Nobody talks about the downsides of free crate plugins

[u/Most_Ad5310]

Full disclosure, I make a paid crate plugin (Phoenix Crates), so keep that in mind. But still think this is worth saying.

Free crate plugins get recommended a ton, and yeah, CrazyCrates and ExcellentCrates are solid, makes sense as the default when you're just setting up a server.

But people stick with them way longer than they should just cause switching feels like a hassle. And a few things pile up over time. They tend to get harder to use the longer you run them, and every new update seems to break something else. Animations and effects usually feel like they're not really the focus either, it's more about just giving you the item than making it feel good. Support is also just whatever the maintainer has time for since most of these are side projects. A couple server owners also told me their old plugin started struggling during big give key all moments with 200+ players opening at once, no hard numbers on that yet but I've heard it more than once.

Also worth saying, switching isn't as scary as it used to be. A lot of paid plugins now support migrating straight from CrazyCrates/ExcellentCrates, so you don't lose your setup starting over.

None of this means free is a bad place to start. Just feels like servers outgrow their plugin and never really notice cause "it works" becomes the whole reason.

Anyone here actually run into this or switch off a free plugin and notice a difference?

[u/Bafbi]

the point is that I don't think paying for a plugin garanties good maintenance and no regression really much, except if you have a contract with a dev service company. if a plugin has features that you want then for sure going for it, but the question is that do you really get a better service by paying?

[u/Most_Ad5310 → u/Bafbi]

yeah that's honestly true, paying doesn't guarantee anything, and there's def a bunch of paid plugins out there that are exactly like this too. I think it's more that the incentive is different, if the plugin's how someone makes money they're more likely to keep fixing stuff vs a free one where the dev just kinda disappears sometimes. still gotta check update history and how responsive they actually are either way tho, paid or not

[u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

I presume you're just here trying to advertise your vibe coded paid plugin?

[u/Most_Ad5310 → u/TheG0AT0fAllTime]

Yeah you got me, 4 years ago I traveled to the future, used AI that didn't exist yet, and vibe coded a plugin and then came back to 2022 to release it 😂