What is the best bitcoin miner

Best Bitcoin Mining Software

Join the cryptocurrency craze with these top bitcoin mining programs

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While some dismiss Bitcoin as a passing fad, many more are beginning to see it as the future of commerce. A 2020 survey showed that 36% of small and mid-sized businesses already accept cryptocurrency, as do many larger businesses and organizations including Microsoft, AT&T, and Wikipedia.

While Bitcoin can be purchased with real cash, it’s more commonly “mined” using a combination of specialized hardware and software. In this article, we review the best bitcoin mining software based on reputation, features, ease of use, and more. Here are our top four picks.

The Best Bitcoin Mining Software for 2021

• Best Overall:CGMiner
• Best for Customization:BFGMiner
• Best for Ease of Use:MultiMiner
• Best Centralized Management:Awesome Miner

Best Overall : CGMiner

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As one of the oldest bitcoin mining software, CGMiner is our choice as the best overall due to its open-source build, ability to run on any computer, and compatibility with multiple mining hardware.

Runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux

Compatible with ASIC, GPU, and FPGA

Better for advanced users

Obscure command-line interface

Hard to install on Windows 10 computers

CGMiner was developed in 2011 by Australian anesthetist and programmer Con Kolivas for mining cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin. It’s widely regarded as one of the best bitcoin mining software available due to its open-source nature, simple interface with direct controls, and cross-platform and cross-hardware compatibility.

CGMiner uses a command-line interface that allows users to mine their rigs remotely and control fan speeds and other settings with simple keyboard commands. The software also offers advanced detection of new blocks and makes it easy to scale up hashing power without delays.

Although it’s Linux-based, CGMiner is cross-platform compatible and can run on Mac and Windows computers. It’s also open-source and written in C, making it easy for anyone to verify the software’s code. In addition to being cross-platform compatible, CGMiner works with a variety of mining hardware besides ASICs, including FPGAs, GPUs, and CPUs.

CGMiner’s lack of a graphical user interface may be daunting to beginners, making it a better choice for advanced users. The software has been known to be difficult to install on computers running Windows 10. Antivirus software including Windows Defender can also give users a difficult time. CGMiner is free to download and use and is available on GitHub.

Best for Customization : BFGMiner

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Designed for FPGA and ASIC mining, BFGMiner offers advanced users the opportunity to tweak many aspects of their mining process, with dynamic clocking, monitoring, and remote mining rig interface, making the software our pick as the best for customization.

Mines multiple cryptocurrencies simultaneously

Runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux

Compatible with ASIC and FPGA

Better for more advanced users

Released in 2012 by developer Luke Dashjr, BFGMiner has become one of the most popular mining software available, second only to CGMiner. It allows users to monitor hardware temperature, detect and start idle threads, and manage rigs remotely, putting it squarely in the category of the best software for customization.

Because BFGMiner was originally created to add FPGA support to a popular GPU miner at the time it was developed, the software is only compatible with FPGA and ASIC. Like CGMiner, the software is written in C and runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows machines and even offers an option to install on Raspberry Pi.

One of BFGMiner’s most popular features is its support for mining multiple cryptocurrencies at the same time. By simultaneously hashing on mining algorithms like Scrypt and SHA256d, the software lets users mine, hedge, and redistribute their risk with multiple cryptocurrencies.

Like CGMiner, BFGMiner uses a command-line interface with customizable hotkeys. While easy to use for advanced users, the lack of a GUI may make the software impenetrable to beginners. BFGMiner is also free to download and use.

Best for Ease of Use : MultiMiner

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Developed using the mining engine of BFGMiner, MultiMiner features a clean GUI, automated hardware detection and mining features, and cross-platform compatibility, making it our clear choice as the best for ease of use.

