Software Alternatives & Reviews

thinkfan VS smcFanControl

Compare thinkfan VS smcFanControl and see what are their differences

thinkfan logo thinkfan

Thinkfan is a simple, lightweight fan control program.

smcFanControl logo smcFanControl

[Download] smcFanControl 2.
  • thinkfan Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-16
  • smcFanControl Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-20

thinkfan videos

Lenovo W520 Fan Control using thinkfan

More videos:

  • Review - Thinkfan on Thinkpad T410 - thinkpad_acpi doesn't seem to support fan_control (2 Solutions!!)
  • Review - Ubuntu: thinkfan control doesn't use the fan full potential when needed (2 Solutions!!)

smcFanControl videos

How to Cool down your Mac! With smcFanControl

More videos:

  • Review - SMCFancontrol Review! Run a cooler Mac for Gaming/ Editing!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to thinkfan and smcFanControl)
Monitoring Tools
36 36%
64% 64
Log Management
40 40%
60% 60
Device Management
41 41%
59% 59
OS & Utilities
26 26%
74% 74

User comments

Share your experience with using thinkfan and smcFanControl. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, thinkfan seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 14 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

thinkfan mentions (14)

  • [Linux@T460] Fan running non-stop (every now and then)
    I use Thinkfan on my T420, T440, X230 and X1 that run Linux. I linked the author's github page, but I believe it's available straight from the package manager in Ubuntu/Mint, so elementary might have it too. Source: 10 months ago
  • Fans issue on my Lenovo Thinpad P16s AMD on Ubuntu
    I have found Thinkfan seems to be a good way to control Thinkpad fans on Ubuntu. Https://github.com/vmatare/thinkfan. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Black screen after suspend resume - gnome wayland
    Solved that with Thinkfan (https://github.com/vmatare/thinkfan). Source: over 1 year ago
  • The minimum viable fan control script
    The second solution on this page probably isn't reliable, because hwmon paths like `hwmon3` depend on module load order. That's likely the same reason for the `card*` workaround mentioned above. I am using thinkfan for this and it works really well: https://github.com/vmatare/thinkfan. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Problem building thinkfan from source: DSO missing from command line
    As thinkfan (https://github.com/vmatare/thinkfan) doesn't come prepackaged with my Debian version I tried to build it myself. I installed all the libraries as instructed in the README file, and followed the build instructions. Running cmake works fine, but then when I run make I get the following linker error that I cannot solve no matter what I try (this is actually my first time building a project!):. Source: over 1 year ago
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smcFanControl mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of smcFanControl yet. Tracking of smcFanControl recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing thinkfan and smcFanControl, you can also consider the following products

SpeedFan - Hardware monitor for Windows that can access digital temperature sensors located on several 2-wire SMBus Serial Bus. Can access voltages and fan speeds and control fan speeds. Includes technical articles and docs.

iMac HDD Fan Control - iMac HDD Fan Control is an HDD fan control for the Mac operating systems by using which the Mac users can control the speed and noise of the fan of the Mac.

Open Hardware Monitor - Monitors temperature sensors, fan speeds, voltages, load and clock speeds, with optional graph.

Argus Monitor - Argus Monitor is for monitoring and analyzing the temperature and the health status of the hardware parts of the system.

xScan - xScan is an application for viewing the behavior of your computer and Mac.

Macs Fan Control - Macs Fan Control is an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini and Mac Pro fan control that is the solution of two basic issues namely noise problems and overheating problems.