Diagnosing and fixing TPS drops, lag spikes, memory pressure and slow chunk loading on a Minecraft server.
Start by working out which problem you have, because two very different things get called lag. Low TPS means the server cannot finish its work inside a tick. High ping means packets are slow to reach you. They have separate causes and separate fixes, so telling TPS lag from ping lag is the first step.
If it is genuinely the server, measure rather than guess. A timings or spark report names the mod, plugin or task eating the tick, and this guide separates CPU, RAM, ping and mod causes. Two changes fix most servers: pre-generating the world with Chunky so players are not generating terrain as they explore, and lowering view-distance and simulation-distance.
Worth knowing before buying a bigger plan: Minecraft's main loop is single-threaded, so more memory does not make a tick shorter. That is why upgrading RAM or vCores does not always fix lag, and why rising memory is usually normal rather than a leak.
Minecraft servers are bound by single-thread CPU speed far more than by core count, which is why we publish the exact chip. If you have worked through these and the server is still struggling, the hardware may genuinely be the limit — see Minecraft server hosting on AMD Ryzen 7 7700.