Honeycomb

The TAB alternative for Minecraft 1.21.9 to 26.3. A tablist plugin, scoreboard plugin, nametag plugin, bossbar and below name line in one jar, for Paper, Spigot, Bukkit, Folia, Purpur and Pufferfish.

Features · Install · Commands · Conditions · Config · Presets · Contributing

Honeycomb owns the parts of the screen players look at all day: the tablist, the scoreboard, the name above each head, bossbars and the line below a nametag. Each one is a separate engine with its own YAML file, its own update interval and its own conditions, driven by MiniMessage, placeholders and animations.

It is an original implementation on the Bukkit and Paper APIs. It is not a fork of TAB or of any other display plugin, and it needs no dependencies to run.

Looking for a TAB alternative, or a tablist plugin that does not need a config wall? Honeycomb draws the tablist, scoreboard, nametags, bossbars and the below name line, and lets you edit all of it from an in game panel. Per world layouts use one conditions block on every display. MIT licensed, no paid tier.

One command copies a TAB installation into Honeycomb:

/honeycomb migrate          preview what would be copied
/honeycomb migrate apply    back up, write, reload

Header, footer, scoreboard, nametags, bossbars and the below name display are read from plugins/TAB/config.yml and groups.yml. Legacy colour codes become MiniMessage, and TAB's own placeholders are mapped to their PlaceholderAPI equivalents. Current files are backed up to migration-backup/<timestamp>/ first. Details in docs/MIGRATION.md.

Honeycomb is a common TAB alternative for one reason: the layout lives in an editor, not in a wall of YAML.

• No file editing for a text change. /honeycomb panel opens 1.21.9 dialogs that edit the tablist header, scoreboard rows, nametags, bossbars and animations while players are online, writing to panel.yml so updates never touch your work.
• One conditions block, five displays. Worlds, groups, permissions and placeholder comparisons behave the same on tablist, scoreboard, bossbars, below name and nametags, which is how per world layouts stay readable.
• Presets that look like real servers. SMP, PvP, survival, economy, factions, DonutSMP and Lifesteal styles ship in the jar, with edited copies backed up before an upgrade refreshes them.
• Folia in the same jar. Displays are scheduled on the thread that owns each player, so Paper, Spigot, Bukkit, Folia, Purpur and Pufferfish all use one file per Java version, 1.21.9 to 26.3.
• No paywall. MIT licensed, no paid tier, no network calls.

If you are comparing options for Minecraft 1.21.9 and newer, the usual shortlist is TAB, TAB Reloaded forks, and Honeycomb. TAB wins on years in production, Honeycomb wins on editing, presets and per world nametags.

TAB is still the safer choice for a large network with a team that knows its config. It has years of edge cases behind it. Read docs/CONDITIONS.md to see whether the condition language covers what you need before switching.

• Name holograms: a template drawn above every head, per world and conditional.

Two optional companion jars carry the proxy side, so Honeycomb is a real Velocity and BungeeCord plugin too:

The game server keeps the normal Honeycomb jar. The bridge answers with the proxy's own numbers over honeycomb:network, so counts stay correct even when the proxy's legacy bungee channel is off.

Two jars come from one source tree, because the Minecraft generations it supports do not share a Java runtime:

The same jar handles Folia: each display is scheduled on the thread that owns the player, which is what the region scheduler requires. On Spigot and Bukkit every display works, and the dialog panel needs Paper.

1. Drop the jar that matches your server into plugins/.
2. Start the server once. Honeycomb writes its files and reports anything it adjusted.
3. Run /honeycomb panel as an operator, or /honeycomb preset load smp first.

PlaceholderAPI, LuckPerms and ProtocolLib are optional. Install ProtocolLib only if you want the F3 brand line replaced; everything else works without it.

All nodes follow one shape: honeycomb.<area>, plus honeycomb.group.<name> for rank based layouts. Staff layouts need the permission to be granted explicitly, operator status alone is not enough.

