Realms

Minecraft Realms is an official paid for Mojang Minecraft server operation that allows players to create and manage their own private Minecraft server. Hosted by Mojang, the creators of Minecraft, Realms provides an easy and faster way to create Minecraft servers and allows the owner to manage their Realm from inside the game, without prior knowledge of the concepts for hosting on the internet. In regard to custom servers that can be tricky to set up, notwithstanding the discontinuation of the popular fan-made Minecraft Bukkit server in September 2014,  it is the easiest way having a lot of fun playing Minecraft over the internet. However, Realms are not intended for large public servers, but for groups of friends or as a family server. Private Realms servers are easy to set up and available 24/7 for building, adventuring, or competing minecraft mini-games over the internet.

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 Mojang Minecraft Realms subscriptions.

Realms is an official Mojang Minecraft server operation 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 ($10 per month as of 2014).

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.

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

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.

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.