-once model", while Enterprise is a subscription. The same May 2026 letter said "pricing changes are on the cards", and in September 2026 CubeCoders announced that AMP 3 will move several features (OIDC single sign-on, webhooks) out of the higher tiers. We could not confirm a current price today, so check cubecoders.com before you buy.

Install and requirements. On Linux, the getamp script installs AMP and can also install Java, SteamCMD libraries, Docker and NGINX for HTTPS; there is an unattended mode. Game instances can optionally run inside Docker or Podman containers. Updates follow a documented multi-step procedure, and CubeCoders' release notes stress "It's very important that you follow the update guide, especially on major release versions!"

Games. CubeCoders' compatibility list, last edited 3 October 2026, shows two dedicated modules (Minecraft Java and Rust) and 221 applications run through the Generic module from community-contributed templates, which CubeCoders says it reviews.

Users, nodes, backups. Multiple panel users with permissions (the editions sheet limits Standard to three panel users), multi-server management through its ADS controller and target instances from the Professional edition up, and built-in backups including S3 storage.

The thing that trips people up. Version churn. AMP entered a planned feature freeze from June 2026, expected to last until about September, to focus on bug fixes; 2.8.0 "Proteus" (22 June 2026) was the first bug-fix-only release. AMP 3 is announced as "a completely new codebase" and was not generally available on 4 October 2026. CubeCoders describes AMP 2's multi-server design as a "fragile hierarchical controller<->target setup" that AMP 3 replaces, so a multi-machine AMP 2 install now will face a major migration later.

What self-hosting costs you

The panels are free, apart from AMP's licence. The real costs are everything around the panel.

1. A machine that is on all the time

A game server is a 24/7 process. On a home PC that means the PC stays on, your electricity bill carries it, and your game sessions on the same machine compete with it for CPU and RAM. Most game worlds run their simulation on one main thread, so single-core speed decides how many players you can hold, not core count. On a rented VPS, check that the virtualisation supports Docker (KVM is the one the Pterodactyl and Pelican Wings docs guarantee) and remember that a shared vCPU is not a dedicated core. We explain why in game server lag on a shared VPS vs dedicated cores, the noisy neighbour effect and what a sustained 127% CPU reading means. For a worked example of sizing hardware for a demanding game, see our ARK: Survival Ascended self-host hardware sizing page.

2. A reachable public address

Friends outside your house need to reach your server. At home that means port forwarding on your router for every game port (and for the panel, if you want to use it remotely), a public IP that does not change or a dynamic DNS name, and an ISP that gives you a real public IPv4 address at all; some home connections sit behind carrier-grade NAT, where port forwarding cannot work. Each game uses its own ports and protocols; Hytale, for example, uses UDP 5520, covered in our Hytale port forwarding and firewall guide. A VPS solves the address problem but brings its own monthly bill.

3. Your IP on the open internet

A public game server publishes your IP address to every player and every server list. At home, a flood of traffic aimed at the game server takes down your whole household connection, not just the game. Panels do not protect against this, because it is a network problem; our guide to DDoS protection for game servers explains what protection involves. The panel itself is also an internet-facing web application: Pterodactyl, Pelican and Crafty have all published and fixed security advisories in the last two years (cited in their sections above), and those fixes only reach you if you update.

4. Updates every time a game patches

When a game ships a client update, servers usually have to update before players can connect again, and early-access survival games can update weekly. With Pterodactyl, Pelican or PufferPanel you trigger a reinstall or update through the egg or template, and when the game changes how its server starts, someone has to update the egg or template too. On top of game updates you also update the panel, the node daemon, Docker, PHP or Python, and the operating system, each with its own update guide.

5. Backups you have tested

Every tool here can make backups, each with the fine print given in its section above; on Pterodactyl and Pelican that includes backing up the panel encryption key separately. A backup on the same disk as the server dies with that disk, and until you have restored one, you do not know that it works. See how restores work in practice for Valheim and Palworld.

6. Your time when it breaks

All of these projects are supported by volunteers or a small company through Discord, forums and issue trackers. That support is often excellent, but nobody is on call for your server. When a disk fills, a certificate expires, an update breaks an egg, or Docker refuses to start after a kernel upgrade, the person debugging it at the moment your friends want to play is you.

When self-hosting is the better choice

• You enjoy it. Running a panel teaches Linux, Docker, networking and database skills. If that is half the point, self-host.
• You already have the hardware and the network. A spare machine with a real public IP, or a homelab, makes the marginal cost close to zero.
• You run many different things. Pterodactyl and Pelican eggs cover bots, voice servers and databases as well as games, all in one panel.
• You need something no host offers. An obscure game, a custom build, or a mod setup that needs root access to the machine.
• It is a LAN or local-only server. Crafty on a home PC for a family Minecraft world needs no port forwarding and no exposure to the internet at all.
• Uptime does not matter much. If the server going down for a weekend is fine, most of the costs above shrink.

When a managed host is the better choice

• Other people depend on the server. A group that plays every evening notices every outage you have to fix by hand.
• Your home IP must stay private.
• The game patches often and you do not want to update the server, its startup files and its mods each time.
• You want backups you did not have to design: off the machine, with a restore button.
• Your time costs more than the server. Count an evening of debugging against a monthly plan.
• Your hardware is a poor base: a laptop, a desktop you also game on, or a VPS without Docker support.

Where Supercraft fits

Supercraft is a managed game server host. We run the server for you, keep it updated when the game patches, and take the backups, and you get a control panel to configure, restart and restore without touching Linux. If the costs above read like work you would rather not do, have a look at our game servers. If they read like a fun weekend project, pick a panel from the table above.

FAQ

What is Pterodactyl panel?

Pterodactyl is a free, open-source game server panel under the MIT licence. Its PHP web panel manages servers and users, and Wings, a Go daemon on each machine, runs every game server in its own Docker container.

Pterodactyl vs Pelican: what is the difference?

Pelican is a 2024 fork of Pterodactyl. It is AGPLv3 instead of MIT and still in beta, and it supports SQLite and PostgreSQL as well as MySQL, adds a web installer and a plugin system, and keeps Pterodactyl eggs and the original API compatible.

Is Crafty Controller free?

Yes. Crafty Controller is free and open source under the GPLv3 licence. Its docs link to donation pages, and we found no paid edition.

What is the best game server panel?

For Minecraft on one machine, Crafty Controller; for many games across several machines, Pterodactyl, or Pelican if you accept beta software. The list at the top of this page covers PufferPanel, LinuxGSM, AMP and when to skip self-hosting altogether.

Is LinuxGSM a panel?

No. LinuxGSM is a command-line tool you drive over SSH and automate with cron, with no web interface or panel user system. If you want a browser panel instead, PufferPanel is the lightest install on this page.

Can I run Pterodactyl on a home PC?

Yes, if the PC runs a supported Linux distribution with Docker; Wings does not run on Windows. Players outside your home also need port forwarding for the panel and every game port, plus a real public IP from your ISP. For a single Minecraft server on a Windows PC, Crafty Controller is the simpler fit.