Differences from Minecraft

Minetest

The main difference are the goals. While Minecraft is a proprietary completed sandbox/survival game, Minetest is a free software work-in-progress game engine which supports various voxel games in the likes of Minecraft, InfiniMiner, etc. See Games for more about this. It also allows modding at its core.

Other differences of Minetest compared to Minecraft:

• Designed for low-end hardware
• Native modding support with the Lua programming language
• Mods work server-side, you can join any random server and it will work out of the box, no matter what amount of crazy mods the server is using
• Supports protection systems (to protect your buildings from griefers)
• World size is ca. 60000 blocks in all 3 dimensions
• More map generators
• Crafting recipes are not automatically mirrored
• Smelting time of items may differ on a per-item basis
• No dual wielding
• A rather small base set of server commands
• A sophisticated system of privileges
• Simpler liquid physics
• Built-in minimap and radar (press F9 to view, Shift + F9 to cycle between a square and round shape)

See also Minetest.

Gotchas

• No game modes (damage and creative mode are treated seperately)
• Liquids in general do not protect you from fall damage if still hit the floor

Minetest Game

Note: Keep in mind that Minetest Game does not want to be an exact clone of Minecraft, but it is still heavily influenced by it. If you feel many features are missing Minetest Game, you might either try out a different games or add mods. Remember that Minetest Game is only one of many games for Minetest.

Major gameplay concepts

• Different blocks, items, trees, biomes, etc. (obviously)
• No mobs
• No redstone or redstone-like mechanisms (but there's Mesecons)
• No enchanting, experience, hunger, status effects, potions, armor or brewing
• Eating food heals instantly
• No “dimensions” or portals
• Maximum build height of ca. 30000
• Can dig as low as ca. 30000 blocks

Gotchas

• When a player dies, Bones are created and all items are stored inside
• Torches can be attached to the ceiling
• Water does not make other blocks like torches drop (but it can destroy Snow)
• The top row, not the bottom row in your inventory represents the hotbar
• Dropped item stacks must be leftclicked to be collected, the player is not a magnet ;-)
• When mining, items directly go into the player's inventory, unless the inventory is full
• Hoes can be used on Desert Sand
• Wheat and Cotton don't grow at all when the soil is dry (→Soil, Desert Sand Soil)
• Some tools or items are used on left click instead of right click (for example: Bread)

Crafting and smelting

• The crafting grid acts like an inventory; the items don't drop when you close your inventory
• No crafting table
• Players have a 3×3 crafting grid in their inventory at all times
• The furnace has 4 output slots instead of 1
• Very different burning and smelting times, see Smelting

Blocks

• Water and Lava have a flowing distance of 8 blocks
• Some blocks can be owned by players: Locked Chest, Steel Door, Steel Trapdoor; with Skeleton Keys player can share access.
• Rails can have T-junctions and crossings

Inventory

• Players have 32 inventory slots
• Chests have 32 inventory slots
• The item stack size is 99 for most items and 1 for tools

Mods which add Minecraft-like behaviour

• Redstone mechanisms: Mesecons (Mese is considered to be the redstone equivalent)
• (There are many more mods.)