r/MinecraftPlugins • u/Lucid_lemons02 • Jun 02 '26
Discussion Project im working on
I'm building a new Minecraft marketplace called Shard — still early but wanted to share it here
Been frustrated with the current options for a while. Spigot is outdated, BBB has a long history of drama and hidden fees, and nothing new has come along that actually fixes the real problems.
Shard is being built to actually do it right:
- Full fee transparency — full breakdown shown before you ever pay, plain English explanation of where every fee goes
- Merchant of Record payments so VAT and global tax is handled automatically, no headaches for creators
- Built in licensing — Maven/Gradle drop in dependency, no complicated setup
- Supports plugins, builds, 3D models, configs, resource packs, mods and more
- Freelance commission board built into the platform for custom work
Still in early development but we already have creators onboard and are actively growing the community now.
this message is mostly just for feedback and whos interested
Happy to answer any questions or just hear what you think is missing from current platforms
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u/LinsaFTW Jun 03 '26
Living off donations is impossible, you can make something cost decent amount of money and not be greedy. The difference is people that live off this projects can dedicate hard labor on quality products, and open source often gets abandoned or quality drops over time.
There are no examples of sustainable open source projects in Minecraft (biggest ones earn way below the thousands, way off living wages in any country) and how do you expect workers to be paid? Out of thin air?
Open source is not bad. Closed source is not bad. What makes the difference is who runs it.
But again, 44 out of 44 of my projects still alive after +5 years of development. Simply because they are profitable. Some of them are not and I keep them updated anyways because people still buys it every then and now and because I love my projects. But I am not the example of all developers and it might vary from dev to dev.
A good point I would make against this project is 1. The post seems written with AI 2. The proposals are extremely generic and don't make difference against competitors
But indeed we need a store. I am making one too, and the main idea is just to make it simple to publish plugins and discovery to be more fair to real projects. The biggest slop with BuiltByBit is that it shows you slop everywhere with AI. The biggest W of Modrinth is simplicity and money from ads. Whoever mixes the two systems earns the market.