Tired of attempting to make mob farms for your survival world and getting barely any drops? Not getting the XP you expected from the farm you made? Well, in this guide, you’ll find all of the best-known mob farms in Minecraft!

1. Creeper Farm

Screenshot of the Creeper Farm

This Creeper farm that I am about to showcase is by far one of the most efficient and easiest to build that is available. Most of the “insane farms” listed on YouTube require copious amounts of materials and overall way too much time for the amount of drops you’d end up with. This farm can be built almost out of any solid block you’d like, as explained in the YouTube video I will link below.

The farm utilises the Snow Golem mob as a way to aggravate the creepers into walking towards the middle of the farm. This causes them to walk over open trapdoors in an attempt to get to the golem in the middle, which sends them spiralling down a hole to what you’d call the “killing chamber.”

The design of this farm allows you to switch between an active player-killing farm and an entirely AFK farm. This means that you can swap the slabs above the hoppers within the “killing chamber” for campfires, allowing you to spend hours above the farm AFKing your gunpowder drops. However, to maximise the amount of gunpowder you get from this farm, I would highly recommend sticking to manually killing the Creepers using a Looting 3 enchanted sword.

Creeper Farm Tutorial: MINECRAFT 1.21 CREEPER FARM | Easy, Efficient, Automatic

Source: wattles - YouTube

2. Enderman Farm

Thumbnail of the Enderman Farm Video

Tired of scavenging the Nether for Quartz Ore in hopes of reaching level 30 to enchant your next set of tools? Well, this Enderman farm is the perfect XP grinder for you. It is likely the easiest XP farm to build to date, and will net you 30 whole levels within just 1 minute of farming. It is ridiculously efficient and also very simple to build.

This farm requires not even a full single chest of materials to build and is extremely fast to finish. In my opinion, the most time-consuming part of this build is having to bridge out into the void, away from the main End Island. The farm utilises leaves as its main building block for both the bridge and the funnel that the Enderman falls through to the “killing chamber”. The leaves block prevents any mobs from spawning on top of them, allowing safe passage to and from the farm itself.

Similar to the Creeper farm previously spoken of above, this farm utilises the Endermite, a rare mob that can only be spawned through chance when you throw an Enderpearl. This mob attracts Enderman at an insane rate, causing them to chase after it, and fall over the open trapdoors above and down the funnel. Although this farm cannot be AFK farmed, as you are required to kill the mobs to receive XP, it is still widely regarded as the most efficient Enderman farm to date.

Friendly reminder, make sure to name your name tag on an anvil before spawning in the Endermite. Otherwise, you’re subject to complete and utter torture.

Enderman Farm Tutorial: NEW Enderman XP Farm Minecraft 1.21 [JAVA + BEDROCK]

Source: ReytGood - YouTube

3. Wither Skeleton Farm

Screenshot of the Wither Skeleton Farm

The Wither Skeleton Farm will likely be the most time and material-consuming farm within this list. It requires insane amounts of building blocks, a ton of time covering parts not inside the farm with buttons to disallow mob spawns outside of the farm area, and the time taken to collect the materials for this farm will exceed any of those listed previously.

However, the Wither Skeleton Skull is arguably one of the most annoying drops to attempt to collect without a farm. The time you’d spend in the Nether searching for a fortress that allows decent spawns for the Wither Skeletons, and how many it would take to kill just to be fortunate enough to get 1 skull, proves that this farm is worth your time.

This farm utilises a Piglin holding a sword to gain the Wither Skeleton's attention, pulling them towards it and down into the “killing chamber.” This technique is highly regarded as one of the most effective ways of farming mobs as it doesn’t require any risk from the player themselves.

This farm can be somewhat doubled up as an XP farm as well, although it will not be as effective as the previously stated Enderman farm. This farm can pull in 136 levels within 1 hour of AFK farming (this requires an autoclicker to kill the mobs manually whilst AFK). Within this hour, you can net over 640 Wither Skeleton Skulls, 18,500 Coal, and 26,500 Bones.

