Migrating to Latest (1.18.1)

This is a comprehensive guide on how to download Fabric and mods for it. It also provides direct links to many mods that you may find useful.

Introduction

If you want more information on Fabric, why Forge/OptiFine are not recommended, or need help downloading Fabric and mods for it, click on the Introduction drop down below. If you are just here to see the mods list, continue to the next section.

Introduction

The Situation

So, you've been playing on 1.8 for the past 6 years and are ready to see what 1.18 has to offer. Your first thought may be to download and install Forge and then add OptiFine as a mod, but this could not be further from the best choice. As Mojang have been been rolling out releases, they've also been decreasing performance with every version, and neither Forge nor OptiFine are really able to bring back even a speck of that performance that we see in 1.12 and below. However, another mod loader, Fabric, which is lightweight and easier to develop for, has created an amazing community in which many of its members focus on helping optimize the game to its greatest potential.

Why no longer OptiFine?

OptiFine no longer provides the benefit that it once did on older versions of the game. As the years have gone by and Minecraft's code has changed, OptiFine has been continuing to completely overwrite major parts of Minecraft's code. Because OptiFine is closed source, it has become increasingly harder for modders to provide OptiFine compatibility. OptiFine also uses outdated formats for many of its features, including MCPatcher and its confusing and outdated settings menu. Many members in the Fabric community have taken it upon themselves to create better performance enhancing mods which surpass OptiFine, as well as provide alternatives to many of OptiFine's iconic features.

While there is a Fabric compatibility layer for OptiFine known as OptiFabric, it is unsupported by many of the mods on the list, with some outright preventing the game from loading if OptiFabric is present. Therefore, consider all mods in this list to be incompatible with OptiFabric.

Why no longer Forge?

Forge has always been less than ideal for performance due to its large overhead for server-sided modding, which is not necessary for users wishing for a vanilla compatible experience. Fabric on the other hand is extremely lightweight and is practically identical to vanilla. It's also considered to be much easier to make mods for and is being used as the stepping tool for Quilt, an in-progress mod loader which will provide many more benefits to modders and users alike.

Installing Fabric

This is only for the default Minecraft launcher. If you are using MultiMC, you can easily create a new profile and install fabric to it.

0. Make sure you close Minecraft and the Minecraft launcher before installing Fabric, otherwise unexpected things can happen.
1. Download the Fabric installer.
   • If you are on Windows, use either the .JAR version on the left or the .EXE version of the installer on the right.
   • If you are on any other operating system or the .EXE version is not working for you, then use the .JAR version on the left.
2. Run the installer.
   • If you are using the .EXE version of the installer, simply double click the file. You may get a popup blocking you from running the installer and saying that "Windows protected your PC"; if so, then click on More info and then Run anyway.
   • If you are using the .JAR version, you will need to have Java installed on your device. If you have Java installed, then double click the downloaded file to run the installer. If you don't, then follow these steps:
     1. Go to the Java downloads page and download the version of Java corresponding to your device.
     2. Run the Java installer by double clicking it.
     3. Do whatever the installer tells you to do.
     4. After installing Java, you should be able to run the Fabric installer by double clicking it. If you still can't for some reason, try running the program Jarfix.
3. Now that you have opened the installer, you will see two tabs at the top of the window: Client and Server. Make sure you are on the Client tab. Then, open the Minecraft Version: dropdown and select the version of Minecraft you want (most likely the latest version of Minecraft). The rest of the settings can be left with their defaults (unless you store your Minecraft version files in a different folder - if you want to use a different directory for this installation, that should be changed in the Minecraft launcher, not here). Click on Install when you are ready to install Fabric.
4. Once Fabric is finished installing, open your Minecraft launcher and click on the profiles button at the bottom left corner. Select the Fabric profile, it should be called something like fabric-loader-1.18.x. Then hit PLAY to start playing!
   • If you do not see the profile, try exiting and reopening the Minecraft launcher. If this also does not work, go to the Installations tab in the Minecraft launcher and make sure the Modded option is ticked on the rop right corner. If it still does not show up, create your own installation by clicking the New installation button, and selecting your desired fabric version in the Version dropdown. Then press Create and launch this installation.

