I am going mach3 only because I had an old license from many years ago so the cost to me is a set of smoothstepper board. But if I were to do it again I would probably go with a dedicated panel. Mach3 license plus smoothstepper and breakout total 2/3 the price of one of the indistrial looking panels that support standard G/M codes. Also these panels support ATC (which I think will be easier to get going too) rather than have to write a bunch of macros.