LinuxCNC vs Mainsail

Both are self-hosted manufacturing projects. This page compares how well each one is actually maintained — the part you cannot see from a feature list.

LinuxCNC scores 79 against Mainsail's 71, putting it slightly ahead on the strength of a higher commit volume. That measures project health, not feature fit — Mainsail may still be the right choice if it does what you need.

	LinuxCNC	Mainsail
Health score	79/100	71/100
Commits (11 mo)	1064	294
Commits (last 3 mo)	774	124
Stars	2.5k	2.2k
Latest release	3 Jul 2026	27 Aug 2026
Licence	GPL-2.0, LGPL-3.0	GPL-3.0
Built with	C, deb	Docker, Python
Typical RAM	1 GB	1 GB

LinuxCNC

Linux based CNC machine controller. It can drive milling machines, lathes, 3D printers, laser cutters, plasma cutters, robot arms, hexapods, and more.

79/100

Healthy

Actively maintained with regular releases.

Maintenance 32/40

Releases 21/25

Community 11/20

Momentum 15/15

Commit activity more than 80% of tracked projects; popularity more than 53%. How this is calculated.

Commits, last 11 months

Mainsail

Modern and responsive user interface for the Klipper 3D printer firmware. Control and monitor your printer from everywhere, from any device.

71/100

Healthy

Actively maintained with regular releases.

Maintenance 21/40

Releases 25/25

Community 10/20

Momentum 15/15

Commit activity more than 52% of tracked projects; popularity more than 52%. How this is calculated.

Commits, last 11 months

How to read this

Everything above is measured, not opinion: commit counts and release dates come from the public repositories, and the health score ranks each project against all 1352 projects we track. Read the full method.

What this comparison deliberately does not do is tell you which has the better feature set. Maintenance health tells you which project will still be receiving security fixes in two years. Decide that first, then compare features on the projects that survive the filter.

See every option in this category: self-hosted manufacturing.