Here, we’ve collected the best Minecraft mods, according to our experts on the game. Mods will help you get more out of Minecraft, no matter what it is you need. In this list, we’ll collect incremental improvements to the game, dazzling worlds and entirely new types of games you can play within Minecraft. It’s worth noting, not all mods are compatible with the latest version of Minecraft, and some require the installation of legacy versions of Forge to get them running. Thankfully, installing older mods isn’t too difficult. Most mods come with instructions, but if they don’t, we’ve got a mini-guide to get you up and running.
These mods are great on their own, but it’s worth noting that they might conflict with each other somewhat if you try and install several at once. If you do have issues with that or anything else, consider trying a preconfigured modpack out instead—the launchers provided by Feed the Beast and the Technic Platform are some of the simplest ways to quickly and cleanly get playing modded Minecraft.
If you’re looking for best Minecraft seeds, too, or Minecraft console commands and cheats, or best Minecraft servers, we can help with everything you need.
Here are the best Minecraft mods:
Instant Rope Bridge
[1.8]
You know what’s annoying? When you’re at the top of a mountain and see something interesting on an adjacent mountain. No one likes the feeling off having to trudge down a mountain only to clumsily stumble your way up another directly after.
What this mod does is cut out the in between bits. Namely, point, click, and a rope bridge will magically appear to offer up a link between the two destinations.
Yes, it’s for lazy people like me. Feel free to judge. Grab it here.
A more lively map
[1.9]
Maps are great for trying to keep a rough idea of where you are or where you’re heading. That said, there’s always room for improvement.
Imagine Google Maps, only for Minecraft and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this mod does. Specifically, it lets folk view a more real-time map in-game, and on the mini-map, as well as being able to view the map online via a web browser. If you’re charting your next journey, and it’s going to take you far, far away from the sanctity of your home base, then this mod is a must.
It’s Portal, but in Minecraft
[1.10.2]
How do you fancy creating your own Aperture testing lab? Included in this modpack are a wealth of different Portal-themed blocks and, more importantly, a selection of Portal appliances, which includes floor buttons for dumping companion cubes onto, pedestal buttons, and indicator lights. So if you decide to create a nefarious puzzle challenge, all the tools you’ll need will be there from the off.
A quick note: For the full Portal experience, you’ll first need to grab iChun’s Portalgun modpack first from here [Link 1]. After that, you’re safe to install Raptor’s mod-extension from here [Link 2].
Millénaire
[1.7.10]
How many times have you explored a new area only to be met with nothing but vast emptiness? The Millénaire mod fixes that by introducing a wealth of new content into spaces where there’d usually be nothing. Villagers are replaced by human men, women, and children, instead of the bog-standard villager. Even villages have had a makeover to incorporate 11th-century Norman, North Indian and Mayan themes. Grab it here.
Fossil and Archaeology revival mod
[1.17.10]
If there’s one thing missing from Minecraft it’s dinosaurs. Who doesn’t want to ditch creepers in favour of riding around on a T-Rex? Not only is there a massive amount of dinosaurs to spawn in creative, but in survival, the player can hunt down fossils and bring these forgotten beasts back to life. As well as a texture overhaul, there’s also a new mob boss in the Anu for those looking to put their prehistoric skills to the test. Grab it here.
Instant Massive Structures
[1.8.8, 1.8, 1.8.1, 1.9, 1.7.10]
Okay, okay, so this one may be cheating. We’ve all seen monstrous builds online which make our 5×5 dirt house pail in comparison. But what happens if you want to turn the tables? What happens if you want an enormous city in a matter of seconds? That’s where the Instant Structures mod comes in. Simply cycle through the creative menu, drop a block, right click it, and a building will magically spawn. Structures range from castles, to houses, all the way to tram stations. Yeah, sure, it’s technically cheating, but we won’t tell anyone. Grab it here.
