simple-voice-chat puts proximity voice in Minecraft

Two halves, a client and a server component

The most important operational fact is in a warning near the top of the project page. This mod requires special setup on the server in order to work, and the wiki has a setup page for it. That is the shape of the design. The client side is a mod or plugin that players install, and the server side is a separate component that the server operator deploys and configures, and it is the server side that brokers the voice traffic. The server has to open a UDP port, by default 24454, and without opening this port the voice chat will not work, though the port can be changed in the server config. This matters for how you evaluate the project, because it is not a client-only mod. A server that only installs the plugin without the companion service will silently not work, and the setup wiki is the piece you will need. The project also runs a Discord for questions, and hosts a wiki, an FAQ, a credits page and an API page, so the documentation lives outside the repository.

One build per platform, from a single source tree

The download list is a roll call of the Minecraft ecosystem, and it is the clearest statement of the project's scope. There are client builds for Fabric, NeoForge, Forge, Quilt, and a plugin build for Bukkit, Spigot and Paper, plus proxy side builds for Velocity and for BungeeCord and Waterfall. The cross compatibility between Fabric, NeoForge, Forge, Quilt, Bukkit, Spigot and Paper is listed as a feature, which is the meaningful version of that claim, since it means a server on one loader can talk to clients on another. The repository layout mirrors it, with a directory per platform including fabric/, forge/, neoforge/, quilt/, bukkit/, paper/, velocity/ and bungeecord/, alongside shared code in common/, common-client/ and common-proxy/, an api/ directory, and assets/ for the icons. It is a Gradle project with a settings.gradle, a build.gradle, a gradle.properties, the gradlew wrapper scripts and a license file. The default branch is named 26.3, which is a branch per Minecraft version rather than a single trunk, and that is worth knowing before you open a pull request.

The feature list covers the whole voice chat surface

The listed features read like a complete voice chat feature set rather than a single mechanism. On input there is push to talk and voice activation, with automatic voice activity detection, automatic microphone gain adjustment, a configurable push to talk key, and a microphone and speaker test playback. On the spatial side there is proximity voice chat with a configurable voice distance, whispering, individual player volume adjustment, microphone amplification and 3D sound. On the social side there are password protected groups, group chats, and the ability to invite players with the command:

/voicechat invite <playername>

or from the social interactions screen. Audio is handled with the Opus codec, RNNoise recurrent neural network noise suppression and OpenAL, and traffic is protected with AES encryption, with audio recording available with separate audio tracks. The plugin also exposes a documented API and a set of addons offering additional features. The recording with separate audio tracks is the one that stands out for a server operator, since it turns the voice system into a moderation tool as well as a chat one.

A GUI, a group chat, and an icon set that carries state

The user interface is described in enough detail to picture it. Pressing the V key opens the voice chat GUI, which gives access to the settings, group chats, muting yourself, disabling the voice chat, starting or stopping a recording, and hiding all the icons. Group chats let you talk to players who are not in your vicinity, and you open the group interface either with the group button in the GUI or with the group key. Creating a group means typing a name and pressing the button at the bottom, and creating or joining a group brings up the group chat interface, with the heads of the group members shown in the top left and talking players outlined. The third button from the left disables those icons, and players who are not in your group see a group icon next to your head. The icon set is a small design document of its own, with distinct assets for you are talking, you are whispering, player is talking, player is whispering, microphone muted, voice chat disabled, and voice chat not connected or not installed, which is a sensible way to signal state without a text overlay.

Where the security claim stops

The last line of the project page is the one to read twice. The voice chat is encrypted, but we don't guarantee the security of it, and the instruction is to use it at your own risk. That is a deliberately narrow claim, and it is the kind of statement that should shape a server's policy rather than be skimmed. Encryption without a guarantee of security means the design has not been audited to the level where the maintainers will stand behind it, and the practical response is to treat voice traffic on the server as you would treat any other untrusted media channel, particularly on a server where players are strangers to each other. Two related operational points sit next to it. The server needs a port open, and a UDP port exposed to the internet is a surface a server operator has to think about, particularly with a DDoS mitigation layer in front of it. And the port is configurable in the server config, which is what you need if you run several game servers behind one address.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt Simple Voice Chat when you run a Minecraft server where players want to talk without installing a heavyweight client mod, and when you are willing to open a UDP port and run the server side component. Do not adopt it expecting end to end encryption guarantees, because the documentation states the chat is encrypted but that the security of it is not guaranteed and should be used at your own risk. Verify first that your server platform and mod loader have a published build, that port 24454 UDP is reachable from your players, and that the client version matches the server version before you open it to your community.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. henkelmax/simple-voice-chat on GitHub
2. Issues
3. Project website
4. README