Mining Minecraft · Platforms

Are Minecraft shaders as common as YouTube makes them look?

Pretty light-and-shadow packs look huge in YouTube thumbnails. I opened Modrinth’s catalog: about 72,665 mods but only about 794 shader projects.

By Tycon801 Updated: 8.15.26

Shaders are a tiny slice of the catalog

A YouTube thumbnail shows Minecraft with cinematic shadows, shiny water, and a sky that looks almost real. That look usually comes from a shader: a lighting pack that changes how the game draws light, shade, and water. After enough of those videos, it can feel like shaders are everywhere.

I opened Modrinth, one of the big free libraries for extra Minecraft content, and counted how many projects sit under each type label. Mods (extra code that changes the game) tower over the list. Shader projects are a thin slice.

Mods tower over lighting packs

On Modrinth, project types look like this:

About 72,665 mods sit next to about 794 shader projects. That is about 92 mods for every 1 shader on this store. Resource packs are common too: 32,307 of them, new skins for blocks and items. Pretty art is broader than the shader label alone. Lighting packs are the rare slice.

Rare and famous can both be true

Iris Shaders still sits near the top of Modrinth downloads, even though shaders as a whole are few. Most lighting packs stay small. A few famous ones get almost all the attention.

So YouTube can make shaders look common while the catalog still says they are rare. Both can be true when a small group of famous packs does most of the talking.