NeoForge is a fork of Minecraft Forge, created in mid-2023 by much of Forge's own original development team. It is not a from-scratch competitor, it inherited most of Forge's existing API and modding approach, which is exactly why it was able to become a serious alternative so quickly.
Why the fork happened
The split came down to disagreements over Forge's technical direction and project governance, not a fundamentally different vision for what modding should look like. A large part of the core Forge team, frustrated by aging internals, a rigid contribution process, and what they saw as overly slow modernization, left to start NeoForge under more open, more responsive project management. Because so much of the existing team and technical foundation moved with the fork, mod developers were able to support NeoForge fast, this was a governance split with continuity, not a rebuild from zero.
What actually changed after the fork
NeoForge has prioritized speed: modernizing Forge's older internals, and supporting new Minecraft releases dramatically faster, in some cases within hours of launch, compared to Forge's historically slower cadence. NeoForge also made a clean break with the past by not fully supporting Minecraft 1.20.1, choosing instead to focus development on 1.21 and later versions going forward.
Why it became the default for new modpacks
Because most of Forge's active contributor base and modding tooling moved to NeoForge, new mods and modpacks built for Minecraft 1.21 and later increasingly target NeoForge first, treating old Forge as the legacy option rather than the other way around. This shift happened fairly quickly after the 2023 fork and has held since.
Forge is not dead, though
Plenty of older, established modpacks were never ported to NeoForge and, in many cases, never will be, since their maintainers stopped active development before the fork happened or simply have no reason to migrate a finished pack. If you are chasing a specific older modpack, check which loader it actually needs, do not assume NeoForge just because it is newer.
Should you use NeoForge?
For any new modded server built around current Minecraft versions, NeoForge is generally the right starting point within the Forge lineage today. If your target is an older, established pack, verify it was not left on Forge specifically. Either way, Fabric remains a separate option worth considering if lightweight performance mods, rather than large content packs, are actually what you are after.
Tick Hosting's panel installs NeoForge with a one-click selector, and a RAM calculator can help size your plan to whatever modpack you settle on, modded servers vary widely in requirements. Get started on Tick Hosting's plans page.