Side note: Please make sure to watch the entire tutorial from beginning to end, as some of the key parts, such as a regeneration beacon, are not spoken of until the very end of the video.

Wither Skeleton Farm Tutorial: Minecraft BEST Wither Skeleton Farm 1.21.8 | +570 Skulls Per Hour | Single Dimensional

Source: Farmingchunk - YouTube

4. Iron Golem Farm

Screenshot of the Iron Golem Farm

Iron Golem farms are often the first automatic farms built in a survival world, as they are often seen as the most useful. This specific Iron farm design is one I’ve personally used in my own survival servers, because of how effective it truly is. It does require a fair few materials, being nearly a double chest full. However, like the Creeper farm, it can be built out of almost any solid block.

Now, some people may think to themselves, “Why would I need infinite Iron?” as they assume it’s just used for tools and armour. That’s where they’re wrong: these Iron farms are useful for many more things, like building the pyramids beneath your Beacon to fully power it. Iron can also be traded with armourer, toolsmith and weaponsmith Villagers for infinite Emeralds.

The farm requires both Villagers and Zombies to operate properly, due to the Iron Golems only spawning when the Villagers become scared. The video will show that you can build 4 sides to this farm, and also expand upwards with multiple layers. I’d suggest that you do not need more layers than just the first, as within an hour you can net over 11 stacks of Iron.

Unlike the other farms above that can be used both manually and as an AFK farm, this farm is completely automated. As the Iron Golems spawn, they will be pushed down a funnel with water, leading to a lava pit that they will burn and die inside. Their drops then get collected through hoppers below them, securing 100% of their drops.

If you are fairly knowledgeable with redstone, I’d recommend building an item sorter to store the poppies and iron separately. This will allow you to confidently measure how much iron you are gaining per AFK session. This way, you could also set up an automatic burning system for the poppies, if you have no other use for them.

Iron Farm Tutorial: NEW UPDATED Minecraft Java 1.21.11 IRON FARM TUTORIAL | 3600 Iron Per Hour

Source: Jumper - YouTube

5. Raid Farm

Thumbnail of the Raid Farm Video

Raid farms are arguably the most important farm to build in a Hardcore survival world. These farms are the easiest source of Totems of Undying, which are essential to Hardcore players to negate the chance of dying. However, not only is this farm effective for Totems, but it also brings in quite a few other useful loot drops.

This Raid farm design I’ve found is arguably the easiest to build to date, and seriously efficient. Requiring only half a single chest of materials to build, you could have this farm up and running within 30 minutes. The most important detail of this farm is that it must be built over an Ocean, as other mobs cannot spawn in the Ocean.

Similar to the Iron farm above, the Raid farm requires a Villager to work. This Villager is used to actually spawn a Raid by drinking an Ominous bottle near him. That means you will need to either previously have built an Ominous bottle farm, or simply find a Pillager outpost and kill a bannerhead Pillager.

This design of the Raid farm is entirely manually farmed, preferably using a Sweeping Edge 3 enchanted sword for the most efficient rates. The mobs that spawn from the Raid will fall down the funnel to the “killing chamber” and be left ready and waiting for you to swing your sword directly onto them. The loot is then directly collected through a hopper beneath, which will safely store your drops in chests.

Side note: Hard difficulty is required for this farm to maximise Totem drops. Easy difficulty doesn’t allow the Evoker mob to spawn. Without Evokers, you can’t get Totems of Undying.

Raid Farm Tutorial: Efficient RAID FARM in Minecraft 1.21.11 | 4,500 Items/Hour

Source: PixelRon - YouTube

Hopefully, this list gave you the help necessary to build the most effective farms for your Survival server. If you are looking for a place to purchase your own server, see our Minecraft server plans and follow up with our handy setup guide!