The Lost Cities
[1.10, 1.11, 1.12]
Something has ended life as we know it. Buildings are in disrepair, and everyone has vanished, or so it seems. The Lost Cities, as the foreboding name suggests, spawns you into a city forgotten by time. The goal? See how long you can survive this post-apocalyptic wasteland without succumbing to death. If you fancy taking the survival one step further, this mod also interlinks with the Biomes O Plenty mod, meaning you’ll have a lot of stunning new areas to explore alongside the empty cities. Grab it here.
Biosphere
[1.7.10, 1.7.2]
Creating a biosphere, of decent size, takes around eight-hours, give or take. I know this because I spent eight-painstaking-hours making one. By the end, I wanted to chuck Minecraft into a nearby volcano. Making something spherical rather than a jagged diamond isn’t easy. Thankfully, the Biospheres mod removes all the annoying obstacles and spawns you into a world where the sky is overrun with various floating biomes. Just don’t fall off, yeah? Grab it here.
The Aether
[1.7.3]
The Aether (pronounced “ee-ther”) is the opposite of the Nether. While the Nether is seen as Minecraft’s equivalent of hell, the Aether is a sort of heavenly realm. Once transported via a portal, you’ll find yourself above the clouds surrounded by gorgeous, newly-designed floating islands. There’s also new mobs, including flying cows and flying pigs, some new boss enemies, as well as new block types to play with and new-fangled loot to find. Grab it here.
Optifine
[1.8.1]
Minecraft doesn’t scale too well to the power of fast or slow machines. It runs surprisingly poorly on low-end laptops, and a high-end rig can’t do much with its extra oomph. Enter Optifine—a mod that not only makes Minecraft run faster but also look far better. It supports HD textures, smooth lighting, and more, and framerate doubling is not uncommon. It’s one of the first things I usually add when installing Minecraft. Grab it here.
Twilight Forest
[1.7.10]
Love adventuring? This mod adds a new, densely-forested dimension shrouded in perpetual twilight that hides both valuable treasures and dangerous monsters. Throw a diamond into a pool of water surrounded by flowers to create a portal there, then spend a while roaming around. You’ll find hedge mazes, hollow hills, enchanted groves, glaciers, lich towers and more with rich rewards for those that delve the deepest. Grab it here.
Biomes O’Plenty
[1.7.10]
Since the ‘Update That Changed The World‘ in late 2013, there’s been a bit more diversity in Minecraft worlds. But Biomes O’Plenty adds vastly more—75 to be exact—from brushland and coral reefs, through lavender fields and ominous woods, to tundra and wasteland. You’ll need to create a new world to use it (make sure to select the ‘Biomes O’Plenty’ world generation option), but it’s worth it to see corners of Minecraft that you’ve never seen before. Grab it here.
Botania
[1.7.10]
Some mods add powerful magical items. Others add intricate machinery. Botania just adds flowers—but wow, what flowers. Flowers that heal you. Flowers that feed animals. Flowers that turn hostile mobs against each other. Flowers that eat cake. Oh, and did I mention that you’ve can also use flowers to create a magical portal to a world of elves? If you want to try something wildly different from most other mods, Botania is it. Grab it here.
Inventory Tweaks, NotEnoughItems & Waila
[1.7.10]
This trio of mods are essential quality-of-life improvements, especially when you’ve got loads of mods installed at the same time. Inventory Tweaks allows you to sort your chests with a single click and automatically replace tools when they break. NotEnoughItems provides you with a searchable list of all the blocks available in the game, and the recipes for crafting them, and Waila lets you point your cursor at an unfamiliar blocks to find out what it is. Grab them here, hereand here respectively.
Thaumcraft
[1.7.10]
Being a sorcerer is awesome, and the most awesome way to be a sorcerer in Minecraft is with Thaumcraft. It’s a vast mod that revolves around drawing the magical essence out of physical objects in the Minecraft world and reshaping it into new forms. In the process, you’ll create altars, wands, golems and fill dozens of jars of coloured goo. There’s even a puzzle game you’ll have to complete to research new spells. Grab it here.
