I love all the features pocket mine offers but I am not that into port forwarding. Seems sketchy. Do any alternatives work with it? Can you guys add a different way of allowing external players on in a future update? Im not making a server for tons of players to actually play on. I just want a realm alternative that allows for me to have plugins and multiple worlds.
You have to port forward if you want to have external players. There are no alternatives, as far as I know.
Is there any software that makes it safer? I get that it isn't that risky for those who know what they're doing but I am not very educated on port forwarding and it seems pretty controversial.
https://forums.pmmp.io/threads/port-forwarding.5/ Port forwarding isn't something that you have to do with a program or something. You need to go to your router settings and forward 19132 yourself. You can get more help on the thread above (go to any link mentioned there and search your router).
it's safe if you ONLY portforward 19132 not the whole damm device tho ppl can still "ddos" which i doubt is even a thing and more of a tale if you are over paranoid, go get a self hosted server since these are better off for large player base unless it's a data ceneter at where you are trying to portforward
That's a bit like saying that you want to host a public server but you don't want the risk of connecting to the Internet because it's unsafe.