Available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, SpaceFM is free software.

[2] SpaceFM was originally developed from a fork of the legacy PCMan File Manager and later PCManFM-Mod.

[4] Due to the extensive changes in many parts of the project, SpaceFM was released with its new name as an alpha test version in January 2012.

In version 0.7.5, April 2012, SpaceFM replaced udisks with direct udev support for device detection and information.

Subsequent improvements include extending the features of SpaceFM's Desktop Manager, a new Menu Item Properties dialog for adding and customizing menu items, socket commands for interacting with a running instance, and an improved panel configuration memory.