CUPS
The Common Unix Print System uses Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) to support printing to local and network printers.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 180 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v2.4.20 (Oct 2026).
Comparisons in Miscellaneous: ChatGPT alternatives, DeepL alternatives.
At a glance
CUPS quick facts
- Health score
- 83/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 1,789
- Last commit
- yesterday (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v2.4.20, Oct 2026
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
Top alternatives to CUPS
In its own words
The project's README opens: "CUPS provides the System V ("lp") and Berkeley ("lpr") command-line interfaces, a configurable web interface, a C API, and common print filters, drivers, and backends for printing. The cups-filters project provides additional filters and drivers."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
CUPS scores 83/100, #39 of 77 in Miscellaneous: 180 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v2.4.20, 25 days ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 1,789 stars add 13.0 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
180 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v2.4.20 released 25 days ago
- Stars 13.0 / 20
1.8k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 180
- Last 90 days
- 594
- Last 12 months
- yesterday
- Last push
Ranked #39 of 77 tools in Miscellaneous by health , between Libre Translate (#38) and WeeWX (#40) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-2.0 |
| Platforms | C |
| Latest release | v2.4.20 · 25 days ago |
| Stars | 1,789 |
| Open issues | 21 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | OpenPrinting/cups ↗ |
CUPS vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with CUPS (Miscellaneous), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| penpot | 99 | 62k | MPL-2.0 | today |
| Reactive Resume | 99 | 45k | MIT | today |
| Neko | 97 | 23k | Apache-2.0 | 2 days ago |
| OpenZiti | 85 | 4.5k | Apache-2.0 | yesterday |
| CUPS (this tool) | 83 | 1.8k | GPL-2.0 | yesterday |
| Anchr | 45 | 395 | GPL-3.0 | 1 month ago |
CUPS: common questions
Is CUPS still maintained?
CUPS had 180 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was yesterday; the latest tagged release, v2.4.20, is from 25 days ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.