PlaceholderAPI: The Plugin That Connects Everything
Have you ever installed a scoreboard plugin and wondered, "How do I show the player's rank from LuckPerms?" or "How can I display a player's balance from EssentialsX in a hologram?" The answer to all these questions is PlaceholderAPI (PAPI).
PlaceholderAPI is one of the most important "background" plugins a server can have. It doesn't add any visible features on its own, but it works as a universal translator, allowing your plugins to communicate with each other. This guide will explain how it works and why you absolutely need it.
What is PlaceholderAPI?
Think of PlaceholderAPI as the central data hub for your server. It lets one plugin (like a scoreboard) request information from another plugin (like LuckPerms) in a standardized way.
The information is requested using a "placeholder"—a piece of text surrounded by percentage signs. For example:
%player_name%: The name of the player.%vault_eco_balance%: The player's economy balance (from an economy plugin via Vault).%luckperms_prefix%: The player's prefix from LuckPerms.
You can use these placeholders in any plugin that supports PlaceholderAPI (and most modern plugins do), including holograms, scoreboards, chat formatters, and more.
How to Use PlaceholderAPI
Using PAPI is a two-step process: installing the plugin itself, and then downloading the "expansions" for the plugins you want to get data from.
Step 1: Installation
- Download the
PlaceholderAPI.jarfrom the link at the bottom of this article. - Place the file into your server's
/pluginsfolder. - Restart your server.
Step 2: Downloading Expansions
Out of the box, PAPI doesn't know how to talk to your other plugins. You need to tell it by downloading expansions. This is done with a simple in-game command.
The command is: /papi ecloud download <expansion_name>
After downloading, you must run /papi reload for the new placeholders to become active.
Most Essential Expansions to Download:
/papi ecloud download Player- For basic player data like name, health, etc./papi ecloud download Server- For server data like online players, TPS, etc./papi ecloud download Vault- CRITICAL for accessing economy data (balance) from plugins like EssentialsX./papi ecloud download LuckPerms- For accessing prefixes, suffixes, and other rank data.
You can find a full list of available expansions and their placeholders on the PlaceholderAPI wiki.
Conclusion
PlaceholderAPI is the invisible engine that powers a dynamic server. It's the key to creating a professional and interconnected experience for your players, where information is displayed seamlessly across every feature of your server. While your players may never know it's there, you'll see its impact everywhere.