Downloading Mods for Fabric

This list currently consists of three different sources for mod downloads: Modrinth, GitHub, and CurseForge. This section will explain how to download mods from each of them.

• Modrinth:

  • On the mod's page, click on the Versions tab. From there, you can see all versions of the mods. Make sure you download the correct one based on the Minecraft version and mod loader, and click on the download icon for the newest version of the mod that fits both previous criteria.

• GitHub:

  • For your convenience, all GitHub links lead directly to the latest version of the mod. From here, click on the Assets drop down if needed, then download the jar that does not include -sources or -dev in the name.
    • If a link does not redirect you to the latest version but rather the main page, on the right side of the page, you should find a tag icon with the latest version.

• CurseForge:

  • Click on the Files tab. Look for the versions of the mod with the Minecraft version you desire and is for the Fabric mod loader, and download the latest one. You can also press the View All button, then sort by mod loader or Minecraft version to make finding the correct jar easier.

Installing Mods on Fabric

This is only for the default .minecraft directory. If you have made a custom directory, you likely do not need this guide.

0. Make sure you close Minecraft before installing mods, otherwise unexpected things can happen.
1. Open your Minecraft folder:
   • Windows: Hold the windows key (win) and press r to open the Run program. Then type in %appdata% and hit enter. Open the folder called .minecraft.
   • Mac: On the bar at the top of your screen in Finder, click Go, then click Go to Folder and type ~/Library/Application Support/Minecraft, then hit enter.
   • Linux: Open ~/.minecraft.
2. In your Minecraft folder, open the folder called mods.
   • If this folder does not exist, create it.
3. Place all of the mods you want to use into this folder (note that all mods you install must support Fabric 1.18.1 or they will not work).

Still Need Help?

Feel free to join my Discord server for any help downloading Fabric, it's mods, or general questions about them.

Mods

Dependencies

These are essential mods that are required for some fabric mods to work.

Mod	Description	Author
Fabric API	Required for most Fabric mods.	Fabric Team
Fabric Language Kotlin	Required for mods that use Kotlin. The 1.17 version works on 1.18.	Fabric Team
Mod Menu	Allows the user to see all installed mods ingame, as well as access the config for most.	Terraformers
Architectury	Required for a few mods.	Shedaniel
Cloth Config	Required for a few mods.	Shedaniel

Performance

These are mods that are needed for playing the latest versions of Minecraft at a reasonable FPS. These will also help decrease frame times, hopefully eliminating spikes or stuttering.

Mod	Description	Author	Incompatibilities
Sodium	An all around performance mod, Sodium allows users to play the latest versions of Minecraft with high FPS, completely outperforming OptiFine, with some users seeing up to 8x their vanilla frames. Sodium also drastically improve visuals, providing a much better gameplay experience.	CaffeineMC
Iris	A shader loader that allows users to load up their favorite OptiFine shaderpacks, but with much higher FPS. Iris also provides performance enhancements when not using shaders, making it great for all users.	IrisShaders
Indium	Adds FRAPI support to Sodium, making it necessary to use for some of the mods on this list to work. This mod is merely temporary and will be removed once Sodium adds FRAPI/FREX support itself.	comp500
Lithium	Helps improve the performance of many vanilla systems without changing their mechanics.	CaffeineMC	FastMathFabric
Starlight	Rewrites the light engine to make loading chunks much quicker. Please note that this does not maintain full vanilla parity (this will not effect most casual players). If you want complete vanilla parity or if Starlight is causing stutters, please look at Phosphor.	SpottedLeaf	Bobby, Phosphor
LazyDFU	Prevents the DataFixerUpper from doing anything until it is required, improving your Minecraft start times.	astei
DashLoader	DashLoader caches all of Minecrafts contents to load the game much faster and provide insanely quick reloads.	alphaqu
Enhanced Block Entities	Improves block entities by making them used baked models instead, allowing for better performance, visuals (via better smoothlighting), and better resource pack customizability.	FoundationGames
FerriteCore	Helps reduce the amount of memory the game takes up. This may make a big difference for larger modpacks as well.	malte0811
Entity Culling	Culls entities that you cannot see, increasing FPS. While Sodium already does this, this mod is much more thorough in which mods can be culled.	tr9zw
Dynamic FPS	Reduces your FPS when tabbed out of the game, therefore reducing your system load.	juliand665
Lazy Language Loader	Improves loading times when changing your language in game by only reloading the required resources.	chachy
Sodium Extra	Allows you to half the resolution on Apple's Retina displays and also adds most of OptiFine's performance features such as toggles for animations, particles, rain/snow, clouds, sky and biome colors, and more, as well as some custom ones.	FlashyReese
Recipe Cache	Caches recipes to reduce lag when crafting or smelting many items.	biom4st3r

