My daughter bought Minecraft the other day and invited a friend over to play. I didn't think they'd have any trouble playing together. Boy, was I mistaken.

Wouldn't you think that as long as everyone buys the game, they could join the same server and have a good time?

Nope. My daughter bought Minecraft on our Mac, which means she's running the Java edition. Her friend, however, had brought her Nintendo Switch over, which runs the Bedrock edition. With no simple way to get on the same server, the dream of playing together started to fade.

The friend called an expert, her little brother. He said they were cooked. But he did mention something called Aternos, which helped me as I searched for a solution. He also sniffed a bit at Bedrock, implying that Java edition is superior somehow.

In the end, we set up a Minecraft server (hosted on Aternos) by following the Aternos blog post Allow Bedrock players on your Java server with Geyser and a video entitled How to join custom servers on Nintendo Switch [Minecraft Bedrock Tutorial] by TheAlienDoctor.

At a high level, here's the plan:

• We will be spinning up a Java edition Minecraft server hosted on Aternos powered by specific software (Paper) running the GeyserMC plugin. (We also needed the ViaVersion plugin.)
• The Mac (running the Java edition of Minecraft) will connect to our server on the standard port.
• On the Switch (running the Bedrock edition), we will be hacking around with its DNS settings and will connect on a port that's specific to our Java edition server. BedrockConnect is involved.

More on all this below, of course!

Before doing all the server setup (which involved a lot of false starts for us), you might want to make sure both devices can connect to test.geysermc.org. This “just worked” on the Mac. On the Switch, you'll need the DNS method, described below. Even if the test server doesn't work, it still might be worth powering through the server setup.

The test server above, as suggested by the name, is supported by the good folks at the Geyser project. Here's their logo:

According to their website, “Geyser is a program that allows Minecraft: Bedrock Edition clients to join Minecraft: Java Edition servers, allowing for true crossplay between both editions of the game.” Perfect.

One more tip before you begin. If you have any trouble with the server setup (or maybe even with the DNS method), I highly recommend joining the GeyserMC Discord and asking the nice people there for help. (Here's the thread I started so I can find it again!) I couldn't have pulled this off without them. Thank you especially to SpoonySimone and sleepypop_ (The Invisible One)! ❤️

Ok, are you ready to create a Minecraft server? 💪 Let's go! 🚀 Don't worry, it's free. 🎉 You'll have to put up with a lot of ads while setting it up, but whatever. 🤷

First, go to https://aternos.org and create an account. As of this writing, click “Play” or scroll to the bottom and click “Launch my server now” to bring you to https://aternos.org/go/ to create your account. I recommend creating an Aternos account based on your Google account because backups can be configured to go to Google Drive.

Create a server and select “Minecraft: Java edition”. You can customize the hostname and welcome message if you wish.

You'll be prompted to back up your server to Google Drive. This is obviously a capital idea, but I haven't tried it yet. Like a slacker, I clicked “Skip”.

By default your Aternos server will be running what they call “Vanilla” software, but we need to change that. The Ateros blog post has a nuanced take on the merits of various software options but I only tried Paper and it worked for us (eventually). Click “Software” and under “Java Edition” switch from “Vanilla” to “Paper/Bukkit”. You will be presented with a somewhat bewildering set of version numbers. As of this writing, the versions are listed like this:

• 26.1.2 (12)
• 26.1.1 (29)
• 1.21.11 (130)
• 1.21.10 (130)
• …
• 1.8.8 (445)
• 1.7.10 (2025)
• 26.1.2 (12)

Are these in the right order? Did the version really jump from 1.x to 26.x? Strangely, yes. (Update: Minecraft blogged about the bump.) Why is 26.1.2 (12) listed at both the top and the bottom? No one knows. I tried that newest 26.x version and got nowhere.

By chatting with the nice people in the GeyserMC Discord, I learned support for 26.x is still experimental and that 1.x is considered the more stable version. I got version 1.21.11 to work, which is the version shown under supported version for the Java edition, in the Geyser documentation, as of this writing. Click 1.21.11 and then click “Reinstall”. You'll see a scary message saying “Your current world will be deleted!” But that's fine. We don't have any data yet. Click “Yes, Reinstall”.

Next, you'll need to install the GeyserMC plugin, as explained in the Aternos blog post above. You can either click “Plugins” and search for it or click https://aternos.org/addons/a/artemis-bukkit/geyser as explained in the blog post. Click the little green download arrow and watch it turn into a spinning gear and then a checkmark.

