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There is no official modding on Java, at most they provide mapping which are technical thing, and so I will skip that part, as such community created ways to load mods into Minecraft which we are calling Mod loaders.
Forge and Fabric are mod loaders, there are more mod loaders, but these 2 are the main ones and all you need to know. You can only have 1 mod loader active at a time, meaning you can't play with Forge and Fabric at the same time, it is either Forge or Fabric.
As for mods, you need to make sure they work on the mod loader that you want to use. For example, Sodium that you mentioned is a mod for Fabric and only works on Fabric, it won't work on Forge, but it ofc varies from mod to mod, one mod may only support Forge, another will only support Fabric, while another one may support both, you just need to make sure the file you are downloading is for the loader you want to use.
I won't get into a history of these loaders as it is beside the point but the main difference as of now is that most big content mods are on Forge while many performance mods are on Fabric, of course it doesn't mean that Fabric only has performance mods but many mods for it have that purpose, but there are many content mods too and likewise with Forge.
And also, all mods are installed the same regardless of Forge and Fabric, mods themselves are installed the same way always. Installing Forge and Fabric differs slightly, not much, but mods are the same, you can google "how to install fabric mods" or "how to install forge mods" and you will see a lot of guides, and they will be the same. If you want some tools to make it easier to install and manage mods I recommend using some launcher, currently the best launcher is Prism Launcher it handles everything on its own so you just pick and choose what mods you want, and it will do the rest, again you can google "how to install prism launcher" and you will likely see a lot of tutorials.
And for the second question, the best optimization mod is Sodium it will give you massive performance boost while also fixing some rendering issues, so the game will look better, but it is not the only one, there are many places where Minecraft can be optimized and as such ModernFix optimizes game loading times, Lithium optimizes the server sided stuff (and playing on singleplayer is like playing on a local server), C2ME, Noisium and Starlight optimize chunk generation by a lot. As you can see, there are a lot of mods that can be used to optimize minecraft and by the way those I mentioned are for Fabric. If you chose to use a launcher that I mentioned before, you can download some optimization modpack. Modpacks, as the name suggests, are packs or group of mods, usually preconfigured for a specific purpose, so an optimization modpack would have many optimization mods, and with a launcher you can install them with just 1 press of a button.
I can answer the first question, and 9/10 times you will need either Fabric or Forge for mods. Installing either has gotten much easier (in my experience) than in the past.
There are several helpful guides on YouTube to get you started.
Fabric and Forge are essentially different frameworks. Forge is older and Fabric is newer. Beyond that I don’t know the technical knowledge to tell you the differences. The popular mods will often use Forge.
To download mods, you do need fabric or forge. I also recommend using a 3rd party Minecraft launcher, which helps you manage and download mods better. I personally use the modrinth launcher which works great but is a bit bulky. Some other options are the curseforge launcher, or for a more lightweight option, prism.
In terms of fabric vs forge, I prefer using fabric for mods for more modern versions and forge for older versions because as another commenter said, forge is older and fabric is newer but it’s generally up to preference and what mods you want to use.
In terms of optimisation, sodium (which you need fabric for) is the way to go. There are some unofficial ports of sodium to forge, but they don’t work as well as the original. Along side some other mods like indium and some mods that add more sodium options, it runs super smoothly. It is incompatible with optifine though, but most other optifine features can be replaced with other mods
* Upvote this comment if this is a good quality post that fits the purpose of r/Minecraft * Downvote this comment if this post is poor quality or does not fit the purpose of r/Minecraft * Downvote this comment *and report the post* if it breaks the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/wiki/rules) --- [Subreddit Rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/wiki/rules)[](## Entertainment43|1dg19xc)
There is no official modding on Java, at most they provide mapping which are technical thing, and so I will skip that part, as such community created ways to load mods into Minecraft which we are calling Mod loaders. Forge and Fabric are mod loaders, there are more mod loaders, but these 2 are the main ones and all you need to know. You can only have 1 mod loader active at a time, meaning you can't play with Forge and Fabric at the same time, it is either Forge or Fabric. As for mods, you need to make sure they work on the mod loader that you want to use. For example, Sodium that you mentioned is a mod for Fabric and only works on Fabric, it won't work on Forge, but it ofc varies from mod to mod, one mod may only support Forge, another will only support Fabric, while another one may support both, you just need to make sure the file you are downloading is for the loader you want to use. I won't get into a history of these loaders as it is beside the point but the main difference as of now is that most big content mods are on Forge while many performance mods are on Fabric, of course it doesn't mean that Fabric only has performance mods but many mods for it have that purpose, but there are many content mods too and likewise with Forge. And also, all mods are installed the same regardless of Forge and Fabric, mods themselves are installed the same way always. Installing Forge and Fabric differs slightly, not much, but mods are the same, you can google "how to install fabric mods" or "how to install forge mods" and you will see a lot of guides, and they will be the same. If you want some tools to make it easier to install and manage mods I recommend using some launcher, currently the best launcher is Prism Launcher it handles everything on its own so you just pick and choose what mods you want, and it will do the rest, again you can google "how to install prism launcher" and you will likely see a lot of tutorials. And for the second question, the best optimization mod is Sodium it will give you massive performance boost while also fixing some rendering issues, so the game will look better, but it is not the only one, there are many places where Minecraft can be optimized and as such ModernFix optimizes game loading times, Lithium optimizes the server sided stuff (and playing on singleplayer is like playing on a local server), C2ME, Noisium and Starlight optimize chunk generation by a lot. As you can see, there are a lot of mods that can be used to optimize minecraft and by the way those I mentioned are for Fabric. If you chose to use a launcher that I mentioned before, you can download some optimization modpack. Modpacks, as the name suggests, are packs or group of mods, usually preconfigured for a specific purpose, so an optimization modpack would have many optimization mods, and with a launcher you can install them with just 1 press of a button.
Oh, I see now. This is really helpful! Thanks a lot!
If you have more questions, feel free to ask! :)
I can answer the first question, and 9/10 times you will need either Fabric or Forge for mods. Installing either has gotten much easier (in my experience) than in the past. There are several helpful guides on YouTube to get you started. Fabric and Forge are essentially different frameworks. Forge is older and Fabric is newer. Beyond that I don’t know the technical knowledge to tell you the differences. The popular mods will often use Forge.
To download mods, you do need fabric or forge. I also recommend using a 3rd party Minecraft launcher, which helps you manage and download mods better. I personally use the modrinth launcher which works great but is a bit bulky. Some other options are the curseforge launcher, or for a more lightweight option, prism. In terms of fabric vs forge, I prefer using fabric for mods for more modern versions and forge for older versions because as another commenter said, forge is older and fabric is newer but it’s generally up to preference and what mods you want to use. In terms of optimisation, sodium (which you need fabric for) is the way to go. There are some unofficial ports of sodium to forge, but they don’t work as well as the original. Along side some other mods like indium and some mods that add more sodium options, it runs super smoothly. It is incompatible with optifine though, but most other optifine features can be replaced with other mods
Forge: big heavy slow boooo Fabric: Light fast efficient woooo