Graphical user interface

Automated mining features

Optimized for Windows computers

Less customization options for advanced users

Additional software required for Linux and MacOS

MultiMiner was developed in 2013 by BFGMiner developer Nate Woolls. Although it’s built on the BFGMiner engine, the software features an easy-to-use GUI and quick-start mining features, making it our favorite choice as the best for ease of use.

While most mining software requires some coding skills, novices can get started with MultiMiner with no technical skills. The software walks users through the installation process and then scans the details of the hardware, including average hashing power and the linked pool.

MultiMiner goes even further and shows users exactly how to connect to a pool, including where to enter the information associated with the pool. The software also offers users remote access to their mining rigs, lets them choose their mining strategy, and automatically mines the most profitable or lowest-difficulty cryptocurrency with a display of estimated profits.

MultiMiner was created for Windows, so users will need to install additional software for Mac and Linux machines. Luckily, there are simple directions to do so. The software also makes it easy to switch mining rigs, including GPUs, ASICs, and FPGAs. Despite its appeal to beginners, power users can also access MultiMiner’s advanced features, including direct access to API settings and engine arguments. The software is also free to download and use.

Best Centralized Management : Awesome Miner

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Awesome Miner is a powerful mining software that lets users manage multiple mining rigs and miner’s pools, all from one dashboard. As a result, it tops our list as the best centralized management software.

Supports more than 50 mining engines

Customized triggers and actions

Access from any computer, tablet, or smartphone

No MacOS software

Not for novice users

Awesome Miner was developed by Swedish software company IntelliBreeze in 2014 as a cryptocurrency mining management application for Windows machines. It supports large-scale mining with a dashboard that lets users manage multiple mining engines and pools in one operation, making it the best software for centralized management.

Awesome Miner offers a number of powerful features to help users maximize profit and minimize downtime. The software can handle multiple mining hardware types at the same time (including ASICs and FPGAs), supports more than 50 mining engines (cgminer, bfgminer, xmrig, srbminer, etc.), and is compatible with popular mining algorithms (SHA-256, Scrypt, X11, Ethereum, and Zcash).

Awesome Miner also makes it easy for users to add, switch, and manage multiple miner pools with one click so they can start mining in less time. All of this is managed in Awesome Miner’s comprehensive dashboard, which also displays hardware properties like fan speed, temperature, etc. The software features a built-in C# script engine miners can use to make customized triggers and actions.

Although Awesome Miner is designed for Windows and Linux, the web version of the software can be accessed on any computer or browser. Awesome Miner is free to download and use.

Final Verdict

While new bitcoin mining software is being developed every year, only a handful grabbed our attention due to their reputation, features, and ease of use.

At the top of our list is CGMiner, which we chose as the best overall since its open-source platform can be used on any computer and practically any mining rig.

Advanced users will like BFGMiner, our choice as the best for customization, because of its ability to detect and start idle threads and mine multiple cryptocurrencies, while novices will enjoy MultiMiner’s friendly graphical user interface (GUI) and automated hardware detection and mining features, which make it our pick as the best for ease of use.

Finally, we choose Awesome Miner as the best centralized management since it’s compatible with popular mining algorithms and lets users manage multiple rigs and miner’s pools all from one comprehensive dashboard.

Compare Providers

Software	Category	Why We Picked It
CGMiner	Best Overall	Open-source software with cross-platform/hardware compatibility
BFGMiner	Best for Customization	Support for dynamic clocking and multiple cryptocurrencies
MultiMiner	Best for Ease of Use	GUI, automated hardware detection, and mining features
Awesome Miner	Best Centralized Management	Manage multiple rigs and pools with one dashboard

What Is Bitcoin Mining Software?

Bitcoin mining software is essentially what makes Bitcoin work. By tracking and securing transactions known as blockchains, users are able to earn bitcoins rather than having to pay for them with actual currency.

Bitcoin mining software can only be used by specialized hardware that is powerful enough to run the complex calculations required to create new secure blocks. The software connects to the hardware to either mine bitcoins directly or, more often, to a mining pool where multiple users share their hardware’s power and earn shares of bitcoins.

