Updating your server

Update Endstone, let it pull the matching Bedrock version, and keep clients in sync.

Each Endstone release is pinned to one Bedrock version. You don't download Bedrock Dedicated Server (BDS) yourself, and you don't pick the Bedrock version separately - Endstone does it for you, and it always installs the exact BDS build that release was tested against.

Clients must match the server

Bedrock's networking only allows a client to join a server running the same Minecraft version. So the version your Endstone release pins is the version your players need on their devices. After you update Endstone, players update their game to the same release, and everyone reconnects.

If you need clients on different versions to join the same server, that's exactly what Endweave does - it's an Endstone plugin that translates the protocol in flight, so an older or newer client can connect to a server on another version.

The update routine

Updating is a two-step routine:

Update the Endstone package using whichever method you installed with.
Restart the server. On launch, Endstone notices the installed BDS is older than the version it now expects and offers to update it in place.

How you do step 1 depends on your install method.

Before you update

The in-place BDS update only overwrites files BDS owns - the server executable, the bundled behavior_packs/, resource_packs/, definitions/, and a few text files. Your worlds, server.properties, allowlist, bans, plugins, and add-ons are left untouched, and endstone.toml is migrated so new keys are merged in without losing your edits.

Even so, take a backup of your worlds/ folder before a major version bump. Stop the server first so the world is in a consistent state.

Update Endstone

uv tool upgrade endstone

Activate the virtual environment you installed into, then upgrade:

pip install -U endstone

The Windows bundle runs whichever endstone-*.whl sits next to start.cmd. To update, download the latest endstone-win_amd64-portable.zip, then replace the old endstone-*.whl in your bundle folder with the new one. Keep your bedrock_server/ data folder in place.

Pull the latest image and recreate the container:

docker pull endstone/endstone

On macOS or ARM Linux, pin the platform:

docker pull --platform linux/amd64 endstone/endstone

Restart to pull the matching Bedrock version

Start the server as you normally would. Endstone compares the BDS version on disk against the version the new release expects:

Installed version is older - you're prompted to update; press y and Endstone downloads and extracts the matching BDS over your existing install.
Versions match - nothing to do; the server starts straight away.

Running headless? Pass -y to accept the update prompt automatically:

endstone -y

If a newer BDS than your Endstone release supports is found on disk, Endstone refuses to start and asks you to update Endstone. The fix is always to update the Endstone package - never to drop a newer BDS build in by hand.

Verify

endstone --version

This prints the Endstone version. The Bedrock version it pulled is recorded in version.txt in your server folder, and after the server boots the console banner reports both - confirm they match the release you just installed.

Which Bedrock version does my release use?

The authoritative mapping lives in each release's notes on the Endstone releases page - every release states the Bedrock version it targets. As an example, the 0.11.x line targets Minecraft Bedrock 1.26.20.

Because the pin changes with most releases, always read it from the release you're installing rather than memorizing a number.