Carbon vs Epicor Kinetic
Carbon and Epicor Kinetic are both manufacturing (mrp/mes) software. Carbon is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 2.8k GitHub stars. Epicor Kinetic is a commercial product from Epicor Software Corporation.
Which to pick
- Pick Carbon when
- You make complex assemblies or high-mix, low-volume parts and want ERP, MES and quality in one system you can self-host or buy as Carbon Cloud.
- Pick Epicor Kinetic when
- A midsize make-to-order or mixed-mode manufacturer needs shop-floor and job costing depth beyond a general ERP.
Side by side
A manufacturing system that keeps quoting, orders, purchasing, inventory, MRP planning with finite-capacity scheduling, shop-floor travelers and labour capture, quality records and lot and serial traceability in one Postgres database.
ERP for discrete manufacturers covering production planning, scheduling, job costing, inventory, quality and finance.
It is open core: the enterprise files, API keys and the MCP server need a paid plan or, when self-hosted, a commercial licence.
Implementations are configuration-heavy and upgrades between major versions take real effort.
Usable
Production-ready
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Cloud service and self-hosted server
TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL and Rust
.NET and Microsoft SQL Server
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Closed source, sold by Epicor Software Corporation
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
2.8k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 2 years ago, no tagged release yet.
Not known
Other comparisons
More manufacturing (MRP and MES) systems
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-06 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.