Introducing Craftbox 1.1

Published 25 July 2026

Craftbox 1.1 is here, and it’s now stable. The 1.1 beta cycle turned out to be one of the most feature-packed stretches of development Craftbox has seen — server groups, Modrinth integration, a portable server transfer system, and a completely reworked upload engine — and all of it has now been polished and rolled into a stable release.

If you’re new here, Craftbox is a self-hosted web panel for creating, configuring, monitoring, and managing Minecraft servers — no command-line expertise or dodgy download pages required. It runs as a single Node.js application with a live console, and when deployed via Docker it bundles every Java runtime you need, automatically selecting the correct one for each Minecraft version.

Here’s what’s new in 1.1.

Modrinth Integration

This is a big one. Craftbox now integrates directly with Modrinth, putting thousands of mods, modpacks, and plugins right at your fingertips.

You can discover content that’s compatible with your servers from within Craftbox, and — best of all — spin up a brand new server directly from a Modrinth modpack. Either search the catalogue and deploy in a couple of clicks, or upload your own .mrpack file and let Craftbox handle the rest.

Server Groups

Managing more than a handful of servers on one dashboard used to get messy. Not anymore. Server groups let you organise your dashboard into colour-coded tabs, each with its own dedicated page. You can create, rename, and recolour groups on the fly, and move servers between them whenever your setup changes.

The dashboard (as well as group pages) now support full real-time updates too, so servers appearing, disappearing, or moving between groups is reflected instantly without a manual refresh.

Portable Server Transfers

Moving a server between machines has always been more painful than it should be. Craftbox 1.1 introduces a server transfer system that makes it effortless.

Export any server — its files and Craftbox settings, and optionally its backups and event history — into a single portable archive. Import it into another Craftbox instance simply by dragging the .cbx file anywhere onto the dashboard. It’s perfect for migrating to new hardware, cloning a setup, or moving a server between instances.

Transfer archives now use a dedicated .cbx file extension so they’re easy to recognise, and thanks to a switch to our own custom-built tech (see below), there’s no size limit on imports (or on backup restores, for that matter).

Reliable Dropgate-backed Uploads

Craftbox now uses the DGUP standard from Dropgate — our own self-hosted, privacy-first file sharing project — to power file uploads. Everything works exactly the same as before, just with a much more robust internal pipeline. Building on Dropgate’s upload protocol brings a stack of improvements to anything you upload to Craftbox, including:

  • Unlimited file size, even through free Cloudflare Tunnels.
  • File integrity checks, so you know your uploads arrive intact.
  • Graceful handling of slow or unstable connections, without failed uploads forcing you to start over.

If you’re already running Craftbox behind a Cloudflare Tunnel, this is a meaningful upgrade for uploading large modpacks and world files.

Smarter Version Selection

The server version picker got a serious upgrade. The enhanced version selection UI now lets you provision servers using snapshot versions as well as preview and unstable releases of third-party mod loaders — handy if you like to test the bleeding edge before it lands in a stable build.

Safer Configuration Changes

Making a config change and immediately regretting it is a rite of passage for anyone who runs servers. Craftbox 1.1 makes it far less risky.

The Settings and Server Properties tabs now offer the option to back up before saving changes — something that was previously exclusive to the “restart required” modal. On top of that, pre-restart backups now capture your server config before changes are applied rather than after, which means a full rollback is genuinely possible if something goes wrong.

Craftbox API Documentation

For anyone building on top of Craftbox, we’ve published a full API reference covering everything you need for third-party integrations: the REST API, API-key authentication, the WebSocket protocol, and the public status endpoints. It was introduced early in the 1.1 cycle and kept up to date throughout — you’ll find it alongside the project on GitHub.

Quality-of-Life Improvements

Beyond the headline features, 1.1 is full of smaller refinements that add up:

  • Any whole-megabyte value is now accepted for the server memory setting, instead of being restricted to steps of 256 MB.
  • Inactivity-based sessions — auth now expires sessions based on inactivity rather than last login time.
  • Better provisioning error handling — if a server fails to provision, a modal now appears in the console, and the failed server is automatically cleaned up rather than left behind.

Fixes

We also squashed a good number of bugs along the way, including:

  • Fixed a 404 bug with JAR downloads, where the version search engine listed versions that had no stable builds.
  • Resolved several issues in the server JAR upgrade flow.
  • Servers are now fully cleaned up in the database — along with any now-empty group data — when they’re deleted or moved between groups.

Getting Craftbox

The recommended way to run Craftbox is with Docker. Pull the latest image and you’re away:

docker run -d \
  --name craftbox \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 6464:6464 \
  -p 25500-25600:25500-25600 \
  -v /path/to/craftbox/data:/app/data \
  willtda/craftbox:latest

Important: The -v volume mount is essential. It stores your database, server files, and backups. If you do not bind a host path, all data will be lost when the container is removed. Make sure the path you choose is backed up and persistent.

Prefer to run it standalone? You’ll need Node.js 24+ and a compatible Java runtime. Full setup instructions, environment variables, and the complete changelog are all available on the Craftbox GitHub repository.

Thank You!

Craftbox is open source and free to use, and it’s shaped enormously by everyone who tests it, files issues, and shares feedback. If you’ve hit a bug or you’ve got an idea for where Craftbox should go next, we’d love to hear from you:

And if Craftbox has been useful to you and you’d like to support its development, you can do so via Buy Me a Coffee. It genuinely helps keep the project moving forward.

Here’s to 1.1 — and to everything still to come.

- WillTDA, Founder of Diamond Digital Development