What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is a popular sandbox survival game that is based on voxel blocks world. In Minecraft players can build anything from a simple home, gardens, castles, and camps.
Minecraft was originally designed back in 2009, as it gains popularity, many developers attempt their own free, open-source versions of it.
In this article, we will provide you with a quick list of open-source Minecraft alternatives for gamers, and developers.
1- Minetest
Minetest is our first pick, not just because it offers a solid experience similar to Minecraft, but because it has a rich content library (Content DB) which contains many user-generated mods, games, and texture patterns.
Minetest comes with its easy-to-use package manager which user can install and run mods and games. It also allows users to run different worlds, with custom mods.
Users can choose to host a server, or join an existing one without having to worry about complex setup or extensive instructions.
Developers on the other hand, can create custom mods, worlds, or even their own game using Lua scripting language, later on they can submit their creations to Minetest Content DB (Content Database).
Minetest also allows players to join dozens of servers, install mods, and games, environments in seconds. It is an ideal especially for kids and teens to explore and build their own structure.
2- Veloren
Veloren on the other hand is totally a new survival experience with its amazing graphics, and  performance as it is written with Rust programming language.
Veloren works seamlessly on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Furthermore, it does not require heavy resources, and it can work on old machines as well
Although, it does not offer many customizations like Minetest, it is not suitable for children, (my son was terrified with a tiger attack).
However, it requires an account which you can create at https://veloren.net/, but keep in mind that you can reset your password through email.
Veloren allows players to to play in multiplayer and single player modes, create several character and switch between them.
3- Terasology
Terasology is a free and open-source Minecraft alternative game, it is built for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Terasology is fully open source and is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license for code and under CC BY 4.0 for artwork.
The game is highly extensible through modules, which anyone can download, and use. It is maintained by a good community of developers and gamers.
Terasology looks promising, with its fancy graphics and gameplay, however, it did not work on 3 Linux distros and is not compatible with The macOS m1.
4- TrueCraft
TrueCraft is an archived old project that gained some momentum before it was abandoned. It is a clean-room implementation of Minecraft which resembles Minecraft gameplay and graphics.
TrueCraft can be installed by cloning and compiling the source code from GitHub.
5- Craft
Craft is a multiplayer open-source Minecraft clone for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It supports multiple players with the help of a built-in Python server.
It supports plants, grass, flowers, trees, and glass. It also comes with built-in day/ night cycles with textured sky dome. The changes are saved in a local Sqlite3 database.
It is a lightweight project that can leave you amazed with its size: Windows (2.2 MB), and macOS (733 KB)
6- Voxel.js
Unlike the previous mention projects, Voxel.js is not actually a game, it is a collection of JavaScript projects for developers to create their own Voxel world games.
It uses WebGL, an HTML5 3D graphics engine to generate in-browser 3D shapes.
Voxel.js is consisting of the core "Voxel-engine", and around 200 add-ons which are published at NPM.
You can use Voxel.js in-browser Voxel builder which is created by Voxel.js. It helps to create voxel objects like characters, buildings, and tools then save, export, use, and share your creations.
7- WebCraft
WebCraft is a free, open-source re-creation of Minecraft in JavaScript. Although, the project is no longer actively maintained, it is still popular among game developers.
WebCraft supports single and multiplayer modes, comes with separate modules which allow developers easy hacking and modifications.
The current modules for WebCraft are: Blocks.js, World.js, Physics.js, Render.js, Player.js, and Network.js
WebCraft is released under Zlib License.
8- Freeminer
Freeminer is a Minecraft-inspired game built on top of Minetest. Unline Minetest, it offers more options for trading, crafting, and a rich server-side modding API.
Freeminer is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
9- ClassicCube
ClassicCube is a free sandbox voxel world game, which works for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android , and the browser.
ClassiCube is a custom Minecraft Classic and ClassiCube client written in C that works on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Haiku, and in a web browser.
It is not affiliated with (or supported by) Mojang AB, Minecraft, or Microsoft in any way.
10- WolkenWelten
This is yet another free, open-source voxel sandbox game built with LISP. WolkenWelten is a lightweight Minecraft alternative that supports multiplayer (up to 32 players).
It is still in Alpha stage, built by Benjamin Vincent Schulenburg who is a solo developer from Germany.
WolkenWelten is available for Windows, macOS, GNU/ Linux and Linux ARM (32-BIT/ 64-Bit).
The game is extremely lightweight, and supports Gamepad controls out of the box, and touch screens.
The game is also available for the browser which works seamlessly on all modern browsers, even mobile browsers like Chrome and Safari.
The project is an open-source project licensed under AGPLv3.
MineCraft clone with Godot?
Notable projects
- Minecraft Classic by Bablyon.js Engine
- Minecraftly is an open-source project for teaching computing
Final note
Here as we listed the best open-source Minecraft alternatives, we hope this list will grow in the near future, as many developers consider it a challenge to create their own voxel worlds.
If you know of any other voxel open-source alternative, let us know.