Statistics

Data collected 2026-04-10

  • Servers responding: 867

  • With MSSP data: 388

  • Unique protocol fingerprints: 188

  • Unique codebases: 69

  • TLS-enabled: 74

  • Total players online: 10495 [1]

These statistics reflect the most recent scan of all servers in the mudlist.txt input list. Each server is probed using telnetlib3, which connects to each address, performs Telnet option negotiation, and collects any MSSP metadata the server provides.

The charts below summarize data from servers that report MSSP metadata. Servers without MSSP appear in the Server List but are not included in these breakdowns.

Codebases

297 entries report a CODEBASE or FAMILY field via MSSP. Version numbers are stripped and known aliases are normalized to a canonical name (e.g. FluffOS and LDMud are counted as LPMud, Merc and SMAUG as DikuMUD, PennMUSH and ProtoMUCK as TinyMUD).

Pie chart showing the most common codebases across all servers reporting MSSP data.

Most common codebases (297 entries from MSSP data).

Players Online by Codebase

Horizontal bar chart showing top codebases by total players online.

Top codebases by total players online at scan time.

Creation Years

Bar chart showing when MUDs were created, by year, spanning from the earliest to the most recent.

When MUDs were created, by year, as reported via MSSP data.

Port Distribution

Pie chart showing the most popular ports used by MUD servers.

Most popular ports across all MUD servers.

Protocol Support

Horizontal bar chart showing how many servers support each MUD protocol such as MSSP, GMCP, MSDP, and MCCP.

MUD protocol support across all responding servers.

Telnet Option Negotiation

Grouped bar chart comparing how many servers offer versus request each Telnet option during negotiation.

Telnet options offered vs requested by servers during negotiation.

Encoding Distribution

Pie chart showing the distribution of character encodings across all servers.

Character encoding distribution (default: UTF-8).

CHARSET

The default encoding of Telnet is the system locale, usually UTF-8. By strict compliance, without negotiation of BINARY transmission all protocol text should be limited to 7-bit ASCII. The encoding used should be negotiated by CHARSET.

Any server capable of negotiating CHARSET or LANG through NEW_ENVIRON is also presumed to support BINARY, regardless of its response to the BINARY telnet option. In practice, many servers transmit 8-bit data without negotiating either mode.

Pie chart showing the proportion of servers that negotiate the CHARSET telnet option.

222 of 1063 servers negotiate CHARSET (20.9%).

BINARY

Pie chart showing the proportion of servers that negotiate the BINARY telnet option.

71 of 1063 servers negotiate BINARY (6.7%).

Server Locations

Pie chart showing the geographic distribution of servers by country.

Server locations by country.

TLS/SSL Support

74 servers support TLS/SSL connections, either advertised via MSSP metadata or configured with the ssl keyword in the server list. See Supporting TLS for a full breakdown by certificate status.

Although 20 servers report TLS support via MSSP variable SSL or TLS=1, they failed to negotiate TLS when requested and are not included in these totals.

Pie chart showing servers with TLS support vs without.

TLS-enabled servers vs servers without TLS.

Pie chart showing TLS certificate validation results.

Certificate validation results for TLS-enabled servers.

Stacked bar chart showing TLS support by codebase family.

TLS support breakdown by codebase family.

Common Escape Sequences

Top 100 escape sequences by number of unique banners (of 1,063 total).

Common Escape Sequences

%

Banners

Sequence

Name

31.7%

337

'\x1b[0m'

SGR Reset

16.2%

172

'\x1b[1;37m'

SGR Bold, White FG

14.8%

157

'\x1b[1;33m'

SGR Bold, Yellow FG

13.7%

146

'\x1b[1;31m'

SGR Bold, Red FG

12.8%

136

'\x1b[1m'

SGR Bold

11.9%

127

'\x1b[1;36m'

SGR Bold, Cyan FG

11.5%

122

'\x1b[37m'

SGR White FG

10.7%

114

'\x1b[0;37m'

SGR Reset, White FG

10.6%

113

'\x1b[7z'

MXP Lock Locked

9.6%

102

'\x1b[32m'

SGR Green FG

9.3%

99

'\x1b[36m'

SGR Cyan FG

9.1%

97

'\x1b[31m'

SGR Red FG

8.7%

93

'\x1b[33m'

SGR Yellow FG

8.7%

92

'\x1b[1;32m'

SGR Bold, Green FG

8.3%

88

'\x1b[1;34m'

SGR Bold, Blue FG

8.3%

88

'\x1b[1;30m'

SGR Bold, Black FG

7.6%

81

'\x1b[34m'

SGR Blue FG

7.1%

76

'\x1b[0;31m'

SGR Reset, Red FG

7.0%

74

'\x1b[0;36m'

SGR Reset, Cyan FG

6.7%

71

'\x1b[0;33m'

