Minecraft Scoreboard and Sidebar Setup

A scoreboard or sidebar gives players important information without typing a command. Think of online players, balance, kills, server IP, or your Discord link. It is a small detail that makes your server look more professional.

Vanilla scoreboard (no plugins)

Minecraft has a built-in scoreboard system. It is limited but works without plugins:

/scoreboard objectives add kills playerKillCount
/scoreboard objectives setdisplay sidebar kills

This shows each player's kill count in the sidebar. Possible criteria:

playerKillCount: player kills
totalKillCount: all kills (including mobs)
deathCount: deaths
health: health
dummy: manually set values

Plugins for advanced scoreboards

For a professional scoreboard with colors, placeholders, and dynamic values, you need a plugin:

TAB (Scoreboard Teams and More)

TAB is the most popular scoreboard plugin. It offers:

Fully customizable sidebar with PlaceholderAPI support
Tab list formatting (colors, prefixes, sorting)
Bossbar, nametags, and header/footer
Per-world and per-group configuration

AnimatedScoreboard

Specialized in beautiful scoreboards with animations, scrolling text, and conditional lines. Easier to configure than TAB if you only want a sidebar.

Example TAB configuration

In the TAB configuration (config.yml) for a sidebar:

scoreboard:
  enabled: true
  title: "&c&lMy Server"
  lines:
    - "&7Online: &f%online%/%max%"
    - ""
    - "&7Rank: &f%luckperms_prefix%"
    - "&7Balance: &f$%vault_eco_balance%"
    - "&7World: &f%world%"
    - ""
    - "&7Kills: &f%statistic_player_kills%"
    - "&7Deaths: &f%statistic_deaths%"
    - ""
    - "&eplay.myserver.com"

PlaceholderAPI

PlaceholderAPI (PAPI) is a requirement for dynamic values in scoreboards. Install it and download the extensions you need:

/papi ecloud download Player
/papi ecloud download Statistic
/papi ecloud download Vault
/papi ecloud download LuckPerms
/papi reload

Now you can use placeholders like %player_name%, %vault_eco_balance%, and %luckperms_prefix% in your scoreboard.

Customizing the tab list

The tab list (player list, TAB key) can also be customized with the TAB plugin:

Header and footer with server information
Players sorted by rank (admins on top)
Colors and prefixes per group
Online player count and TPS

Does a scoreboard slow down the server?

Minimally. The scoreboard sends small packets to the client. Even with 50 players and dynamic updates, the impact is negligible. Just avoid excessive animations (updating every tick).

Can I show different scoreboards per world?

Yes, with TAB or AnimatedScoreboard you can set per-world scoreboards. This way the lobby can have a different sidebar than the survival world.

Which scoreboard plugin is best?

TAB is the most complete and popular choice. It does much more than just scoreboards and is actively maintained for Minecraft 26.x. If you only want a simple sidebar, AnimatedScoreboard is easier to set up.

Set up your scoreboard on a Minecraft server at HostValues with direct plugin access.