Realms

Minecraft Realms is a work-in-progress feature that allows players to create and manage their own private server without prior knowledge of the concepts for hosting on the internet. Hosted by Mojang, Realms provides an easy and faster way to create Minecraft servers and allows the owner to manage their Realm from inside the game. However, 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 with the following requirements :


 * You must have a Mojang account
 * You must have a premium copy of Minecraft
 * You must have a working internet connection

Subscriptions
Manage your subscriptions here.

Realms is a service that needs a paid subscription to use. 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. 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, 60-day, and 180-day packages.

Uploading
Realms allows you to upload a local game so that you can continue playing online with friends. Note that there is a limit to the number of times you can upload a saved game. Currently it appears to be 3 uploads, but there is no UI to indicate the number you have used, nor the amount remaining. After reaching the limit, you will be unable to further update. Support can not reset this counter and it takes 24-72 hours to reset.

Using Realms
To learn how to use Realms follow the link above.

Realms Version History
As of Minecraft 1.7.10, Realms has it's 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.

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.