What Is Ely.by and How Does It Work with PineconeMC?

Ely.by is an account and skin system built as an alternative to the official Minecraft account system, and PineconeMC is a Prism Launcher fork that integrates it directly. In PineconeMC you can sign in with either a Microsoft (MSA) account or an Ely.by account through secure OAuth2 authentication, and you can also play in offline mode without any Microsoft account at all. The trade-offs: Ely.by accounts can only join servers running with online-mode=false, and Ely.by does not support capes — the official system does, so capes require mods.

What Ely.by actually is

Ely.by is not a game client or a launcher — it is an account and skin service that aims to replace the official Minecraft account and skin system. You register an account there, and launchers that support Ely.by can authenticate you with it instead of a Microsoft account.

Two practical consequences follow from that definition:

• Skins work through Ely.by's system. In PineconeMC, skins are supported "everywhere using official patches," according to the project's own comparison table — not just in singleplayer and LAN.
• Capes are not supported. The official Minecraft system supports capes; Ely.by does not. If you want a cape, you have to use mods.

How PineconeMC handles Ely.by accounts

PineconeMC is based on Prism Launcher and adds integrated Ely.by support. The project describes it as going beyond "simply adding a login-password prompt and authlib-injector download" — meaning the Ely.by login is built into the launcher rather than bolted on.

The authentication picture, per the project's comparison table:

The OAuth2 point matters: both Microsoft and Ely.by sign-ins use secure OAuth2 authentication, rather than a plain username-password prompt.

How it compares to other launchers

The same table places PineconeMC against Freesm Launcher, Fjord Launcher, Shattered Prism, and PolyMC:

• Offline mode without a Microsoft account: PineconeMC, Freesm, Shattered Prism, and PolyMC support it; Fjord does not.
• Ely.by accounts: PineconeMC and Freesm support them; the others only offer custom accounts.
• Skins: PineconeMC and Freesm support skins everywhere via official patches; the others are limited to singleplayer and LAN.
• Secure OAuth2: only PineconeMC and Freesm offer MSA + Ely.by; the rest are MSA only.
• Improved GC: only PineconeMC lists it.

So if Ely.by support plus full skin coverage is your requirement, PineconeMC and Freesm are the two options in this comparison; PineconeMC is the one that also lists improved garbage collection.

What you can and cannot do with an Ely.by account

You can join servers with online-mode=false. This applies to both Ely.by and offline accounts. Servers with online-mode enabled verify accounts against Mojang/Microsoft, so an Ely.by or offline account will not get in.

You cannot use a cape without mods, as noted above.

You need to create an account first. A common point of confusion, addressed in the project's FAQ: if the launcher starts the demo version, the fix is to create a new account — either an Ely.by account or an offline one.

Practical notes before you install

• Download only from official sources. The project lists pineconemc.ru, elyprismlauncher.github.io, and the ElyPrismLauncher/Launcher repository as official. You can also review and build the source code yourself.
• Minimum Windows version is Windows 10. On anything lower, the project suggests considering Legacy Launcher instead.
• Downloads stalling at a random percentage usually means your country or ISP is blocking the needed download servers; the suggested workaround is a VPN.
• To move the launcher to another disk, use the portable builds — they bundle all dependencies and instances in one folder you can relocate.
• Ask questions in the right place. The project explicitly asks users not to post PineconeMC questions in the official Prism Launcher GitHub or Discord; questions covered in its own FAQ posted on its Discord (and especially GitHub Issues) will be ignored.

One naming note: PineconeMC was formerly called ElyPrismLauncher, so older references to that name point to the same project.