Software Alternatives & Reviews

Space Engine VS Orbiter

Compare Space Engine VS Orbiter and see what are their differences

Space Engine logo Space Engine

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

Orbiter logo Orbiter

Orbiter is a realistic 3D real-time space flight simulator program. Official site with free download. DownloadDownload mirror 1 Europe - Textures - Gallery - Links - .
  • Space Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-13
  • Orbiter Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-11-21

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?

Orbiter videos

Orbiter 9 Netflix Review

More videos:

  • Review - ARRI Orbiter LED Light | Hands-on Review
  • Review - Orbiter - Super light weight direct drive extruder on Seckit SK-GO

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Space Engine and Orbiter)
Space Simulator
67 67%
33% 33
Virtual Universe
100 100%
0% 0
Action
0 0%
100% 100
Universe Simulator
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Space Engine and Orbiter. 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 should be more popular than Orbiter. It has been mentiond 122 times since March 2021. 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
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Orbiter mentions (37)

  • Physics video games
    Orbiter is more of a hardcore spacesim than a "game" in traditional sense, but also qualify. Source: 5 months ago
  • What about adding more planets?
    Orbiter does it, but I doubt the solution they use (whatever it is) would work with the game engine Nova uses. Reentry does it too. I guess it depends on how the game has been coded. Probably difficult to implement if it wasn't designed with time compression in mind to start with. Source: 7 months ago
  • So uhm… I wanna fly a space shuttle.
    Kerbal (KSP) is one way, but I would highly encourage you to seek out Orbiter Space Flight Simulator 2016 here http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ (all free) and its forum here https://www.orbiter-forum.com/. Tens of thousands of hours of work here for your enjoyment, when you look at the base simulator (Dr. Martin Schweiger's work), the rendering engines, the vessels, the mods and the expertise from the community ...... Source: 10 months ago
  • We really need a Microsoft Space SimulatorX
    I’ve searched a bit and found this: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ Has anyone played orbiter ? Source: 11 months ago
  • Orbiter compatability?
    This looks amazing! I don't play KSP but Orbiter, not sure if you've heard of that? Would it be easy to make this compatible with the keyboard keys Orbiter uses? Source: 12 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

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

Celestia - Real-time 3D visualization of space

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X 2 - Tom Clancy’s H.

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

FlightGear - The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. It also simulates space flight in Earth's orbit. It's flight dynamics engine (JSBSim) is used in a 2015 NASA benchmark.

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.

X-Plane - The world's most advanced flight simulator just got an upgrade. Download the free demo today for Windows, macOS, & Linux.