Eyephone Mod
[1.11, 1.10, 1.8.2, 1.12]
Now you can have your friends call you up at stupid hours to spoil the latest Game of Thrones episode in-game. Hurray? And just like a regular phone, the EyePhone comes equipped with a selection of apps (with more unlockable via diamonds). The best feature, though, has to be the ability to email your friends to blow them up, because why not? Only downside is you’ll have to craft an in-game charger to keep the phone powered. It’s just like real life then? Grab it here.
Make Creepers Even More Deadly
[1.11, 1.9, 1.7.2, 1.12]
Creepers not giving you enough grief? We can fix that. The Chameleon Creepers mod makes it so when a creeper passes over a block type, it changes colour in the hopes of stealthily blending in to its surroundings. In short, it makes creepers even more deadly so you won’t see them until they’re hissing down the back of your neck. Why you’d want to use this mod is anyone’s guess, but for the masochists out there, you’re welcome. Grab it here.
Stalked by Hunters
[1.7.10, 1.8]
Sometimes the simplest of mods are enough to give Minecraft a new lease of life. The Medieval Mobs mod does just that by replacing the current line-up of mobs with bloodthirsty hunters. The Brigand replaces the skeleton, while the Bandit and Tribesman fill the zombie role. But be warned, these new mobs don’t act like their coded counterparts. They’re smarter, faster, and won’t cook in the sunlight. But if they are a little too tough, there is a config file to play around with to help balance these fiends some. Grab them here.
Ultimate Apocalypse
[1.8]
The world is going to end. In five days, the sun will explode, causing all life3plants, trees, mobs, animals, villagers—to burn up. And yes, that includes you. Can you get together enough supplies to venture underground and start a new life? Can you survive without the overground to keep you fed? Those are the questions the Elite Armageddon mod asks. To survive in this harsh, ashened landscape will require every trick you’ve ever learned. Dare you grab it here?
Natura
[1.7.10]
Another great mod for spicing up world-generation is Natura. It adds a wide variety of new tree types, and therefore different-coloured woods to make your home more aesthetically pleasing. It also adds a few extra crops for early-game food and resource production, and makes the Nether a little more dangerous. Natura is a nice first step into Minecraft modding, because it sticks close to the themes of the regular game. Grab it here.
JourneyMap
[1.7.10]
Minecraft’s default maps are a bit rubbish. They don’t offer much detail, have to be pulled out and looked down at to use, and don’t display anything other than where you are. JourneyMap fixes all that—it maps your world in real-time as you explore, can be displayed in the corner of your screen, and even lets you set waypoints to return to later. If you have a habit of getting lost in the wilderness, JourneyMap will get you home safe and sound. Grab it here.
Tinker’s Construct
[1.7.10]
Tools are the backbone of everything you do in Minecraft, and Tinker’s Construct lets you make far better tools out of a much wider range of materials. They’re upgradable, modular, and can be repaired if they break. Oh, and the mod also adds a smeltery to make high-end tools and increase ore processing efficiency. If you love having the best possible equipment to work with, grab Tinker’s Construct from here.
Forestry
[1.7.10]
If you like the agricultural aspects of Minecraft, you’re going to love Forestry. It’s a huge mod, which adds a bunch of new items, machines and blocks, but it’s best known for its bees. You can become an apiarist, capturing wild bees and cross-breeding them using real genetic principles to create masses of different useful resources. If I were teaching biology, I’d be using this in the classroom. Grab it here.
ComputerCraft
[1.7.10]
While we’re learning biology, let’s learn some programming too! ComputerCraft adds programmable computers and turtles into Minecraft, which you can write code to control. It’s based on the easy-to-learn Lua programming language, and with it you can make passworded doors, private chatrooms, automated mining turtles, and even in-game videogames. The possibilities are endless. Grab it here.
Thermal Expansion 4 & Minefactory Reloaded
[1.7.10]
These titans are two of the most important technology mods in the game. Thermal Expansion focuses on power generation and storage, as well as adding a bunch of new metals that have become standard components of several other mods. Minefactory Reloaded is where you’re going to use that power—in automating farming, animal husbandry, mining, enchanting, potion-brewing and more. Install it for the ‘raw meat block‘ alone. Grab both mods, and a couple of extras that they need to run, here.