Other Performance Mods

These are other performance mods that one may prefer to use, but are not required. It is neither recommended or unrecommended, and is up to the player to decide given their use-case.

Mod	Description	Author	Incompatibilities
Phosphor	Phosphor is similar to Starlight in that they both speed up the light engine. However, Phosphor ensures full vanilla parity as compared to Starlight, which may break things such as light suppression and the Bobby mod. Use Phosphor instead of Starlight if you are looking for vanilla parity at the expense of being slightly slower. Starlight may also cause stuttering on some machines, in which case you should use Phosphor instead.	CaffeineMC	Starlight
Skip Transitions	Removes transitions such as the fading animation that Mojang added between their splash screens. This may provide a smoother experience if the fade is choppy on a low end machine or allow people to access certain menus quicker if they do not like the small wait time.	TrufflezMC
Krypton	This mod is bannable on Hypixel and most likely other servers. Although it is probably not detectable, it is still against Hypixel's rules and the mod developer does not recommend using it on Hypixel. However, this mod works great for private servers. Krypton optimizes network stacking and entity tracking, as well as other micro-optimizations.	astei

Recommended

These are mods that I personally recommend due to their usefulness. While they may not boost performance, they are mostly quality of life mods meant to better your experience.

Mod	Description	Author	Incompatibilities
Mod Manager	An extension of Mod Menu, Mod Manager allows the user to download and install mods in game in the Mod Menu screen, as well as update outdated mods.	DeathsGun
Debugify	Fixes several bugs in Minecraft.	W-OVERFLOW
TieFix	Fixes more bugs in Minecraft, as well as allowing you to disable telemetry.	j-tai
Item Model Fix	Fixes the gaps you see on items when holding them. This makes for a much more pleasant experience for most resoucepacks, inlcuding both defaults.	Pepper_Bell
Borderless Mining	Borderless Fullscreen for Minecraft. This makes the game not minimize when you tab out.	comp500
Not Enough Crashes	Takes you to the main screen instead of exiting the game when you crash.	natanfudge
Smooth Scrolling Everywhere - No 1.18.1 Yet	Makes the scrolling in all menus smoother.	Shedaniel
Controlling	Completely revamps Minecraft's controls menu, making it much easier to navigate and change keys, letting you search and more easily find conflicting keybinds.	Jaredllll08
Better Recipe Book	Brings many QOL improvements to the current recipe book, making it much more useful for different scenarios.	marshmallow
Inspecio	Adds more information to tooltips for many items in the game, including shulker boxes. It is very customizable with a large set of config options.	Queerbic
ToolTipFix	Prevents tooltips from becoming too long and going off the screen.	kyrptonaught
CompactChat - No 1.18.1 Yet	Compacts duplicate chat messages to help clean your chat. It also lets you increase your chat history length.	cbyrne

Other Cool Mods

These are mods that are more dependant on personal preferance than importance.

