What’s Sponge nowadays?
I have close to none experience when it comes to modded servers, I hardly ever interact with those projects. Even worse considering that I stopped doing servers in general for 2-3 years maybe.
Around 2017 I tried Sponge as hybrid server for a friend smp
Today, I just checked Sponge page and apparently has become something entirely different with three variants: SpongeVanilla, SpongeForge (likely what I used back then), SpongeNeo (neoforge)
They now have their own ecosystem of plugins called ores and support forge mods
But what is it now?
Back then (from what I remember) was close to what mohist, cardboard and similar projects were, integrate the bukkit api into the forge ecosystem, but now it has a vanilla version apparently?
And have their own plugin browser instead of having to download then from spigotmc?
I got sort of confused and their “About me” is not that clear to me when compared to the Sponge I remember
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To my knowledge sponge never fully supported the use of bukkit plugins
SpongeVanilla just means that it supports sponge plugins and nothing else and SpongeForge/SpongeNeo support sponge plugins + their respective modloaders
So, they have their own plugin ecosystem?
yes
I guess theirs is still based on bukkit since a lot of bukkit plugins are on their plugins browser, and back then I used probably essentials and protectionstones
Also lockette i think
Then, SpongeVanilla would be an alternative to paper?
Something like this?
Also, what are your thoughts on Sponge?
Since they have their own plugin ecosystem, is it a viable alternative as hybrid server? Or is it as unreliable as the projects I mentioned?
no
not at all
sponge has a completely seperate api afaik, although it has things like kyoris components
although paper does use some libraries from sponge actually, but yeah
Yh, I noticed sponge libraries when making a velocity plugin
That change in their api must be new, as I clearly remember using spigot plugins back then
has never supported that
Well, not that new considering it was back in 2017
Weird
a fair few plugins have a sponge version tho
like spark, luckperms
Not sure that was the case, but I can perfectly be misremembering things
I'll have to take a look back at the project to be completely sure
When how is it as hybrid server?
Not sure it can be considered hybrid as they have their own api tho
we dont really call it a hybrid
even the ! hybrid mentions it as a not really a hybrid iirc
Cool
Still getting use to the ! tho
!hybrid
Please Avoid Hybrid Servers
Please avoid using server software that combines both mod and plugin APIs, such as Mohist, Magma, Cauldron, Thermos, CatServer, Cardboard, and others. These server software clash, as Bukkit was made for plugins and Forge for mods. Mixing them requires significant changes to the Bukkit API and Forge server code. If not done correctly, both plugins and mods can act strangely. Using these will almost guaranteed cause strange issues that make it near-impossible to assist.
If you are running 1.8 or 1.16.5, a good alternative to these is SpongeForge, a well-engineered solution that allows running Sponge plugins alongside Forge mods. Many Bukkit plugins also have Sponge ports.
Further reading:
- Essentials PSA about mohist
- Pixelmon's warning about mohist
- Patbox's explanation about hybrid server software
-# please note some of the warning such as replacing jars is now irrelevant, however the fact they're done this suggests they may do it again, so caution should be used
Admincraft Canned Responses
True, SpongeForge is mentioned there
So, what's SpongeVanilla used for?
If it doesn't fork spigot, maybe their target audience are people that are already used to the sponge ecosystem and don't want to migrate to paper?
well paper modifies mechanics, spongevanilla doesnt afaik
Sounds good for a purist community
From what I remember Sponge is a new set of APIs so it's an alternative to the Bukkit ecosystem
Then it has implementations, so you can use a vanilla base with sponge integrated, or forge instead of vanilla
just use fabric at that point. It has better server side only "mods" than what sponge has for plugins
I saw that technical smp usually prefer Fabric indeed, but thaan means that SpongeVanilla more than an alternative, is more for a niche ig?
sponge failed to hit the mark several times. It was advertised as a server side modding api, like bukkit, but was abstract enough to have multiple backends. Sounds great in theory, but that theory didn't hold up
first, when Sponge was gaining traction in 1.12, that was primarily because hybrids (like mhoist/magma/arclight) didn't exist yet. A lot of sponge specific plugins did exist and it was quite usable, however, the update to 1.13 was never seen
1.13 took sponge way too long to update to, and when we got sponge for 1.13 (or 1.16), the API changed version and old plugins no longer worked. That's a common theme unfortunately.
in the end, sponge just completely re-writes their API with breaking changes, is slow to update to modern versions on minecraft and has little to no developer support
they've been better now, but there was a massive gap between 1.12 and 1.16.5 and 1.16.5 wasn't released for spongeforge until newer versions of minecraft released (idk when 1.16.5 spongeforge released, but it was after 1.18 vanilla released afaik)
if their plugin API was stable, or if there was a significant following that developed plugins for it, then sure, use sponge. But unfortunately, that's not the case. The API is unstable and nobody writes plugins for it. If you want to use an ecosystem where the API breaks every other minecraft version, just develop for fabric. Pretty sure the internal Minecraft APIs are more stable...
More than didn't existed, I would say the idea kind of died around that time, since first hybrid project I used was one called Cauldron, which didn't update probably past 1.7
I was a kid around that time, so if I barely remember Sponge in 2017, I have close to no memories from the Cauldron time
sponge isn't a hybrid at all, as the implementations and plugins both expect mods to be present
meanwhile bukkit's API doesn't expect mods to be present, which is why bukkit/forge hybrids are an issue
Yh, pgdk told me that. I find it better being its own project tbh
Fortunately, besides cauldron, I haven't tried those modern hybrid servers
When those came around, I had already learned a lot more about programming and the limitations of that kind of software
realistically, if you need mods but still want some server side management tools that are half decent and can use fabric, then use fabric
if you can't use fabric and need mods, use forge
if you need to use mods and specifically bukkit plugins, use arclight
if you don't need mods, use paper/pufferfish
sponge at it's current state isn't better than directly using fabric/forge to write "plugins"
Fortunately I don't have plans to make a modded server, as I'm one of those guys that think the user is lazy and even if you give them a tutorial, they won't follow it
So, I stick with the mythic setup for custom experiences
Still, was nice to know that Sponge had grown since the first time I used it
imo, if they didn't change their API each major minecraft update, then maybe it would make more sense to develop for sponge
Don't tell me that :HyperXD:
That makes it absolutely not worth the time for the devs
for reference, this plugin I've been working on targets sponge 1.16.5 iirc?
https://github.com/funniray/minimap-control/tree/main
I can also probably promise that all 27 sponge downloads were by accident
28 just for the memes
:Aqua_cry_FB:
I will say though, it's nice that sponge at least includes minimessage and configurate
although, I believe paper would as well...
Hope they add configurate
Still I get is a pain if the api changes between each version
paper has configurate from my understanding
Never noticed tbh
they use it for
config/paper-global.ymlNot that I spend much time developing anyways, only when I really need it
I think
I actually wish configurate would allow me save yml comments
I didn't like the bukkit config system, so when I made my first plugin I made a small alternative with kotlin serialization
It was absolutely unnecessary but it was a cool experiment
Been copying that code ever since, saves me the time from writing the yml separately and allows me to keep comments there
dont they make configurate?
yes
yeah, sponge made a lot of neat tools. They also made mixins
I thought mixins came from liteloader
I mean, the package is com.spongepowered.mixins.asm or something like that
Maybe was directly integrated into sponge since... yk... liteloader no longer technically exists
I could be wrong since I don't interact with the modding community, I just heard that
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