Big Reactors
[1.7.10]
After a while with lots of tech mods installed, you’ll find that your power needs are growing faster than you can add more generator capacity. Big Reactors is the answer. It lets you build highly-configurable customised nuclear reactors that output huge amounts of power and won’t melt down spectacularly if things go wrong. It even interfaces with ComputerCraft, so you can build programs to control your reactors. Budding nuclear engineers can grab it here.
Chisel & Carpenter’s Blocks
[1.7.10]
Making your base pretty is an afterthought to some players, but to others it’s a vital part of the game. These two mods give you the tools you need to customise almost every aspect of your base design. Chisel provides loads of new texture options for many of the most common blocks in the game, while Carpenter’s Blocks adds slopes and loads of aesthetic options for doors, switches, torches, ladders, fences and more. Grab them here and here, respectively.
RailCraft & Steve’s Carts 2
[1.7.10]
You can probably guess what these mods do. That’s right—they both substantially upgrade the capabilities of Minecraft’s minecarts. RailCraft adds a bunch of new types of track, including sophisticated redstone-controlled junctions and signals, while Steve’s Carts pumps up the capabilities of the carts themselves—adding brakes, shields, drills and more. You can even make an attachment that launches fireworks. Grab RailCraft here, and Steve’s Carts 2 here.
EnderIO
[1.7.10]
Getting stuff to where it needs to be is often a problem in Minecraft. EnderIO solves that problem impressively elegantly, by adding compact conduits that carry fluid, items, power and redstone signals. It also has a few machines that enhance your ore processing capabilities, too. When your base starts getting complicated, EnderIO is one of the best ways to sort it out. Grab it here.
Applied Energistics 2
[1.7.10]
Storage can also become an issue when you start automating more and more aspects of Minecraft. Applied Energistics solves the problem by turning the matter in your chests into energy, which is then stored on disk drives, accessible wirelessly from anywhere in your base. You can even use it to autocraft anything you need by interfacing directly with your machines. If that sounds a bit magical, you wouldn’t be wrong. It uses vast amounts of power, of course, but once properly configured you’ll come to see wooden chests as hopelessly primitive relics of the past. Grab it here.
JABBA and Iron Chests 2
[1.7.10]
More storage mods, but this time focused on the early-game. JABBA adds easy-to-craft, upgradable barrels that can hold hundreds of stacks of a single item, while Iron Chests lets you upgrade wooden chests to hold more stuff. In the long run, you’ll probably still want an Applied Energistics system, but these mods make the early part of the game so much more pleasant. Get hold of them hereand here.
Extra Utilities & OpenBlocks
[1.7.10]
This pair of mods are a grab bag of immensely useful utilities with no real theme running through them. Extra Utilities adds a golden lasso for transporting friendly mobs, blackout curtains for keeping places dark, conveyor belts to move mobs around, and sound mufflers to quieten down your stables. OpenBlocks, on the other hand, adds sleeping bags, hang gliders, elevators, gravestones, rope ladders and building guides. Both are essential. Grab them here and here, respectively.
PneumaticCraft
[1.7.10]
It’s always refreshing seeing mods that try something a bit different. PneumatiCraft is a tech mod, but instead of power it uses air pressure. You’ll need to build compression chambers, pipes and valves to make sure you balance the flow of air, and if you get things wrong an explosion is inevitable. If you get it right, though, the nifty gadgets that PneumatiCraft brings to the table, like air cannons and configurable helmets, are well worth the time investment. Grab it here.
Hunger Overhaul, The Spice of Life & Pam’s HarvestCraft
[1.7.10]
Feeling hungry? You will be after you install Hunger Overhaul. It makes hunger more of a challenge, rather than a mild annoyance, reducing the amount of hunger each food item refills. Then, The Spice of Life means that you get diminishing returns from eating the same foodstuffs over and over again. So what do you do to get some dietary variation? Install Pam’s HarvestCraft, of course. It adds 58 new crops, 35 fruit trees, 12 bushes and 16 fish for you to track down, including—vegetarians rejoice—the ability to use tofu in place of meat for any recipe. It’s a veritable culinary explosion, and your mouth will thank you. Grab Hunger Overhaul here, the Spice of Life here, and Pam’s HarvestCraft here.