Every layout can carry a conditions: block, and the highest priority layout whose conditions all pass is the one a player sees. Worlds, groups and permissions work out of the box, and so do placeholder comparisons, which is how a nether tablist or a wallet board is built:

tablist:
  nether:
    priority: 30
    header:
      - "<bold>THE NETHER"
    conditions:
      worlds: [world_nether, nether]

scoreboards:
  high-roller:
    priority: 40
    conditions:
      placeholders:
        - "%vault_eco_balance% >= 100000"

Conditions apply to all five displays, including nametags and below name, so a nether nametag or a staff only board is the same block of YAML. The comparison operators are ==, !=, >=, <=, > , < and contains. Numeric operators compare as numbers, so 100000, 100,000 and $100,000 all match. Read docs/CONDITIONS.md for the full rule set.

# plugins/Honeycomb/config.yml
server-name: "NETHERITE SMP"
server-domain: "netheritesmp.net"

tablist:
  update-interval: 20
  header:
    - "<shadow:#000000:1><gradient:#FFD34A:#E28000><bold>%server_name%</bold></gradient></shadow>"
    - "<shadow:#000000:1><gray>Welcome back, <white>%player_name%</white></shadow>"
  footer:
    - "<shadow:#000000:1><gray>netheritesmp.net</gray></shadow>"

scoreboard:
  update-interval: 20
  title: "<shadow:#000000:1><gradient:#FFD34A:#E28000><bold>PROFILE</bold></gradient></shadow>"
  lines:
    - "<shadow:#000000:1><gray>Ping</gray> <dark_gray>-></dark_gray> <green>%player_ping% ms</green></shadow>"
    - "<shadow:#000000:1><gray>World</gray> <dark_gray>-></dark_gray> <green>%player_world%</green></shadow>"

Around forty placeholders ship with the plugin, including %player_name%, %player_ping%, %player_health%, %player_group%, %player_world%, %server_name%, %server_online%, %server_tps% and %network_online%. Anything else goes to PlaceholderAPI when it is installed, so money and stat lines can read %vault_eco_balance_formatted% or any placeholder from your own plugins.

Bundled looks: SMP, Survival, DonutSMP, Economy, PvP, Lifesteal, SkyBlock, Prison, Factions. Every preset uses arrows between label and value, YOURSERVER as the heading and yourserver.net in the footer, both replaced from server-name and server-domain when you load it.

/honeycomb preset load donutsmp
/honeycomb preset save my-server

Presets are plain files in plugins/Honeycomb/presets. Edit them freely: an updated build refreshes the bundled copies and keeps your edited ones in presets/backup-<version>.

git clone https://github.com/BlueLabsMinecraft/Honeycomb.git
cd honeycomb
./gradlew build                      # every module plus tests
./gradlew :honeycomb-legacy:build     # Java 21 artifact
./gradlew :honeycomb-modern:build     # Java 25 artifact

Artifacts land in <module>/build/libs. The legacy module compiles against the lowest API of its range, so one jar covers the whole range.

honeycomb/
  shared/            code used by both modules, one source of truth
  honeycomb-legacy/  1.21.x entry point and resources
  honeycomb-modern/  26.x entry point and resources
  docs/              API notes, testing notes
  tools/             smoke test helpers

0.9.0 is the current release. The plugin is in active development: the display engines and the panel are stable, and the API is published in docs/API.md.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first, and open an issue before a large change so the design can be agreed.

MIT, see LICENSE. Copyright (c) 2026 Blue Labs.

Honeycomb is not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft. The honeycomb icon is the item texture from the Minecraft Wiki.

honey.gamer.gd/web-editor is a static page that designs the same layouts the plugin draws: tablist header and footer, sidebar, bossbars, MOTD. It shows one live Minecraft preview of whatever section you are editing, then packs the result into an hc1- code.

Run /honeycomb web in game and paste the code into the box that opens. The box takes up to 16384 characters, because a full setup is far longer than the 256 character chat limit, and nothing has to be typed by hand. The import screen then lists every section the code carries so you tick only what you want applied over your live configuration.