GRBL vs FluidNC vs grblHAL
A side-by-side look at how actively GRBL, FluidNC and grblHAL are developed on GitHub — popularity, contributor base, commit activity and how quickly issues and pull requests move.
What the numbers say
- GRBL is the most-starred of the 3, with 4.5k stars — about 8.8× grblHAL's 515.
- Over the 52 weeks to the snapshot, FluidNC recorded the most commits (328), against 0 for GRBL.
- FluidNC has closed or merged the most pull requests in its lifetime: 883.
- Relative to its popularity, FluidNC carries the lightest open-issue load: 45.8 open issues per 1,000 stars, versus 118.4 for grblHAL.
- GRBL had gone 839 days without a push at the time of the snapshot.
Head-to-head
Snapshot taken 30 September 2026.
| Metric | GRBL Dormant | FluidNC Active | grblHAL Slowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 4.5k | 2.6k | 515 |
| Forks | 1.7k | 653 | 153 |
| Contributors | 41 | 76 | 20 |
| Commits, last 52 weeks | 0 | 328 | 148 |
| Open issues | 463 | 118 | 61 |
| Open pull requests | 36 | 35 | 12 |
| Closed / merged PRs | 27 | 883 | 67 |
| Watchers | 389 | 93 | 33 |
| Last push | 12 Jun 2024 | 29 Sep 2026 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Latest release | v1.1h.20190825 (Aug 2019) | v4.1.1 (Sep 2026) | 20250518 (May 2025) |
| Main language | C | C++ | C |
| Licence | Not detected by GitHub | Not detected by GitHub | Not detected by GitHub |
| Created | Sep 2016 | Aug 2021 | Feb 2021 |
Bold marks the highest value in a row. “Active / Slowing / Dormant” is a simple heuristic from how recently code was pushed and open issues per star — a starting point, not a verdict. Stars measure popularity, not quality.
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