Software Alternatives & Reviews

Space Engine VS KStars

Compare Space Engine VS KStars and see what are their differences

Space Engine logo Space Engine

Space Engine is a realistic virtual Universe you can explore on your computer.

KStars logo KStars

KStars is a Desktop Planetarium for KDE.
  • Space Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-13
  • KStars Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-11-23

Space Engine

Categories
  • Space Simulator
  • Virtual Universe
  • Universe Simulator
  • Education & Reference
Website spaceengine.org

KStars

Categories
  • Space Simulator
  • Virtual Universe
  • Universe Simulator
  • Education & Reference
Website apps.kde.org

Space Engine videos

Why You Should Try Space Engine (The Best Damn Space Sim in the Galaxy)

More videos:

  • Review - Space Engine - Seamlessly Explore The Entire Universe
  • Review - Space Engine - What Can I Find In 10 Minutes?

KStars videos

Astrophotography: stellarmate kstars and Ekos review

More videos:

  • Review - Part 1: Introduction to KStars

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Space Engine and KStars)
Space Simulator
69 69%
31% 31
Virtual Universe
66 66%
34% 34
Universe Simulator
83 83%
17% 17
Education & Reference
32 32%
68% 68

User comments

Share your experience with using Space Engine and KStars. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Space Engine seems to be a lot more popular than KStars. While we know about 122 links to Space Engine, we've tracked only 3 mentions of KStars. 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.

Space Engine mentions (122)

  • I'm trying to make a basic political borders map of a galaxy that's not the milky way
    I mean, there are plenty of good deep sky images out there. Try looking at the New General Catalogue (NGC) objects for something that strikes your fancy. Alternatively, you could cruise around in Space Engine and bookmark an interesting galaxy to get screenshots from multiple angles, which is what I usually do. (SE is available on Steam for a reasonable price.). Source: 9 months ago
  • Asteroid's Near Miss of Earth Undetected for 2 Days
    Computer says yes: https://gravitysimulator.org/ https://spaceengine.org/ Once the mass, velocity, heading of an object is known it becomes easier to track and fine tune parameters meaning time of intersect with earth can be calculated which gives orientation of planet and entry attitude. An exact street addres | sub metre grid reference is a big ask, but the "line of breakup" arcing across a narrow slice of the... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Infinite Photorealistic Worlds Using Procedural Generation
    Space Engine[1] is another popular one [1] https://spaceengine.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Galaxy/Universe Creator/Generator
    This is a bit of a tall order. There are none that I know of; most folks I know who do galaxy maps either make them by hand with their digital paint tools of choice, or utilize the procedurally-generated ones from Space Engine. Up until recently SE had a free (old) version available on the site; you should still be able to find a mirror of it somewhere but I don't know of one personally. Otherwise, SE is available... Source: 11 months ago
  • The true overlords
    Numbers as overwhelming as these are meaningless to our little minds. Then, do yourself a favor. Download Space Engine and see for yourself what it's like to visually behold the mindblowing immensity we are talking about. Now, take into account Multiverses, and consider the possibility that all those Universes may be fractal-like with n-infinite dimensions. Contemplate that we probably know absolutely nothing... Source: 12 months ago
View more

KStars mentions (3)

  • Is there a utility that will read my FITS files and map the image size and locations on a sky map?
    KStars can do this. It can either use the World Coordinate System data from the FITS file or plate-solve to derive the location from the image data. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Best FOSS Astronomy Software
    Kstars is a powerful, flexible astronomy application that you will find useful. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Maps of the stars
    Printed sky atlases are pretty obsolete, now that we have technology. https://edu.kde.org/kstars/. Source: over 1 year ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Space Engine and KStars, you can also consider the following products

Celestia - Real-time 3D visualization of space

Stellarium - Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer.

Sky Map - Sky Map (formerly the Google Sky Map) turns your Android-powered mobile phone into a window on the...

Solar System Scope - 3D model of the Solar System and night sky in real time

Universe Sandbox - Universe Sandbox ² is a physics-based space simulator where you can simulate Events and even break physics and friction with certain features.

OpenSpace - OpenSpace is open source interactive data visualization software designed to visualize the entire known universe and portray our ongoing efforts to investigate the cosmos.