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Deepslate – a Minecraft server proxy written in Rust

Deepslate – a Minecraft server proxy written in Rust

by lukecarr·Mar 27, 2026·2 points·0 comments
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AI Analysis

●●SolidNiche GemWizardry

Compile-time plugins in Rust beat Velocity's runtime loading for type safety and performance.

Strengths
  • •Compile-time plugin system eliminates runtime type errors and reduces dispatch overhead
  • •gRPC control plane allows dynamic server registration and routing updates at runtime
  • •Graceful SIGTERM handling drains connections instead of dropping active players
Weaknesses
  • •Very niche audience—only matters if you operate a Minecraft server network
  • •Velocity and BungeeCord already dominate this space with larger plugin ecosystems
Category
Gaming
Target Audience

Minecraft server network operators

Post Description

Finally sharing something that I've been casually working on for a month or so, and properly for the last week.

Deepslate is a new solution for Minecraft server proxies (e.g. BungeeCord, Waterfall), written in Rust, with a focus on performance and a compile-time plugin system.

Unlike most existing proxies, Deepslate takes a different approach where plugins are compiled into the binary, rather than loaded at runtime. This gives network operators full type safety at compile time, and minimal dispatch overhead.

I've written an "Introducing Deepslate" blog post (https://deepslatemc.com/intro/) which also covers some common questions, like what purpose a proxy has in Minecraft server networking, and some goals/non-goals of the project.

The source code, issue tracker, and wiki are all hosted on SourceHut:

- https://git.sr.ht/~deepslate/deepslate

- https://todo.sr.ht/~deepslate/deepslate/

- https://man.sr.ht/~deepslate/deepslate/

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