I've been using Minergate to mine XMR on my Mac desktop for months, and now I just downloaded Honeyminer to give it a try to see how it compares. 

Get Minergate: https://minergate.com/a/eec6e8cf09c890addcd9034b
Get Honeyminer: https://honeyminer.com/referred/58ngq

Both are extremely easy to set up and start mining in about 2 minutes. Both have a clean interface that is easy to understand and use even as a novice. Both have a smart mining function that automatically mines the most profitable coin based on your computer capabilities, the mining pool, and the market. 

![screenshot.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWhE7YzfjNU61gzM2AeBJM3T2QQHSB1ERrdLWyPfqnrdF/screenshot.png)

The real difference for me comes down to the barriers to payment. On Minergate, if you mine different coins based on which is most profitable at that time, then you end up with a lot of small balances across each coin. Then there's the withdrawal fees and minimums - on Minergate the minimum Monero XMR withdrawal is 0.1 with a fee of 0.02. I've been mining XMR on my old desktop for months and only have 0.03 so I have a long way to go before I can cash out. 

![Screen Shot 2018-06-02 at 12.25.24 PM.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTcApZ9rCkFGAfkiLhC3wLswNic3Cajr93UWT2ZnoiWP6/Screen%20Shot%202018-06-02%20at%2012.25.24%20PM.png)

On Honeyminer, you use computer power to mine the most profitable coin, but all this is done behind the scenes. The crypto is converted to Bitcoin (BTC) and you can withdraw it at any time (minus the transaction fee). So while I'm probably mining XMR because that seems to be all my CPU can do anyway, I see my BTC balance going up. 

The downside to Honeyminer is that it's only available on Windows at the moment, which means I can only use it on my laptops but not my desktops at the moment. 

Overall, I think Minergate would be cool if it would allow the option to do something like Honeyminer and just convert everything into BTC automatically or as an option. I think a lot of people out there like me don't care what happens behind the scenes and we just want to earn money by running software - and Honeyminer seems to take the fuss out of the process and just do the work smoothly.