Mod	Description	Author	Incompatibilities
Skin Layers 3D	Makes the outer layer of skins 3D. Very customizable and lets you adjust distance that 3D renders for performance.	tr7zw
CleanView	Prevents self particles from appearing on your screen.	LianMI
Color Me Outlines	Color Me Outlines is a close equivalent to 1.8's block overlay, allowing you to customize the outline when looking at blocks.	LordDeatHunter
No View Bobbing Screen Shake - No 1.18.1 Yet	Removes the screen shaking when view bobbing is turned on, leaving only the swaying hand.	InboundBark
Slight GUI Modifications	Adds animations to many GUI elements.	Shedaniel
Colored Lights	Adds colored lighting to Minecraft with its colors completely customizable via resource pack.	Gegy	Sodium
Blur	Creates a nice blur effect when in menus and is completely customizable.	Motschen	Rainbowify
Rainbowify - No 1.18.1 Yet	Replaces the dark gui backrounds with a smooth rainbow one.	Lennox	Blur
WaveyCapes	Breaks your cape into smaller sections to make its movement more fluid. Looks great with the new migration capes.	tr9zw
Mojangster - No 1.18.1 Yet	Allows an animated loading screen. Supports custom resourcepacks.	cal6541	Custom Splash Screen
Perspektive	A simple 360 degrees perspective mod that lets you move the camera without moving your player's direction.	r0yzer
Wyvtils	Adds many useful utilities to the game, such as nametags, bossbar, action bar, sidebar, hitbox customization and more.	W-OVERFLOW (Wyvest)
EvergreenHUD	Adds many useful HUD elements to your screen with an easy to use in game config.	isXander
BetterF3	Replaces Minecraft's original debug HUD with a highly customizable, more human-readable HUD. You can customize colors, position, add spacings, and more.	cominixo
TNTTime	Displays time left to the TNT explosion above primed TNT.	Simon
Fabric Advanced Shift - No 1.18.1 Yet	Makes sneaking more customizable. For example when you press shift two times it will activate toggle sneak.	NiiightmareXD
Advancement Info	Makes the advancement menu fit your entire screen, which could make it easier to navigate the menu.	Giselbaer
AppleSkin	Lets you know how much a food will restore your hunger bar.	Ryan Liptak
Horse Stats Vanilla	Adds the stats of your horse in your horse/donkey inventory HUD, making it easy to see the perks of your horses and donkeys.	d4m0n
Better Mount HUD	Makes some important HUD modules visible when riding a mount.	Lortseam_
Clear Despawn	Clear Despawn makes it more obvious on which items are about to despawn by making them blink exponentially faster after a certain time.	StrikerRockers
Litematica	A schematic mod that allows you to import schematics of builds.	Matti Ruohonen
MiniHUD	A customizable HUD that allows displaying various information on your screen as well as beneficial overlay renders.	Matti Ruohonen
Clear Skies	Removes fog color banding on skybox.	grondag
Why Am I on Fire?	Removes the fire overlay when you have fire resistance or are in creative mode.	Elivers
Fire Overlay Controller	Allows you to control the height and opacity of the fire overlay.	TheGameratorT
Sound Physics	Makes sounds much more realistic, adding reverb, attenuation, and absorption.	vlad2305m & thedocruby	Sound Physics Remastered

OptiFine Replacements

As OptiFine is no longer recommended, here are some replacements for many of it's features. Please note that some mods that have been listed in the above categories may be repeated here.

Features

Features that OptiFine provides that are not resource pack related.

Mod	Description	Author	Incompatibilities
Essential	Zoom. More customizable than OptiFine's.	Sk1erLLC & SparkUniverse
Bobby	Higher render distances. More customizable than OptiFine's.	Johni0702	Starlight
LambDynamicLights	Dynamic lights. More customizable than OptiFine.	LambdAurora
LambdaBetterGrass	Better grass and better snow. More customizable than OptiFine.	LambdAurora
Cull Leaves	Smart leaves.	MidnightDust
Fabrishot	Higher resolution Screenshots. More customizable than OptiFine.	ramidzkh

Resource Packs

Resource pack features that OptiFine has. Not all support the OptiFine format.

