ddcutil vs Monitorian
ddcutil
ddcutil.comMonitorian
monitorian.orgSide by side
| Figure | ddcutil | Monitorian |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Monitor Control Software | 8.4 (#3) | 7.1 (#21) |
| License | ddcutil and ddcui are released under the GNU General Public License, version 2. | The download information lists the MIT License and describes Monitorian as free. |
| Purpose | ddcutil is a Linux program for managing monitor settings such as brightness, color levels, and input source. | Monitorian is a Windows desktop utility for adjusting brightness on supported internal and external displays from one interface. |
| Support | The project directs technical support questions, bug reports, and feature requests to its GitHub issue tracker. | The site provides FAQ answers and troubleshooting checks for DDC/CI, cables, drivers, monitor detection, and connections. |
Plans
In their own words
ddcutil
ddcutil is a free Linux program for controlling monitor settings such as brightness, color levels and input source. It communicates with monitors through DDC/CI over I²C and supports monitors implementing MCCS over USB. Commands can find monitors, show capabilities, read or change VCP feature values, and save or restore color-related settings. The companion ddcui provides a Qt graphical interface with Summary, Capabilities and Features views, with the last allowing changes to modifiable values. For profile workflows, dumpvcp saves current settings to a file and loadvcp restores them. Developers can use the C API through libddcutil.so to read and write VCP values and handle profile-related features. The program is released under GNU GPL version 2. Setup requires the Linux kernel i2c-dev module, and non-root users need permissions to run it. It does not support laptop displays, which use a special API rather than I²C, and generally will not run in virtual machines because virtual video drivers do not implement I²C. For MCCS-over-USB table features, support is limited; the capabilities command synthesizes a response.
Monitorian
Monitorian has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.