Software Alternatives & Reviews

Calculix VS OpenFOAM

Compare Calculix VS OpenFOAM and see what are their differences

Calculix logo Calculix

Calculix is a free and open-source finite-element analysis application that uses an input format...

OpenFOAM logo OpenFOAM

OpenFOAM® - Official home of The Open Source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Toolbox.
  • Calculix Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-23
  • OpenFOAM Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-08-02

Calculix videos

Mecway / Calculix - simple check and review results

More videos:

  • Review - CalculiX - Swivel Tie Down Ring (w plastic)

OpenFOAM videos

What is OpenFoam? | Skill-Lync

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to run your first simulation in OpenFOAM® - Part 1 - tutorial
  • Tutorial - CFD tutorial for beginners | What is OpenFOAM? | SKILL-LYNC

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Calculix and OpenFOAM)
Technical Computing
13 13%
87% 87
Numerical Computation
13 13%
87% 87
CFD
25 25%
75% 75
Computational Fluid Dynamics

User comments

Share your experience with using Calculix and OpenFOAM. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, OpenFOAM seems to be a lot more popular than Calculix. While we know about 19 links to OpenFOAM, we've tracked only 1 mention of Calculix. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Calculix mentions (1)

  • What is the model used for nonlinear material in Freecad?
    Under the hood CalculiX is used for this. It appears the FreeCAD nonlinear material object does use a plastic model from CalculiX. Here are two forum threads I found discussing the matter:. Source: about 3 years ago

OpenFOAM mentions (19)

  • OpenFOAM on Debian 12
    In openfoam.org, there is not compiled binaries for Debian (any version). So one should install it using docker (I prefer to do not use it) or by compiling the code from the source. I consider compiling from source, but I do prefer binaries. Source: 10 months ago
  • Please help me get running OpenFOAM
    Hello I am a mechanical engineering student in my last year. So I made the wisest decision to learn OpenFOAM. But there is the catch. I have no idea how to use Linux or how to emulate Linux on Windows 10. I found a lot of videos on Youtube how to download an start OpenFOAM but every one of them was using different methods each time so I got confused. Can anyone please help or direct me? Thank you for your answers... Source: about 1 year ago
  • Step by Step (Written not Video) Tutorial for FEM with Air
    As far as air flow simulation, I got slightly farther with Open Foam than I did in FreeCAD directly. Still, I got in way over my skill level and stopped before getting anything useful. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Open source FEA tools instead of ANSYS Workbench and APDL
    There are two versions of openfoam, one closed source (which is the one I linked to in my original comment, my apologies about that) and the open source version. But what you're describing makes it sound like fenics might be your best option. Source: over 1 year ago
  • command not found and looping
    I suggest you install per the instructions at openfoam.com or openfoam.org instead of using apt. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Calculix and OpenFOAM, you can also consider the following products

elmer - Elmer is an open-source software package that solves partial differential equations. Combined with its ability to run various equations in parallel, it is an effective tool for running multiphysical simulations. Read more about elmer.

ANSYS Fluent - ANSYS engineering simulation and 3D design software delivers product modeling solutions with unmatched scalability and a comprehensive multiphysics foundation.

COMSOL Multiphysics - COMSOL is the developer of COMSOL Multiphysics software, an interactive environment for modeling and simulating scientific and engineering problems.

MATLAB - A high-level language and interactive environment for numerical computation, visualization, and programming

Wolfram Mathematica - Mathematica has characterized the cutting edge in specialized processing—and gave the chief calculation environment to a large number of pioneers, instructors, understudies, and others around the globe.

Code_Aster for Windows - Code_Aster is a free software for numerical simulation in structural mechanics.