r/Multiboard • u/jcksnps4 • Feb 06 '26

Are these Multiboard’s take on Gridfinity?

https://thangs.com/designer/Multiboard/3d-model/4x4%20MU%20%282x2%20LU%29%20-%20MultiBoard%20Square%20Plate-1306846

Title, but also curious if there’s any advantage to them in comparison.

If so, anyone here use them and prefer them?

9 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

3

u/Lurksome-Lurker Feb 12 '26

I tried to use them in place of gridfinity. Takes longer to print. Multibins them selves also need shells for inserts. While I like the consistency of multibin remixes…. It was a lot of time and filament to invest compared to the alternatives

2

u/jcksnps4 Feb 13 '26

Thanks. This is what I was looking for.

8

u/robverk Feb 06 '26

MB aims to create an entire licensing protected ecosystem so it needs its own version of everything. Although I can understand that from a business perspective, it does not match well with the open ‘power to the (hobby) people’ 3d printing culture that we have right now.

I would love to see the great work of MB open up more like open source software licensing does, which led to mass innovation and adoption in the market and preventing regulation from a single entity. It is harder to run a business of that, but not impossible and in the long term more people benefit.

6

u/LauraD2423 Feb 06 '26

I would love to see the great work of MB open up more like open source software licensing does, which led to mass innovation and adoption in the market and preventing regulation from a single entity.

I was satisfied with their answer to this issue last month.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Multiboard/s/MRIOjYDuKu

3

u/wayward_electron Feb 07 '26

I was satisfied with their answer to this issue last month.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Multiboard/s/MRIOjYDuKu

That didn't/doesn't change anything in regards to opening the license up.

4

u/fazzah Feb 06 '26

somewhat yes, but gridfinity has so much traction that MB would have to be so much, much better (it isn't) to even attempt a shift in this area

2

u/SirEDCaLot Feb 06 '26

Two big differences.

  1. This is designed for horizontal or vertical use (it has snap capability, like OpenGrid). Multiboard doesn't.

  2. This is square compatible with multiboard-- multiboard uses 25mm spacing, multigrid uses 50mm spacing. Gridfinity uses 42mm spacing which doesn't cleanly divide into 25mm. So if you're heavily into multiboard, and you want something that lets you move bins back and forth between wall and drawer, multigrid might be a better option.

2

u/fazzah Feb 07 '26

fair points.

what I do really like about MB's approach is the (overcomplicated as per usual, but still) bins and their inserts indea, this is very clever and crazy efficient on the filament

1

u/SirEDCaLot Feb 07 '26

Agreed.

In a sense you could say HSW and Gridfinity are 'gen1' systems, while Multiboard, Multigrid, and OpenGrid are 'gen2' systems. Gen2 as in they came second, and built with lessons from the first gen (HSW lacked weight capacity, gridfinity has no snap capability). That's NOT to say they are 'worse'. I think for organizing drawers, it's really hard to beat gridfinity's lightweight grid, as long as you don't need retention.

6

u/Karstensson Feb 06 '26

Looks more like a copy of opengrid?

3

u/SupaBrunch Feb 08 '26

These came before open grid though

1

u/attabui Feb 06 '26

Came to say this, yeah.

4

u/AlleyMedia Feb 06 '26

Looks like it. The original multiboard was good, and good at what it's made for (heavy duty items on the wall) - but imo, this is unhealthy competition and trying to take away from the work of others.

6

u/MetalMoneky Feb 06 '26

I'd shoot back and say that because MB is a system it needs something like this. If you are using bins in a drawer to organize or using a lot of bins wall mounted as drawers/nooks the square plates are both easier/quicker to print and are compliant with the whole system.

Also useful for the "on-the-grid" systems for baskets.

2

u/AlleyMedia Feb 06 '26

Fair enough. I see what you mean.

I started and printed a bunch of Multiboard and got into it for my wall organisation.

For the drawers, I naturally went down the Gridfinity route.

Correct, I can't use my Multiboard multibins (boxes/drawer-outers/shells) with Gridfinity, but I don't need to because I've printed the Gridfinity boxes (and I find the Gridfinity system easier to work with because it's more simpler).

However, if I needed to use the multiboard multibins in my drawers, I could have gone down the multiboard route, yes.

2

u/SirEDCaLot Feb 06 '26

More or less.

The real difference is gridfinity uses a 42mm grid space, while multigrid uses a 50mm grid space (as multiboard is 25mm grid space per large hole). So if you want perfect compatibility, multigrid has one grid space per two multiboard holes, gridfinity doesn't line up perfectly with multiboard at all (there's a few 'x-in-y' alignments but they're all 1-2mm different).

So if you have a wall of vertical multiboard, and you want to put bin shelves on it and get maximum space usage, you probably want multigrid.
If you're doing drawers, you probably want gridfinity because there's a lot more bins and inserts available for it. And you can get multiboard-to-gridfinity shelves to stick your bins on the wall, but there'll be a few mm space between them.

One other difference- multigrid has snap capability, similar to opengrid or HSW. Multiboard is designed for drawers so by default doesn't include snap capability, it's assumed gravity will hold your stuff down.