BiblioCraft
[1.7.10]
Bibliocraft began as a way to store books in bookcases. but has expanded wildly since into a bunch of blocks and items that are both useful and aesthetically pleasing to have in your base. There are armour stands, potion shelves, cookie jars, clocks, lanterns, display cases, nifty multipart chairs, and even tables and tablecloths. Once you’re done with Bibliocraft, your home base might actually start to look like a home. Grab it here.
Project Red
[1.7.10]
Those of you that work frequently with redstone will know what a pain it can sometimes be. Project Red changes all that, bringing vastly improved control over what you’re doing and allowing you to make your circuits much more compact. It also adds integrated logic gates, making task automation way easier. Worth having around if you ever might want to work with redstone. Grab it here.
Steve’s Factory Manager
[1.7.10]
Another incredibly useful automation tool is Steve’s Factory Manager. Like ComputerCraft, it’s a little on the fiddly side and requires a bit of knowledge of programming concepts to get going. Once you’ve got the hang of the drag-and-drop interface however, you’ll be amazed by the possibilities. For automating a factory, there’s no better solution. Grab the download and learn about it here.RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU…
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Mystcraft
[1.7.10]
Have you grown bored of your world but don’t want to lose your progress? Conjure up a new dimension with Mystcraft. It lets you create ‘Linking Books’ that allow you to travel around the multiverse—with the contents of the book dictating the kind of worlds you’ll discover. You might find a series of snow-covered floating islands, or an endless ocean with giant trees sprouting from the water. But be careful, some of the new dimensions could be unstable, falling apart around you. Downloading Mystcraft here for a bit of exploring. I hope you make it back.
Animal Bikes
Making your way downtown in Minecraft isn’t always an enjoyable experience. While things are great once you’ve set up your own network of railways or rivers, it can often feel like a slog in new areas. Well, rather than lamenting this fact, why not speed up the experience with a whole slew of new animal bikes. This mod allows you to craft and ride a whole bunch of different beasts, all of which have special abilities. You can ride on animal hungry dinosaurs, volatile creepers, and even your very own fire-breathing ender dragon. You can grab it here.
LotsOMobs
LotsOMobs answers the key question that so many of us have asked in Minecraft: but what if there were more animals? Rather than just adding a couple of animals here or there, it adds over forty new mobs, including creatures like bees, ants, mammoths, and even cavemen. On top of that, there are a few new items to spawn some of these mods, and even new portals to go through leading to new biomes. You can get it by going here.
Bacteria
While there are plenty of mods that add in new functionality, there aren’t many that can accidentally destroy the world you’ve created for yourself. The Bacteria mod allows you to harvest special sponges from the world, and then train them to perform certain tasks. For example, you can place a bacteria down that consumes all of the dirt blocks it can reach. You have to be careful with this kind of power, and that’s what makes this mod so fascinating. Destroying the world on purpose is BDE, doing it by accident is simply very funny. Grab the mod here.
Galacticraft
With the recently revealed Picard looking so good, it seems like a good time to try and explore space, the final frontier. That’s just a small part of what this mod allows you to do. You can build your own space rocket, launch yourself into the starry sky, and then go on adventures from there. You can actually visit planets which have their own atmospheres and mobs, as well as building your very own space station. It’s stellar stuff, and you can grab the mod here.
Jurassicraft
From the deep dark abyss of space to the glistening glory of Jeff Goldblum. The JurrasiCraft mod lets you create your very own prehistoric world by extracting DNA from fossils or amber you can find. It even includes some vehicles to help you make your way around. You can even bring back some prehistoric plants too. Just remember that life, uh, finds a way, and dinosaurs are much bigger than you and usually hungry. Grab the mod by going here.