Finally, I needed the ViaVersion plugin. Without it, the Mac had this error: “Outdated server! I'm still on 1.21.11”. What's happening here is that the server and the client must have the same version. The server is running version 1.21.11 and the Mac client is running version 26.1.2. How do we fix this? With ViaVersion.

In Discord, hasankayra04 (Hasan the Third) explained it this way: “For context, your Java client (Mac) was running version 26.1.2. Normally, a server and client need to be on the same version in order to establish a connection (i.e., they must match). What ViaVersion does is allow newer Java clients to join servers running older versions by handling compatibility between them.”

To install ViaVersion, I clicked on the link in the Aternos blog post, but you can also search for it. You'll see an even more confusing array of version numbers, but I simply clicked the little green download arrow on the version at the top (which happened to be a snapshot) and it worked.

There's a video in the Aternos blog post above that walks you through these steps visually. I recommend it, but keep in mind they aren't doing exactly what I'm laying out here. (They don't install ViaVersion, but they do install the 1.x version of Paper, at least.) It's helpful to see what to click, I'd say.

Now you're ready to start your server. Click “Server” and then “Start”. Agree to the EULA and wait for your server to start up. While you're waiting, you can scroll down and confirm that it says “Software: PaperMC” and “Version: 1.21.11 (130)” (for me at least).

Once the server is up you'll see a countdown. This is how long you have to get a user on the server before it shuts down. Click “Connect” and note the port that the Switch user will need to enter. For us it was a five digit number.

Again, the Mac will use the standard port. You can have the Mac try to connect to your newly spun up server. Hopefully, it will work. They're both running Java edition, after all. As a reminder, I needed ViaVersion to get the Mac to connect, as described above.

The next steps for the Switch are a doozy. On the Switch, you can't simply enter the hostname of the server you'd like to connect to. Instead, you have to choose among a few featured servers. Our hack will be to change the DNS settings on the Switch to use the IP address of a DNS server running BedrockConnect which will redirect those featured servers to a BedrockConnect serverlist server. From there, on the Switch, you will be able to enter the hostname of the Aternos server we set up. That's the goal anyway. In Discord this was referred to as “the DNS method”. I recommend watching the How to join custom servers on Nintendo Switch [Minecraft Bedrock Tutorial] video mentioned above again before we proceed. It's a lot, especially if you don't know much about Switch, like me.

I'm not going to type up what the video explains but I'll highlight a few points. You need two kinds of accounts, one from Nintendo and one from Microsoft, and they need to be linked to each other or at least the Switch, from what I understand.

We'll be using the following DNS servers:

• Primary DNS: 104.238.130.180 (BedrockConnect)
• Secondary DNS: 8.8.8.8 (Google)

The video shows a Minecraft version of 1.19.73 on the Switch but we had a newer version, 26.13.

On the Switch, click on a featured server (we used “The Hive”) and wait for the error screen that it couldn't connect, thanks to the DNS hack above.

Click “Connect to a Server” and enter the following:

• Server Address: the hostname the server we set up
• Server Port: the custom port (again, find this in Aternos by clicking “Server” and then “Connect”)

(If you don't enter the custom port, you'll likely see an error like this on the Switch: “Your client is having trouble establishing a connection to multiplayer services. Please check your internet connection, restart your client, and try again. Multiplayer Connection Failed.)

Click “Submit”. Did the Switch connect? Great! 🎉

Is the Mac also able to connect? Fantastic! 🎉

Do a backup, celebrate, and have fun! 🎉

Still having problems? Once again, I highly recommend the GeyserMC Discord. They were extremely helpful and quick! They might ask you to run commands such as these in the console of Aternos…

• geyser version
• paper version
• geyser dump

… so be ready to click “Console” in Aternos to run them. You'll copy and paste the output into Discord for the people helping you, of course. They might want you to click on “Log” and show what you see there, as well.

Obviously, version numbers will change in the future but here's the combination that worked for us:

• Clients
  • Mac Java edition 26.1.2
  • Switch Bedrock edition 26.13
• Server
  • Paper 1.12.11 (130)
    • Output from paper version: This server is running Paper version 1.21.11-130-ver/1.21.11@c5a2736 (2026-04-11T11:14:19Z) (Implementing API version 1.21.11-R0.1-SNAPSHOT)
  • Geyser 2.9.5
    • Output from geyser version: This server is running Geyser version 2.9.5-b1117 (git-master-c386571) (Java: 1.21.11, Bedrock: 1.21.130 - 26.10)
  • ViaVersion 5.9.0
    • Output from viaversion: ViaVersion 5.9.0-SNAPSHOT.

Again, good luck and have fun! It was worth it to see happy kids screaming about creepers! 😄