Realms

Minecraft Realms is an official subscription-based server hosting service that allows players to create and manage their own private Minecraft servers. Hosted by Mojang, Realms provides an easy and fast way to create servers and allows the owner to manage them from inside the game, without prior knowledge of the concepts for hosting on the Internet. Realms are not intended for large public servers, but for groups of friends or as a family server.

Requirements
Realms is a service that can only be used by players that meet these requirements :


 * You must have a Mojang account
 * You must have a premium copy of Minecraft
 * You must have a working internet connection
 * You must be age 13 years or older to join the Minecraft Realms community

Subscriptions

 * Manage your Realms subscriptions here.

Realms is a subscription-based service. The link above will take you to your Mojang account page and will allow you to extend a current Realm or buy a new one ($8 per month as of 2016).

There are two types of subscriptions: Auto-renew and manual-renew. Auto-renew subscriptions automatically renew the Realms subscription every 30 days without you having to do a thing (this can be canceled). Manual-renew subscriptions need to be renewed manually and come in 30-day, 90-day, and 180-day packages.

All players are able to have a 14-day free Realms trial, providing they have not had a free trial on their Mojang account before.

Available maps & templates
Within the realms service users can elect to temporarily replace their regular world for a "minigame" or permanently replace their regular world with a map template or adventure map. You also cannot use most of the commands or options while your realm is using a preset minigame.

Minigames

 * Memory Battle by K1ll1er, Huntondoom, Quazymoodo, and ImLeeRii
 * Build-off Parkour by slicedlime
 * Labyrinth by samasaurus6, buckingirl4, MineyCow
 * Bubble Shooter by slicedlime
 * 3D Minesweeper by TheAl_T
 * Entrapment by slicedlime
 * Half Heart Race by TeamWooloo
 * Carrot Catcher by Gemoz
 * Replica by Mlakuss
 * Western Dodge by Gemoz

Adventure maps

 * Random Skies by Dragnoz
 * The Genius Machine by The VoxelBox
 * Total House Bombover by TeamWooloo
 * G.A.T.O.S. by TeamWooloo
 * We are the Rangers by Dragnoz, samasaurus6, and Blockworks

Survival spawns

 * Winter Stronghold by Blockworks
 * Raider's Refuge by Blockworks
 * Spindlewood by The VoxelBox
 * A Tremendous Spawn by The VoxelBox
 * Silent Ville by Springstof
 * Desert Ruins by AKAMc
 * Skylight by Springstof
 * Sparrenhout by Springstof
 * Flower Mountain by Emoluvjd2
 * Tranquil Temple by K1ll1er, ImLeeRii & Mouldy_Burrito
 * Staalhamer by Springstof and Jaapie172
 * Zanafar Salt Mines by Pixelbat
 * Winter's Hearth by Nobleman, Vek, and Paaaaaaat
 * Jungle Retreat by Nobleman, Vek, and Paaaaaaat
 * Amrath by Gemoz
 * Desert Nook by Nobleman, Vek, and Paaaaaaat

Realms version history
As of Minecraft 1.7.10, Realms has its own versioning system. Below is a changelog of all those updates:

Minecraft version history
Originally, Realms updates were tied into regular Minecraft updates, until the release of Minecraft 1.7.10. Below is a changelog of all those updates.

Availability
The following chart shows when Realms was introduced in the respective countries.

Pocket Realms
Realms for Pocket Edition were available from Alpha 0.7.1 to Alpha 0.7.6. Beta testers were randomly selected to try out Realms, however it was taken offline after a short period of time. Realms is planned to return to Pocket Edition later in 2016.

Trivia

 * The Mojang blog closing signature was signed // The Minecraft and Minecraft Realms teams instead of the usual // The Minecraft team starting with the blog Minecraft Snapshot 13w09a.