How Long Does It Take to Mine One Bitcoin?

In general, it takes about 10 minutes to mine one bitcoin. However, this assumes an ideal hardware and software setup which few users can afford. A more reasonable estimate for most users who have large setups is 30 days to mine a single bitcoin.

Can You Mine Bitcoin for Free?

Although bitcoin mining software is free, there are tremendous costs involved in both hardware and electricity costs. The specialized mining hardware can cost between a few hundred dollars to $10,000.

Mining equipment is also very power-hungry. Depending on the cost of electricity in a miner’s area, it could potentially cost $73,000 to process one bitcoin in a month’s time. One way to reduce this cost is to join a mining pool that harnesses the computational power of hardware owned by multiple miners. The drawback is that each miner only receives a small portion of each mined bitcoin.

How We Chose the Best Bitcoin Mining Software

We looked at close to a dozen bitcoin mining software for this review. At the top of our list was the oldest and most widely used software, which we analyzed for features and ease of use.

Next, we differentiated between the best mining software for novices and those for advanced power users. Mostly this broke down into the type of interface (command-line versus GUI) and ability to either automate or customize mining features.

Finally, we looked for software that could be used on as many platforms as possible and that was compatible with the widest array of mining rigs to give users the most flexibility in their mining operations.

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Best Bitcoin Mining Software

Where to Mine Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is one of the most popular and well-known types of cryptocurrency. But how do you get Bitcoin? You can either purchase Bitcoin or you can «mine» it.

The mining process involves using dedicated hardware (e.g., ASICs, FPGAs) that use processing power, as well as software applications, to manage these rigs. If you’ve decided to get into cryptocurrency mining, here is some of the best Bitcoin mining software to start with.

Best Bitcoin Mining Software of 2021

• Best Overall:CGMiner
• Best for Customization:BFGMiner
• Best GUI Front-End for Multiple Tools:Easyminer
• Best for Centralized Mining Management:Awesome Miner

Best Overall : CGMiner

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CGMiner has been around for a while and is still going strong. With a plethora of features and active community support, it’s easily the best Bitcoin mining software out there.

Written in C, CGMiner is a cross-platform Bitcoin miner that supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and many other platforms. Compatible with both FPGA and ASIC hardware, CGMiner is a command-line application that has full monitoring, fan speed control, and remote interface capabilities.

It comes with a scalable networking scheduler that can scale to hash rate of any size without network delays. CGMiner prevents stale work submission on new blocks and supports multiple pools with intelligent failover mechanisms. There’s a menu for on-the-fly management of most settings and self-detection of new blocks with a mini database for slow/failing longpoll scenarios. Submissions can also be cached during transient network outages.

From Hexfury and BlackArrow to Cointerra and Minion, CGMiner supports a wide variety of ASIC mining hardware.

Best for Customization : BFGMiner

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If you have a thing for tinkering and are looking for a customizable Bitcoin mining software, look no further than BFGMiner. Written in C, it’s a modular FPGA/ASIC miner that has dynamic clocking, monitoring, and remote interface capabilities.

BFGMiner features built-in stratum and getwork proxy server, and its heavily threaded code hands out work retrieval and work submission to separate threads, so that working services are not hindered. The program supports «getblocktemplate» decentralized mining protocol (without proxy), and can preemptively generate work prior to the completion of existing work.

BFGMiner comes with a watchog thread that can restart idle threads but doesn’t crash the machine if they fail to respond. It displays summarized and discrete data statistics of requests, accepts, rejects, hw errors, and efficiency and utility. If there is hardware support, the program can monitor device temperature.

BFGMiner has numerous device drivers for Bitcoin, including Drillbit Thumb and Eight, Twinfury USB stick miner, and Ztex’s FPGA boards. There are also device drivers for scrypt, such as GAW War Machine and ZeusMiner units.

