steper feedback?

I've heard some time ago on this group that some softwares can
control a steper motor and read a encoder feedback thus,working like
a servo system at a cheper price than servos and no risc of burning
out servos if something goes wrong.
Can anyone tell me what softwares can do this? i've heard that
maxnc has something like that,but I don't like the Idea of having a
unipolar driver.

Thank's
Fogassa.