Lag has many causes, but a few simple things help on most servers. Make a backup before changing any setting.
Use a well-supported server jar
Paper and its forks are built for plugin servers and fix many performance problems that plain Spigot has. If you are on an older jar, updating is often the biggest single improvement.
Lower the view and simulation distance
Every extra chunk of distance is work for the server. Lowering the view distance and the simulation distance a little makes a large difference once many players are online, and most players do not notice it.
Pre-generate your world
Generating new chunks while players explore is expensive. Pre-generating the area you expect them to use moves that cost to a quiet time.
Find the real cause before you guess
Use a profiler such as spark to see what is using the time. It is much faster than removing plugins one by one, and it shows whether the problem is a plugin, an entity farm or the hardware.
Keep plugins updated
Updates often include performance fixes. Check your products for new versions in your
account.
If a plugin of ours shows up in the profiler, send us the report in a
ticket and we will look at it.
