The 20 best Minecraft mods in 2025

Minecraft is a world of infinite possibilities, but what if we could change the game to make infinity seem just a little bit bigger? Over the 15+ years it’s been around, Minecraft has gathered one of the largest modding communities in all of gaming, and that means that just about anything you could want to add to the game is out there.

Whether you’re looking for small improvements to the vanilla experience or mods that will completely transform the game into a brand new adventure, these are must-have mods for Minecraft that will make you never want to go back to vanilla.

With the things these mods add, you'll be able to create some incredible things. Check out our rundown of the best Minecraft builds ever made for some inspiration.

Sodium

Starting out with some utility mods that you’ll want if you plan to stack up loads of mods, Sodium gives you much more granular control over Minecraft’s settings and greatly improves performance, which can be one of the biggest obstacles to modding the game. There are other mods like OptiFine that also serve this purpose, but many people now prefer how Sodium does the job instead.

Just Enough Items

With all the new things you’re going to add with mods, you’re going to need to know how to craft them, which makes JEI essential. This mod lists every item available in the game and will give you crafting recipes for all of them with a simple click. You can also install the Just Enough Resources addon, which will add information like mob drops and loot chances so you’re never lost for how to get your hands on even the rarest items.

Jade

Jade is a small mod, but one you’ll never be able to play without once you try it. It adds a small tooltip to the top of the screen telling you what block or mob you’re looking at and what mod it’s from. If you have lots of mods installed, this is extremely helpful, and it has a bunch of other useful features like displaying the HP of mobs, active effects, and even things like crafting recipes if you want.

Create

There are a lot of tech mods for Minecraft, but Create is far and away the best one. If you like creating big machines with lots of moving parts and dynamic interactions, then Create is a wonderland. You’ll start out creating a waterwheel or windmill that turns a few cogs, and before you know it, you’ll have a massive industrial complex of conveyors, machines, and trains running through all of it. It is also very modular, with a whole host of add-ons you can install to customize the mod.

Terralith

Terralith is the best biome mod out there, surpassing even some of the old greats like Biomes O’ Plenty. Leveraging the changes made to Minecraft’s world generation a few years ago, Terralith will make every world feel unique and create some incredible sights for you to build your bases on.

Alex’s Mobs

Mojang is slowly adding more and more real-world animals to Minecraft, but Alex’s Mobs takes that into overdrive, adding over 90 new mobs. Most of these are based on real-life animals, but some are more sinister, with a bunch of hostile mobs you can encounter that are quite terrifying to encounter, especially if you’re not expecting it. It also adds one new boss to the game, called the Void Worm.

The Twilight Forest

If you’re looking for a grand adventure, then look no further. Twilight Forest is one of the oldest mods to still be getting updated to this day, and it’s because it is universally beloved. It adds a new dimension full of weird biomes, fully fledged dungeons, challenging bosses, and a whole bunch of cool stuff to do. There is no better adventure in Minecraft.

Mouse Tweaks

This is another small utility mod but you’ll be glad you installed it. This adds more functionality to the mouse in Minecraft on top of what vanilla already offers. It lets you click & drag around your inventory easily and makes quickly crafting items a breeze.

JourneyMap

There are several popular minimap mods out there, but JourneyMap is our pick for the best. As well as the minimap in the corner, you can access a full map of your world, view different cave layers,  set waypoints, and teleport about the place with a few simple clicks.

Refined Storage

If you want a computer network that will store all your items in one place, the Refined Storage is the easiest way to make that happen. Applied Energistics 2 has similar functionality, but if you just want the storage stuff, as well as portable crafting grids, then Refined Storage does a much better job.

Storage Drawers

However, if you want a storage system that has a bit more visual flair than one simple computer block, Storage Drawers is an excellent choice. Letting you store and retrieve items with just one click and easy-to-use visual displays, it’s a clear upgrade from Minecraft’s chest system. Plus, you can use your resources to upgrade them, allowing them to store massive amounts of stuff.

Lootr

This is a server mod that helps your players gather resources. If you have a lot of people on a server, then it’s likely any structures will be very quickly looted, leaving new players with nothing useful. Lootr makes it so that these chests are instanced for each player, meaning everyone will get a share of the loot from structures.

BetterEnd

This mod does what it says on the tin, it makes The End better. Now the outer End islands will be full of a whole bunch of unique and weird biomes, which in turn are home to brand new mobs. It makes the whole place feel more like the strange dimension it’s meant to be and gives you plenty of reason to explore there outside of getting Elytra and Shulker Shells.

Waystones

If you’re building a big world or are exploring over a wide area, you’re going to need a quick way to get around the place, and Waystones is ideal for that. You can craft and place them around your world to teleport between, and you can even craft an item that will let you teleport to them from anywhere in the world.

Cobblemon

Mods that add Pokémon to Minecraft have been around for a while, with Pixelmon being the most well-known. However, Cobblemon is a more recent and more lovingly crafted mod that makes sure all of the Pokémon adhere to Minecraft’s block aesthetic without looking weird and cheap. It’s a great addition to just about any pack to give more life to your world.

Farmer’s Delight

Minecraft’s food and farming system is pretty simplistic, and Farmer’s Delight is a mod that makes it more interesting, vastly expanding the number of farmable crops, many of which have unique farming methods that you’ll need to learn. Plus, all of these new foods can be used to create a whole host of dishes to fill your hunger bar.

Quark

When it comes to “Vanilla Plus” mods, Quark is second to none. It adds loads of new blocks for decoration and utility. Things like chest and bookshelf wood variants, stairs, and slabs for a host of blocks that don’t have them in vanilla, and the mythical vertical slabs. As far as utility stuff goes, you can now make a Feeding Trough for automatic animal farming, advanced camera mode, and the ability to place blocks on the opposite faces to the ones you can see.

Sophisticated Backpacks

With all of the new stuff you’re adding to the game, you’re bound to get an inventory full of junk, which is where these backpacks come in. Aside from the basic function of giving you a bigger inventory, these backpacks are fully modular and can be upgraded with modules like auto-feeding, increased stack capacity, and auto-voiding certain items.

Nature’s Compass

In lots of mods, there are various mobs, items, and structures that can only appear in certain biomes, which can become a challenge to find when you’ve installed a mod like Terralith that adds loads of new ones. This is what makes Nature’s Compass so useful as you can select any biome in the game (including modded ones) and immediately get coordinates as to its location. There is also one of these for structures, but that might feel a bit more cheaty.

Macaw’s Collection

Macaw’s various mods add all sorts of cool new cosmetics to the game, including stairs, bridges, doors, and roofs. These all come in a variety of styles that all fit in with Minecraft’s vanilla aesthetics, and combine easily with Macaw’s other mods, like the one that adds new furniture to the game. This mod will massively expand the creative possibilities of your builds, giving you a whole host of cool tools to work with.