Two free non-commercial Vanilla realms, EU-hosted, one account works on both and moving a character between them is done by hand on request rather than automatically. ELWYNN is the museum realm: unaltered Vanilla 1.12.1 at the final content patch, opened JUNE 2026, never wiped, x1 rates, level cap 60, no XP boost, no quality-of-life automation and NO dungeon finder, one shared world with no layering or instanced overworld. Its one deliberate departure from 2006 is that Horde and Alliance share chat, groups and dungeons, which the site states plainly as the exception. BARRENS is the progressive realm, opened JULY 2026, currently content stage 1.5 at LEVEL CAP 50, climbing Classic then TBC then Wrath with the whole server crossing each gate on the same day. Barrens changes are PUT TO A VOTE and the first round decided three that are live: a respec costs one gold, you can learn a third profession, and guilds can take both factions. It alternates between peace and open-world war every three days, and a warden NPC at each open dungeon supplies a tank, healer or caster, with Warsong Gulch filled by server characters when players are short. No shop on either realm and no plan to add one, donations cover the bill and buy nothing, and the rules are explicitly not to move to keep people playing. Confirmed first-party Oct 2: 880 Discord members (up from the 827 we recorded Sep 11), 145 changes on record with the latest dated Oct 1 2026, and a NEXT GATE on Friday October 23 at 18:00 Vienna time, 16:00 UTC. Re-read first-party Oct 17 2026: the changelog has moved to 155 changes on record with the latest dated Oct 13 2026, the Discord shows 910 members, and the site still lists the next gate as the level 60 cap on Friday October 23 at 18:00 Vienna time (16:00 UTC), with five open proposals. The two realms read as Elwynn, Vanilla 1.12 PvE at a level 60 cap, 137 days since launch, and Barrens, content stage 1.5 at a level 50 cap, 85 days since launch, the two being 13:28 server time apart at our read. Publishes a free 51-addon shelf for the 1.14.2 client and also hosts addons for 1.12.1. The site markets itself explicitly as a Turtle WoW alternative and as a WoW Forever alternative, and its own FAQ page concedes the cross-faction exception. popTier stays tiny and is now sourced to the published Discord figure rather than a stale one
Vanilla Pop: Tiny Last checked: October 17, 2026 Site listed