| Feature | Arctic Launcher | Modrinth App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no ads, no premium tier | Free |
| Open source | Yes (GPL-3.0) | Yes (GPL-3.0) |
| 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 | Straight from Modrinth's catalog, with one-click installs and updates, shareable modpacks and synced settings across instances |
| Skins, capes and cosmetics | Free skins, capes (animated too), 3D cosmetics and emotes that other Arctic players see in game | A skin selector |
| In-game client features | Arctic Client built in: over thirty HUD widgets, Zoom, Freelook, waypoints, minimap, replays, four menu styles | None built in |
| Friends and chat | Friends, chat, screenshots and proximity voice chat | Share instances with friends by invite |
| Moving over | Imports from the Minecraft Launcher, TLauncher, Prism, PolyMC, MultiMC, Modrinth App, CurseForge, ATLauncher and GDLauncher | Imports instances from other launchers such as GDLauncher and MultiMC |
| Built with | A small native app written in Rust, no Electron | A Rust backend with a web interface (Tauri) |
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 Something out of date?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 Modrinth App
- Modrinth mods, modpacks and .mrpack files install in Arctic too.
- Skins, capes, 3D cosmetics and emotes that other players see, not only a skin picker.
- A built-in client with over thirty HUD widgets, Zoom, Freelook and replays.
- Friends, chat and voice, and Play together over a direct connection with no port forwarding.
- A small native Rust app rather than a web interface in a shell.
Switching takes a minute: Arctic imports your Modrinth App instances and leaves the originals untouched.
Where Modrinth App still fits: The Modrinth App is the first-party app of the platform that hosts the mods, tied to your Modrinth account.