Software Alternatives & Reviews

Stellarium VS Space Engine

Compare Stellarium VS Space Engine and see what are their differences

Stellarium logo Stellarium

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer.

Space Engine logo Space Engine

Space Engine is a realistic virtual Universe you can explore on your computer.
  • Stellarium Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-18
  • Space Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-13

Stellarium videos

Stellarium - App REVIEW - Games in Education (Astronomy)

More videos:

  • Review - Intro to Stellarium 2019
  • Review - Apple's Iphone planetarium free app: Stellarium review and comments, perfect stargazing companion

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?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Stellarium and Space Engine)
Space Simulator
58 58%
42% 42
Virtual Universe
58 58%
42% 42
Universe Simulator
48 48%
52% 52
Education & Reference
79 79%
21% 21

User comments

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

Based on our record, Stellarium should be more popular than Space Engine. It has been mentiond 250 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.

Stellarium mentions (250)

  • Stellarium is a free GPL software which renders realistic skies in real time
    The project website is at http://stellarium.org/. There is no need to have images inside a project repository. Every maintainer already knows what it looks like. What next? Marketing materials? - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Stellarium is a free GPL software which renders realistic skies in real time
    There's even a web version linked at https://stellarium.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Constellations are younger than continents
    There’s also the FLOSS Stellarium: http://stellarium.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Not sure what this would be. Ive seen it for years and thought it was just a weirdly rectangular cluster of stars. What do you guys think?
    They're the Plieades. For future reference you can check on what's in the sky with software like Stellarium. Source: 7 months ago
  • ‘Limited' UFO disclosure believed to be used soon as a strategy of deception as end times Bible prophecy being fulfilled indicates. The truth about the future and how to be prepared.
    We have been experiencing distress and perplexity of nations upon the earth unlike anything in modern history. There have been record hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, and flooding globally which appears to relate to “the sea and the waves roaring” and according to research using the Stellarium Astronomy Software, this was a one time alignment on September 23, 2017 involving the sun, moon, and stars that accurately... Source: 8 months ago
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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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What are some alternatives?

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

Celestia - Real-time 3D visualization of space

KStars - KStars is a Desktop Planetarium for KDE.

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.

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

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.

SkyView - SkyView is powerful, easy-to-use app that answers questions about stars, constellations, and more.