Mod	Description	Author	Incompatibilities
Custom Splash Screen	Custom loading screen colors. Does not support OptiFine format.	MidnightDust
FabricSkyboxes	Custom sky. Does not support OptiFine format.	AMereBagatelle
Continuity	CTM. Supports OptiFine format.	Pepper_Bell
Animatica	Animated textures. Supports OptiFine format.	FoundationGames
Semitranslucency Fix - No 1.18.1 Yet	Fixes semitranslucent textures. Honestly have no clue if OptiFine does this but it probably does idk.	ruvaldk
CIT Resewn	CIT. Supports OptiFine format.	SHsuperCM
Colormatic	Custom colors. Does not support OptiFine format.	Thalia
Custom Entity Models	Custom entity models. Supports OptiFine format.	dorianpb
Entity Texture Features	Random and emissive entity textures. Supports OptiFine format.	Traben
JsonEM	Custom JSON Entity Models (tbh idk). Does not support OptiFine format).	FoundationGames
JMX	Adds support for FREX Rendering API features to Minecraft JSON model loading. Does not support OptiFine Format	grondag

TODO: Puzzle MCPatcherPatcher++

Unrecommended Mods

These are mods that are too experimental or unstable that I do not recommend using unless you know what you are doing. Please note that some of these mods will continue to be improved upon over time and may eventually be added to the above lists.

May Eventually Be Supported

Mod	Reasoning	Author
C2ME	C2ME is an expiremental mod that attempts to multithread chunk generation, I/O, and loading. It is deemed not production ready by the authors and may corrupt worlds or cause other issues. It also comes with its own list of incompatible mods. If you decide to use it, remember to make backups.	RelativityMC
VMP (Very Many Players)	VMP attempts to alleviate the strain on servers when there are a large amount of players. It is still in early development and may cause issues according to the authors, who also made C2ME. If you decide to use it, remember to make backups.	RelativityMC

Will Never Be Supported

Mod	Reasoning	Author
Better Beds	BetterBeds has been replaced by Enhanced Block Entities.	Motschen
Iris Starline	The Iris Starline fork was meant to provide a shaders option menu before Iris created their own much improved version. This fork serves no purpose to users.	HyperCubeMC
Sound Physics Remastered	This remastered version is based off an old version of the original mod. The original has now been updated to surpass this edit and it is recommended to use the original over this now.	henkelmax
FastMathFabric	FastMathFabric is a semi-joke mod meant to port the cursedness of OptiFine's fast math feature to Fabric. It is incompatible with other mods and will not provide a performance gain, therefore leaving no reason for users to use it. It is also most likely bannable on many servers, including Hypixel.	FwuffyPetsOwO
Smooth Boot	While Smooth Boot does great at decreasing startup time, it is no match for LazyDFU and DashLoader. Smooth Boot will also cause a decrease in performance for several minutes after startup according to some reports.	UltimateBoomer
FastOpenLinksAndFolders	Superceded by Debugify.	Altrisi
ForgetMeChunk	Superceded by Debugify.	Breadloaf

Notes

Join my Discord server for news regarding the development of this repository!

If you would like to contribute, please make a PR.
Some notes:

• Leave your name and GitHub link in the contributors credits section in alphabetical order, even for a tiny change
• Please try to use Modrinth or GitHub over Curseforge when possible (Modrinth is the preferred platform)
• Please use a GitHub link instead of a Modrinth/CurseForge link for Author credit when possible
  • If the GitHub profile is an organization, use that instead of one of the owners / person credited on Modrinth/CurseForge
• Make sure that the option to allow me to make changes to your PR is enabled

Contributors

• BobIsMyManager
• glai
• karmette
• nacrt
• NoPro2024
• Lisena
• Lulonaut
• Wyvest

And a special thanks to LambdAurora for her own OptiFine Alternatives gist that first helped me start using Fabric and helped with inspiration and mod finding for this list.