| Feature | Arctic Launcher | CurseForge |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no ads, no premium tier | Free; CurseForge Premium (from $2.50 a month) removes ads |
| Open source | Yes (GPL-3.0) | No (built by Overwolf) |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS and Linux | Windows, macOS and Linux |
| Mods and modpacks | Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge and Forge with Modrinth mods and modpacks (.mrpack too), plus resource packs and shaders | One-click installs and updates from CurseForge's catalog, for many games, not only Minecraft |
Checked October 2026 against each project’s own website and repository. Something out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it.
Why Arctic over CurseForge
- No ads and no premium tier: everything is free.
- Open source, so you can read the code.
- Modrinth mods and modpacks, resource packs and shaders, and Fabric, Quilt, NeoForge and Forge instances.
- Free cosmetics and emotes, a built-in client, replays, friends and voice chat.
- It brings your CurseForge instances over for you.
Switching takes a minute: Arctic imports your CurseForge instances and leaves the originals untouched.
Where CurseForge still fits: CurseForge is the one to use if you also mod other games, such as The Sims 4 or World of Warcraft.