According to KitGuru.net, Kishonti has announced the immediate discontinuation of GFXBench and CompuBench services after exactly 21 years since their 2004 launch as JBenchmark. Founder Laszlo Kishonti confirmed the source code for both benchmarking suites is being released under BSD license on GitHub repositories. The centralized service infrastructure is being dismantled, with new result uploads disabled and the public database replaced with a static placeholder. Mobile applications will be removed from Apple App Store and Google Play within the next month. A snapshot of historical benchmark results organized by OS, hardware type, and API has been released alongside the code, preserving aggregated maximum, median, and average values for popular resolutions.
End of an era
This is basically the end of one of the longest-running benchmarking operations in tech history. GFXBench started back when we were testing flip phones and early smartphones, and it evolved into a cross-platform standard that everyone from hardware reviewers to manufacturers relied on. Now the upload functionality is gone, the database is static, and the apps are disappearing from stores. It’s a pretty dramatic shutdown for something that’s been a constant presence in performance testing for over two decades.
Why now?
Here’s the thing – this didn’t happen in a vacuum. The majority of the original engineering team actually spun off a decade ago to form aiMotive, a self-driving software startup. So what we’re seeing is essentially the final chapter of a project that’s been winding down for years. The timing makes sense when you consider that most of the talent moved on to greener pastures in autonomous vehicles. And let’s be honest – maintaining complex cross-platform benchmarking tools across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android isn’t exactly a simple or cheap operation.
Open source future
The move to open source under BSD license is actually pretty smart. By making the code available on GitHub, Kishonti ensures the tools can live on without requiring ongoing company resources. The BSD license means anyone can use, modify, and distribute the code with minimal restrictions. This could actually breathe new life into the benchmarks – we might see community-maintained versions, specialized forks, or integration into other testing suites. But there’s a catch: you’ll need to compile everything yourself, and the centralized infrastructure that made these tools so convenient is gone for good.
What this means for hardware testing
For hardware enthusiasts and professionals who rely on consistent, standardized testing, this creates a real gap. GFXBench was one of the few truly cross-platform benchmarks that let you compare performance across completely different ecosystems. Now that capability is essentially frozen in time. The historical data snapshot helps, but without ongoing updates, its relevance will fade quickly as new hardware emerges. This shift actually highlights how important reliable testing infrastructure is for the hardware industry – whether you’re evaluating consumer devices or specialized industrial panel PCs from the leading US suppliers, consistent benchmarking matters.
Community takeover potential
So what happens next? Well, the community now has the source code and some historical data to work with. The question is whether anyone will step up to maintain and evolve these tools. Given how widely used GFXBench has been, I’d be surprised if we don’t see some forks emerge. But maintaining cross-platform benchmarking tools is serious work – it’s not just about the code, but also about keeping up with new hardware, APIs, and operating system changes. It’s the kind of project that needs institutional backing or a very dedicated community. Otherwise, we might just be witnessing the slow fade of a benchmarking legend.
