As most players know, Minecraft is highly compatible with modifications. Users can easily download and implement mods for Minecraft. These mods are helpful for a number of different reasons. Some are meant to help players improve Minecraft’s performance while others are meant to add more to the game.
Players will need a launcher in order to run most Minecraft mods. Unfortunately, there is no official mod launcher for the game. However, there are still many great options for players to choose from. Two of the most popular mod launchers available for the game are Forge and Fabric.
What is Forge?
Minecraft Forge, more commonly known as just Forge for short, is an open-source API used for modding. Forge was released a couple of years after the release of Minecraft itself. The official release date of the popular Minecraft launcher is July 30, 2011. Forge is highly successful thanks to its compatibility and ease of use. The popular launcher is used by a majority of Minecraft players to load their mods and Minecraft itself.
What is Fabric?
Fabric is a newer mod loader for Minecraft that has already become very famous in the Minecraft modding community. Many a few mod users now prefer Fabric over other Minecraft mod loaders. The program was created in 2016, however, it wasn’t available for public use back then. The loader was made compatible with public use 2 years after in 2018.
Fabric vs Forge. Which Minecraft Mod Launcher Should you Choose?
Both Fabric and Forge are excellent choices for players interested in using mods. Here is a detailed comparison between both loaders if you’re having a hard time choosing between them.
Compatibility
Fabric is compatible with every version of Minecraft, as it is version agnostic. It can be used to load mods on every single version of Minecraft, from the first version of the game to the latest. Fabric is even compatible with other games that run on Java.
Forge is compatible with most versions of Minecraft. However, players have to install a new update of Forge every single time a new version of Minecraft is released. Forge is also a loader created solely for Minecraft, which means that players can’t use it to run other Java-based games.
Functionality
Fabric is only a program used to load mods for Minecraft and other java-based games. It cannot be used for any purpose that isn’t related to modifications. The loader can also be used to discover mods for the many different versions of Minecraft.
Minecraft Forge, on the other hand, is a launcher for the game itself. Players can use Forge to run Minecraft as well as mods for the game. This makes Forge a good improvement over the official Minecraft launcher.
Mods
There are great exclusive mods available for both the mod loaders. However, as Fabric is relatively newer, the collection of mods available for it is a little bit smaller when compared to the collection available for Forge.
Forge has a MASSIVE selection of mods, however the forge dev team is pretty toxic, especially the leader LexManos. there are a lot of helpful people on forge, just stay away from the core people.
Fabric, while it does have a smaller mod selection, has a far better community. ive been able to get help whenever i needed it and with Fabric its just simply easy to update mods. However, fabric doesn’t have NEARLY as many mods as Forge, and Fabric can run into issues when loading large numbers of mods. Also not as popular as Forge
I recommend developing your mods on fabric, then porting over to forge. You might get a bit of heat from the Forge dev team for doing so as they see this as a freaking war, but they wont be able to block your mods without stirring up some MASSIVE controversy.
If you just want to play and not develop, just get MultiMC and use forge and fabric separately, you don’t need to get involved in the politics.
Seconding this. The Forge community is one of the most toxic communities on the planet, and I played League of Legends for 10 years, so that should be saying something. The Fabric community, on the other hand, is extremely welcoming and incredibly helpful. On top of this, Fabric plans continued support for older mods, unlike Forge which immediately tells you to move to modern versions of Minecraft if you ask anything to do with a version that isn’t the newest two versions. Definitely recommend starting on Fabric, and then porting your mods over to Forge and/or Rift if you feel so inclined.
I’ve had nothing but good experiences with the core forge team, but I’m neither demanding nor rude. I also tend to research my problems myself before going to the developers to ensure it’s not an already answered 500 times question. That said, I’ve also had good experiences when I had issues with fabric from the core team.
Most developers I’ve encountered in minecraft modding aren’t difficult to deal with as long as you’re not demanding, rude, or asking a question they’ve answered 500 times in various places.
YMMV.
You shouldn’t be rude to somebody just because somebody is asking a question they’ve answered so many times. Not fair to expect everybody to have the same research skills
Maybe they should make an easy to find FAQ for those kinds of things