ItemsAdder, Nexo, Oraxen, CraftEngine — which one

Sep 7, 20263 min read

All four do the same job: hand the player an ordinary item and use a resource pack to draw something else. The difference is not the trick, it is the config format, the maintenance story and the ecosystem around each one. This is one of the more expensive decisions to reverse later, because every content pack you buy is written for one plugin's format.

The short answer

Plugin	Who it suits
ItemsAdder	Anyone buying ready-made content packs. Biggest market, most premade models.
Nexo	Oraxen users and new setups. It converts an Oraxen install automatically.
Oraxen	Servers already running on it that do not want to migrate.
CraftEngine	People who want to template their config and manage the technical side themselves.

What they share: the same trick

The Minecraft client has no concept of a new item type. All four take the same route: the server gives the player a vanilla item, usually paper, with a marker on it, and the resource pack the player downloads reads that marker and draws your model instead.

The practical consequence is that the model itself — the geometry JSON and the texture PNG — is identical across all four. The only thing that changes is the format of the config file describing it and where folders go. Moving between plugins is not remaking the model; it is translating the config.

The config formats side by side

Here is the same table declared to all four, to show how superficial the differences are:

yaml

# ItemsAdder
items:
  table:
    display_name: "Table"
    resource: { material: PAPER, model_path: table }

# Nexo
table:
  itemname: "Table"
  material: PAPER
  Pack: { model: my_pack:table }

# Oraxen
table:
  displayname: "Table"
  material: PAPER
  Pack: { model: my_pack:table }

# CraftEngine
items:
  my_pack:table:
    material: paper
    model: my_pack:item/table

The only visible difference between Nexo and Oraxen is itemname versus displayname. That is no accident: Nexo was built as Oraxen's successor and converts Oraxen setups automatically.

Furniture is where they diverge

The real difference is the hitbox. ItemsAdder and Oraxen want measurements like width and height; Nexo and CraftEngine instead have you list which block positions count as solid.

yaml

# ItemsAdder — you give measurements
hitbox: { width: 2, length: 1, height: 1 }

# Nexo — you list which blocks are filled
hitbox:
  barriers:
    - 0,0,0
    - 1,0,0

The barrier approach is more precise: you can describe the real shape of an L-shaped sofa instead of squashing it into a rectangle. The cost is that you have to work out that list for every model.

Three things to weigh

What format are the packs you plan to buy? Most ready-made content is sold for ItemsAdder and Oraxen. If you make your own models, this point does not apply to you.
What else runs on your server? Custom item systems talk to other plugins; check which ones your economy, land or quest plugin supports.
Is the plugin actively maintained? A plugin that stalls when Minecraft moves a version pins your whole server to an old release. Long term this matters far more than format differences.

How hard is it to move later

Easier than people expect, because what moves is the config, not the model. Your model JSONs and textures stay exactly as they are; only the yml files and the folder layout get rewritten. Nexo additionally converts from Oraxen for you.

MineModel AI makes the decision fully reversible: every run produces all six formats. Switch plugin and you re-download the same models in the new format without regenerating anything.