Need help setting up a hosted vanilla server

Honestly? What do your players actually want? You might just be better off using Fabric.

I want a free server, but I want to have some kind of control so it doesn't become an anarchy nightmare

I mean... that doesn't tell me any useful information.

And wym free server? All MC servers are free, the software isn't paid.

Who are you hosting with

free in the sense that people can roam around and build whatever they want

Yeah that's all of them.

What do your players want to do?

Just normal survival? Redstone? Content mods?

normal survival

Are your friends going to cheat?

This is a more important question

the server is open, so probably

enxadahost, a brazilian provider

Never heard of them, will assume it somewhat jank

As much as I want to recommend fabric, you are probably better off with paper as it’s got support for maintained anticheats

Yeah I'm a bit sus about the cheating actually.

Is this an offline mode/cracked server you'll be hosting?

yes