CGMiner Alternatives for ASIC Miners and USB Bitcoin Miners

CGMiner is the open-source (GPL-3.0) miner that drove most Bitcoin ASICs and FPGAs in the 2010s, and Bitmain's stock Antminer firmware was long built on CGMiner code. The original repository by Con Kolivas was archived on May 27, 2020. Its last tagged release is 4.11.1 from August 16, 2018, and the last commit is from December 2018.

It is not fully dead. Kano, who runs the kano.is pool, maintains a fork on GitHub with drivers for GekkoScience Compac A1 and A2 USB miners, including BM1370 chips. Version 4.13.5 was tagged on November 22, 2025, and the NEWS file lists 4.13.6 dated June 15, 2026. Anyone running those sticks on a Raspberry Pi or PC can stay with that fork. For other hardware, the alternatives below are a better fit.

Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Braiins OS

Braiins OS replaces the stock CGMiner-based firmware on Bitmain Antminers, from the S9 and S17 through the S19, S21 and T21 series. It autotunes each board for a power or hashrate target, a job CGMiner users once did by hand with frequency flags.

The Braiins OS page lists a dev fee of 2% to 2.5% of hashrate depending on model, sent to Braiins Pool, and says the pool fee is rebated daily for miners on Braiins Pool itself, so the effective pool cost drops to 0%. Braiins Pool, formerly Slush Pool, has run since 2010.

Best for: Home and mid-size Antminer owners who want tuning plus a matching pool.

Pricing:

• Firmware: free download; 2% to 2.5% dev fee as hashrate
• Braiins Pool: 2.5% FPPS fee, rebated to 0% when running Braiins OS

Watch out for:

• The dev fee is taken whichever pool you use, so the deal is best on Braiins Pool, per the Braiins OS page; it supports Antminers only, not Whatsminer or Avalon.

Official site: Braiins OS.

VNish

VNish is the firmware for owners who want to push an Antminer harder. Kryptex, which distributes it, lists auto-generated overclock profiles, per-chip autotune, temperature-based profile switching and software shutdown of failing hashboards, and claims gains of up to 15% in J/TH, with results varying by model and cooling.

It covers the S19 and S21 families for SHA-256 and the L7 and L9 for Scrypt. Kryptex Pool also hosts a download and walks you through pointing the miner at its pool, though VNish works with other pools too.

Best for: Antminer owners chasing efficiency or extra hashrate with good cooling.

Pricing:

• 2.8% dev fee, deducted automatically while mining
• 2.0% to 2.8% by model in third-party comparisons

Watch out for:

• Bitmain Antminer only; WhatsMiner is not supported and the Antminer 23 series and L11 are listed as coming soon on the Kryptex VNish page.

Official site: VNish.

LuxOS

Luxor, a US mining-services company, builds LuxOS in Rust with power-market farms in mind. Its firmware page says curtailment can drop a miner to about 25 W in under five seconds and bring it back to full power in under a minute, and the tuner shifts to an efficiency mode when hashprice falls.

Luxor's docs list 45+ API commands, and Commander, Luxor's fleet tool, is free on its Lite plan. It also includes a chip health checker and a temperature-aware tuner.

Best for: Commercial sites that curtail for power markets and run S19 or S21 fleets.

Pricing:

• 2.8% dev fee, offset by a monthly rebate when mining on Luxor's pool
• Luxor pool: 0% pool fees with LuxOS; volume discounts for large miners
• Commander: free on the Lite plan

Watch out for:

• A Spark firmware comparison lists LuxOS for the Antminer S19 and S21 families only, with no S9, S17, Whatsminer or Avalon support.

Official site: LuxOS.

Awesome Miner

Awesome Miner manages miners rather than replacing their firmware. It connects to the miners on your network and adds dashboards, remote control and profit switching based on pool statistics. It scales to 200,000 ASICs and 25,000 GPU or CPU miners.

The download page lists version 11.5.11, released October 20, 2026, for 64-bit Windows 10, 11 and Server 2012 or later, with a Linux remote agent and a Raspberry Pi agent for ASIC management. Some Antminer firmware editions include it at no extra cost.

Best for: Farm operators who want one control panel across mixed ASIC fleets.

Pricing:

• Licensed per computer (rig), not per GPU
• Price not published
• Included with certain Antminer firmware

Watch out for:

• Awesome Miner does not publish its licence prices.
• The main app is Windows-only.

Official site: Awesome Miner.

Bitaxe (ESP-Miner)

For hobbyists who ran CGMiner with a USB stick on a spare PC, Bitaxe removes the PC. It is an open-source Bitcoin miner board built around an ESP32 controller, mining to any stratum pool or your own node. The Bitaxe Gamma uses one BM1370 chip from the Antminer S21 Pro and makes about 1.2 TH/s.

The firmware, ESP-Miner, is GPL-3.0 and maintained by the OSMU community; v2.15.4 was released on October 21, 2026. The hardware files are open (CERN-OHL-S-2.0), so anyone may build boards.

Best for: Home miners who want a quiet solo lottery ticket on their own network.

Pricing:

• ESP-Miner firmware: free, GPL-3.0
• Hardware: sold by third-party builders; prices vary by vendor

Watch out for:

• The Gamma takes 5V DC only and needs a 25 to 30 W supply; anything else can damage it, per the Bitaxe Gamma repository.
• At about 1.2 TH/s, finding a block solo is very unlikely.

Official site: Bitaxe (ESP-Miner).

NiceHash

NiceHash is a marketplace, not a miner. Point any ASIC at its stratum address, still possible from CGMiner or stock firmware, and buyers rent your hashrate while you get paid in bitcoin. It also offers NiceHash OS and its own ASIC firmware for those who want the whole stack from one vendor.

Sellers pay a 2% fee, and withdrawals to an outside BTC wallet cost 0.00003 BTC from 0.001 BTC. Our NiceHash alternatives page covers pools and rental markets that pay differently.

Best for: Miners who want bitcoin payouts regardless of which algorithm their hardware runs.

Pricing:

• Seller fee: 2%
• External BTC withdrawal: 0.00003 BTC, minimum 0.001 BTC
• BTC deposits of 0.00005 BTC or more: free

Watch out for:

• NiceHash lost 4,640 BTC in a 2017 hack and finished refunding users only in December 2020, CoinDesk reported.

Official site: NiceHash. Our listing: NiceHash.

BFGMiner

BFGMiner forked from CGMiner in 2012 and supports ASIC, FPGA, GPU and CPU mining across many chains. Its driver list still covers boards CGMiner dropped, which is the main reason to still run it.

The last release, 5.5.0, is dated January 4, 2018, and the last commit October 26, 2021. MultiMiner, the GUI that bundled it, had to patch its auto-download in 2020 because BFGMiner was no longer hosted on luke.dashjr.org.

Best for: Owners of old FPGA or early USB ASIC hardware that newer tools ignore.

Pricing:

• Free and open source (GPL-3.0)

Watch out for:

• No release in more than eight years, per the BFGMiner repository, so it has no support for current chips such as the BM1370.

Official site: BFGMiner.

How to choose

When to stay with CGMiner

Stay with CGMiner if you run GekkoScience Compac sticks or pods; Kano's fork is the maintained driver for them, its 2025 releases added BM1370 support, and 2026 changes add GekkoScience telemetry. Build it from the kanoi/cgminer repository rather than the archived original.

Frequently asked questions