The two options i know of are protcolsupport for 1.8.8 (which apparently has a ton of bugs) and viaversion+viarewind, which one of these two are the best option or is there a better third option
don't do that. Ontopic: ViaVersion and ViaRewind or ProtocolSupport work. I personally use a modified version of ViaVersion and ViaRewind.Just get a 1.7 Spigot that supports 1.8 like wSpigot.
