Switchable Portable Workstations
by Alterkir
Switchable Portable Workstations lets players carry a crafting table, furnace, enchanting table and other workstations as items and place them on demand.
What it does
Workstations need one of the custom items the mod supplies. Holding Shift and right-clicking cycles through the available workstations in a fixed order, and a right click anywhere places the chosen one in the open space in front of the player. The portable forms are built on a datapack that adds the custom items and temporary workstations, so the datapack has to be loaded with the mod.
The project started as a derivative of a datapack by pianocrafter, which the author credits for the workstation placement side of the work. The fork is written for version 1.21.11 and has not been tested on older versions. A resource pack must be installed for the custom items to appear with their own images. Optifine is not required.
The server must run the datapack, while players may leave the mod out and still join. Switchable Portable Workstations is published for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt, and as a datapack for servers. The code is under the MIT License and is not open source.
Key features
Nine custom workstation items
Nine custom items correspond to the portable forms of the workstations used in the crafting recipes.
Crafting recipe gate
The portable crafting table recipe becomes available the first time a player obtains an Ender Chest, and players must first add a workstation to their inventory.
Portable enchanting table
The portable enchanting table needs at least 15 bookshelves in the player's inventory and works up to level 30.
One workstation placed at a time
Only one workstation can be placed at once, so placing a new one replaces the one already in the world.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
How it compares
Convenient Containers is server-side only, open source under the MIT License and published for 1.21 – 1.21.11, so players can join without installing anything. Automated Workstations is client and server, open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only and published for 1.21 – 1.21.1. Simple Pocket Machines is client and server, open source under the MIT License and published for 1.20.1 – 26.3 on Fabric, NeoForge and Quilt.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Switchable Portable Workstations | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.21.11 | Server required, client optional | 2026-10-03 |
| Convenient Containers (ConCon) | Fabric and NeoForge | 1.21 – 1.21.11 | Server-side only | 2026-03-02 |
| Automated Workstations | Fabric and NeoForge | 1.21 – 1.21.1 | Client and server | 2025-02-27 |
| Simple Pocket Machines | Fabric, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.20.1 – 26.3 | Client and server | 2026-10-03 |
Questions
Does Switchable Portable Workstations need a resource pack?
Which loaders does Switchable Portable Workstations support?
Is the portable enchanting table limited?
In the catalog
Switchable Portable Workstations is one of 3,545 Optimization mods on ModsFinder, and one of 2,575 Optimization mods for Fabric. 19,862 mods support Minecraft 1.21.11.
Similar mods
What the author says
A minecraft datapack that adds a custom item that lets you place temporary workstations whenever you need them. This datapack is a fork of the Portable Workstations datapack made by pianocrafter. This fork works for version 1.21.11 and I haven't tested if it works on older versions.
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/switchable-portable-workstations
- Owner
- Alterkir
- Published
- 2026-09-27
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-10-03
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15