SGR Reset, Yellow FG

5.1%

54

'\x1b[1;35m'

SGR Bold, Magenta FG

4.9%

52

'\x1b[2J'

Erase Display

4.7%

50

'\x1b[0;32m'

SGR Reset, Green FG

4.3%

46

'\x1b[H'

Cursor Home

4.2%

45

'\x1b[6z'

MXP Lock Secure

4.0%

43

'\x1b[0;34m'

SGR Reset, Blue FG

3.9%

41

'\x1b[0;00m'

SGR Reset, Reset

3.8%

40

'\x1b[35m'

SGR Magenta FG

3.7%

39

'\x1b[0;35m'

SGR Reset, Magenta FG

3.5%

37

'\x1b[1z'

MXP Secure Line

3.3%

35

'\x1b[30m'

SGR Black FG

3.1%

33

'\x1b[J'

Erase Below

2.9%

31

'\x1b[38;5;208m'

SGR 256-color FG

2.8%

30

'\x1b[38;5;214m'

SGR 256-color FG

2.7%

29

'\x1b[m'

SGR Reset (short)

2.5%

27

'\x1b[2;37;0m'

SGR Dim, White FG, Reset

2.2%

23

'\x1b[40m'

SGR Black BG

2.1%

22

'\x1b[0;37;40m'

SGR Reset, White FG, Black BG

1.7%

18

'\x1b[38;5;145m'

SGR 256-color FG

1.6%

17

'\x1b[38;5;231m'

SGR 256-color FG

1.5%

16

'\x1b[44m'

SGR Blue BG

1.3%

14

'\x1b[0;0m'

SGR Reset, Reset

1.3%

14

'\x1b[38;5;102m'

SGR 256-color FG

1.1%

12

'\x1b[0;1;31m'

SGR Reset, Bold, Red FG

1.1%

12

'\x1b[5m'

SGR Blink

1.0%

11

'\x1b[2K'

Erase Line

1.0%

11

'\x1b[38;5;226m'

SGR 256-color FG

1.0%

11

'\x1b[4m'

SGR Underline

0.9%

10

'\x1b[0;1;33m'

SGR Reset, Bold, Yellow FG

0.9%

10

'\x1b[41m'

SGR Red BG

0.8%

9

'\x1b[0;1;37m'

SGR Reset, Bold, White FG

0.8%

9

'\x1b[1;44m'

SGR Bold, Blue BG

0.8%

8

'\x1b[38;5;196m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.8%

8

'\x1b[38;5;051m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[0;1;34m'

SGR Reset, Bold, Blue FG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[0;0;31m'

SGR Reset, Reset, Red FG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[0;1;32m'

SGR Reset, Bold, Green FG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[38;5;248m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[0;37;0m'

SGR Reset, White FG, Reset

0.7%

7

'\x1b'

ESC (bare)

0.7%

7

'\x1b[47m'

SGR White BG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[38;5;088m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.7%

7

'\x1b[0;1;30m'

SGR Reset, Bold, Black FG

0.6%

6

'\x1b[38;5;240m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.6%

6

'\x1b[38;5;242m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.6%

6

'\x1b[30;40m'

SGR Black FG, Black BG

0.6%

6

'\x1b[1;30;47m'

SGR Bold, Black FG, White BG

0.6%

6

'\x1b[38;5;030m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[1;1H'

Cursor Home (1,1)

0.5%

5

'\x1b[0;46m'

SGR Reset, Cyan BG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[0;0;37m'

SGR Reset, Reset, White FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[0;0;35m'

SGR Reset, Reset, Magenta FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;241m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;172m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;243m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;239m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b['

CSI (truncated)

0.5%

5

'\x1b[K'

Erase to EOL

0.5%

5

'\x1b[37;1m'

SGR White FG, Bold

0.5%

5

'\x1b[93m'

SGR Bright Yellow FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;34m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[37;40m'

SGR White FG, Black BG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;100m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;028m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.5%

5

'\x1b[38;5;033m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[0;0;36m'

SGR Reset, Reset, Cyan FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[0;0;32m'

SGR Reset, Reset, Green FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[0;0;33m'

SGR Reset, Reset, Yellow FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[38;5;124m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[s'

Save Cursor

0.4%

4

'\x1b[36;1m'

SGR Cyan FG, Bold

0.4%

4

'\x1b[33;1m'

SGR Yellow FG, Bold

0.4%

4

'\x1b[30;1m'

SGR Black FG, Bold

0.4%

4

'\x1b[31;1m'

SGR Red FG, Bold

0.4%

4

'\x1b[37;47m'

SGR White FG, White BG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[0;10m'

SGR Reset, 10

0.4%

4

'\x1b[38;5;227m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[38;5;15m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[38;5;37m'

SGR 256-color FG

0.4%

4

'\x1b[38;5;87m'

SGR 256-color FG