I’ve been waiting for Sponge to release for awhile now, and it seems as though the time is nearing. I’ve done quite a bit of research and have learned that Spigot already has support for old Bukkit plugins, something that Sponge lacks. I was wondering what the advantages are that Sponge has and Spigot doesn’t? Which API should I use for my server?
Thanks in advance.
If you want to start right now, you’d probably be best of with Spigot. Sponge has the advantages, that it isn’t owned by any company and is legally safe. Also, it fixes some long standing weaknesses in the Bukkit API. If you can wayt 'till next year, I’d recommend Sponge. Support for Bukkit plugins is not planned, although there is Pore and many plugins will be ported.
Spigot is a fork (or modification) of Bukkit, so it has had support for them since the beginning.
Spigot is ready now and supports Bukkit plugins, which are already developed for it. That’s about where the benefits of Spigot end.
Sponge has the benefit overall largely because it’s not in a legal gray area, and assuming the development is persisted, then we can assume it’s existence will be more stable than Spigot’s. It’ll also (ideally) be much more capable than Spigot since it’ll also be using Forge, albeit it will serve a similar function as Spigot, so that’s up to debate.
Some may say that since Sponge is a Forge mod, it’ll be better, but I’m not ready to say that yet as I’m not a big Forge person. This will likely be a con for several server owners who haven’t used Forge before, but short of setting up Forge, it shouldn’t impede the way their server runs, so long as they can find similar or ported plugins for Sponge.
Lastly, the biggest reason I started watching Sponge was because of it’s development team, which seems to me like the superstar developers of the Minecraft community. Their team has quite a background in this area, so I’m quite comfortable thinking it’ll go far.
It’s 5 minutes of learning. Done.
Think it depends on who is trying to set it up. Unfortunately don’t live in a world where all server owners, public or private, are that competent.
Makes sense…
What I think I the biggest advantage. Is that sponge is actually is build on top of forge. So if you have good written forge mods (mods that actually use the MinecraftForge Events). With some small addon you can get a perfect safe public moded server. On most forge servers (for example tekkit lite). Griefing/dupe bugs can be found everywhere.
for example on Tekkit Lite servers (doesn’t work on servers I helped with btw xD):
With Sponge, The open inventory from a DPU should pass an event so plugin codes can fix bugs using SpongeAPI (and not trough various of Assembly patches). Also The piston push code from the Shoulder Mounted Piston, should give an event as well (hopefully).
Sponge is not ready yet, which means if you’re going to start server right now, you must use Spigot (or Canary). But the API has generally better mod support even currently.
I think Sponge has less better people but it is newer than Spigot. I think Spigot would run faster though because md_5 and thinkofdeath are very good devs.
I would say. "I think Spigot would run faster though because its longer in development".
Having good dev’s on a project isn’t a guarantee, the project will run better.
It is a good indication! There are more than one things that make software high performance!
I definately wouldn’t say
md_5 and thinkofdeath are fantastic developers, but so are blood (whom I have worked with myself, trust me, he’s good!), sk89q and the others who are helping Sponge.
Everyone is going to have their preference - but you can’t just base it on who wrote it. Let the code and the system that runs speak for itself.
Don’t worry I have seen all their works! I like the way Spigot was design better! It not who but what and how!
Just because something is in development for a long time doesn’t make it better…
Duke Nukem Forever is a great example of this. 
I think Sponge will do better for the fact that it can be on multiple platforms, including on Spigot.
OffLuffy does that mean that SpigotMC could cease to exist suddenly just like Bukkit did? What are the chances of that happening in your/anyones opinion?
Yes, that may happen. I’d say it’s not all too likely, but not unthinkable. (I personally wouldn’t be surprised if it was gone tomorrow.)
Well that doesn’t inspire confidence. haha. Thanks for the reply. I realize there is always going to be a bias on this question depending on what forum you ask. I appreciate the answer, without the obligatory necro comment!
Personally, I doubt it’ll happen. I’m not even sure how it would be possible since the Bukkit takedown was due to a copyright infringement afaik and Sponge’s first order of business seemed to be to denounce the license that Bukkit used that ultimately killed it and instead use a license that wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen and requires any merged code to maintain that license.
If anything, Mojang might be able to legally smite it somehow with one of their open-ended legal clauses, but I doubt even that would happen if it’s even possible. Overall, I suppose if someone really wants to shut down Sponge, it depends on who has more powerful lawyers in their pockets.