Best GUI Front-End for Multiple Tools : Easyminer

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Different cryptocurrencies have different command line mining tools, and this makes managing them a chore. This is where Easyminer comes into the picture, making things easier.

Easyminer is a graphical, open-source mining software that lets you mine Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies. It supports minerd, cudaminer, ccminer, cgminer, and ASIC mining for Bitcoin. Easyminer comes with a dedicated «Moneymaker» mode, which is dedicated to the mining of LTC on its own stratum pool. There’s also a «Solo» mode, which allows users to choose a pool of their own, as well as a custom hash algorithm corresponding to the coin they want to mine. Easyminer uses the NHIL (Network Hardware ID Layer) protocol to provide an extra layer of security for the pool stratum and wallet architecture.

It’s worth mentioning that Easyminer only works on Windows.

Best for Centralized Mining Management : Awesome Miner

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The above-discussed software works great if you just have one mining rig to work with. But if you want to manage multiple mining rigs, and of different types (e.g., ASICs, FPGAs), you need something a bit more robust. Enter Awesome Miner.

Having powerful centralized mining management features, Awesome Miner supports more than 50 mining engines, such as Ccminer, Bminer, XMRig AMD Miner, SRBminer, and SgMiner. It’s also compatible with all popular mining algorithms, such as SHA-256, Scrypt, X11, Ethereum, and Zcash. You can add, switch, and manage pools for multiple miners in a single operation. Awesome Miner’s comprehensive dashboard lets you monitor the status and temperature of all ASIC and FPGA devices from one location. There’s also a built-in C# script engine, which can be used to create customized triggers and actions. You can use the program to set up privileged API access and configure default pools for all Bitmain Antminer ASICs in a single operation.

Awesome Miner works on Windows and Linux, but also offers a web front-end that can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.

What Is Bitcoin Mining Software?

Bitcoin mining software is used to keep the decentralized digital cryptocurrency secure. Miners are rewarded with Bitcoin for tracking and securing transactions known as blockchains. Mining is a way to earn bitcoin without paying for it, making a trade for it, or putting any money up front—and software helps you do this.

The Bitcoin mining software works in conjunction with Bitcoin mining hardware, which are specialized computers built to mine cryptocurrency. The software is how you connect your hardware with your mining pool. The mining pool is essentially mining together to find the bitcoin and then splitting the payout with everyone in the pool.

How Does Bitcoin Mining Software Work?

Bitcoin mining software is quite complex and is typically used by those who are tech-savvy, have experience mining cryptocurrency, and have the time and interest to do so. The software’s goal is to help you receive bitcoin as a payout. The Bitcoin mining software is usually a desktop app, and there are many different versions, some for beginners and the rest for more advanced users.

It guides you through the mining process, helps you set up a wallet where you store your bitcoin rewards, and helps you choose a pool where you mine the Bitcoin. The software is typically compatible with other mining devices. Some software can be completely customized, and some can also mine other types of cryptocurrency.

How Much Does Bitcoin Mining Software Cost?

Bitcoin mining software costs vary. Typically, they can range anywhere from having a free version to just a few dollars per month per Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) to the software charging 1% to 2% of your hashing power, which is created using an algorithm. Keep in mind that you may also need to purchase Bitcoin hardware and a special wallet.

How Do You Make Money Mining Bitcoin?

You can make money mining Bitcoin by completing blocks of verified transactions added to the blockchain, which secures the Bitcoin transactions. In exchange for mining, you receive Bitcoin as a reward. Overall, hash rates are high, which means that it isn’t easy to profit from mining Bitcoin. It can be a fun hobby, but it can also be difficult to make any substantial profit.

How We Chose the Best Bitcoin Mining Software

We chose the four best Bitcoin mining software options by first reviewing and researching multiple Bitcoin mining software options and then selecting the top contenders. We made these Bitcoin mining software options our top choices based on how easy they were to use, the features and tools they offer, how customizable they are, if you can mine other cryptocurrencies, and more.

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