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Digital art software gets better and better each year.
The right software can help you paint faster and feel better about your artwork. Each program handles brush strokes and color blending differently, and the price tags vary from expensive to free.
Adobe Photoshop still reigns supreme as an all-round industry standard for digital artists. Yet there's always new software coming out to compete against Adobe's throne.
Choosing your art software is no longer about the biggest features, but rather finding an application that suits your specific needs as an artist.
Beginners who just want to practice are better off choosing a free program compared to professionals who want to learn software for an industry job. If your goal is to work for a game studio as a concept artist then you'll probably have a different set of goals.
In this post we'll take an in-depth look at 7 of the most popular programs for digital drawing & painting by comparing their features and seeing how they stack up.
But if you're in a hurry here's a quick overview to help you decide:
- Professional Choice: Adobe Photoshop
- Free Choice: Krita
- Budget Choice: Clip Studio Paint
If you need a bit more info on these programs just keep reading.
Adobe Photoshop
Price: $9.99/mo
Platforms: Mac, Windows
Adobe Photoshop is the most popular and widely used software for digital art.
It's feature-heavy, regularly updated, and you can use it to create everything from concept thumbnails to comic book pages or even photobashed pieces.
Photoshop started as an image-editing program for photographers. Over time it slowly became a staple for many other industries, digital art included.
With this software you have a huge variety of painting tools, brushes, filters, plugins, and layer styles.
It's an industry standard for all digital artists across the entertainment industry because it just works. If you want a career in video games, animation, feature films, or any general production studio, knowledge of Photoshop goes a long way.
The learning curve is pretty steep here. If you are a beginner you may feel overwhelmed by all the options and get lost in technical aspects of the program. But once you've learned the basics, your imagination is the limit!
You can do anything in whatever style you choose and edit photos to boot!
Being the most popular software for creatives artists, there's a mass of Photoshop tutorials available online. Adobe even released a series of up-to-date free tutorials which will take you from beginner to expert level.
If you ever have a problem or question on anything, a quick Google search will get you a video answer or helpful forum post.
Concept artists like Photoshop's custom brushes and often create their own. Detailed layer settings, regular updates, and a sleek user interface are the driving force behind Photoshop's continued popularity.
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You can rotate your canvas naturally to mimic the rotation of paper. And you can setup grids and rulers for complex scenes, or even bring in 3D objects to paint over. PSD files(Photoshop's native file format) play well with other Adobe programs and this file type is an industry standard.
That means you can import PSDs into almost any other art software without a hitch. GIMP and Krita both accept PSD files along with many other programs.
This is why many artists combine Photoshop with other painting software. Depending on the workflow you're going for you could do your concept and lineart in something like Clip Studio Paint, then bring it to Photoshop for coloring and final touch-ups.
Other digital art software doesn't try to replace Photoshop but instead tries to improve on the interface for specific types of art(ex: comics, storyboards, environment paintings, etc).
Once you've signed up for a Creative Cloud membership you get a free, non-conditional seven-day trial version of Photoshop. This offer applies to Adobe's other software as well. If you like Photoshop and want to buy it, there are four purchase plans to choose from.
The cheapest is the Photographers package which is $9.99(only available annually) and it includes Lightroom CC. If you want to buy a monthly plan you can get Photoshop for $29.99 a month.
If you want to go the extra mile and get the rest of Adobe's software, the entire suite costs $74.99 monthly(or annual for $49.99 p/m).
Bonus Tip: Students 13 years and older get a 60% discount on the full Adobe suite plan!
People love Photoshop for its versatility and wealth of free knowledge online. Adobe has thrown millions of dollars into development so Photoshop isn't going anywhere.
It's a solid, professional choice for aspiring digital artists and concept artists.
Corel Painter
Price: $350
Platforms: Mac, Windows
Apple version of lightroom. Corel Painter is characterized by painterly brush strokes and a traditional artist's feel to the interface.
Painter is for artists who love loose, messy brushwork and want to capture the beauty of traditional mediums on a digital canvas. It comes standard with 900 brushes covering every possible situation you could imagine.
As you might guess from the name, Corel Painter is focused on painting. But this should be great for artists who only want software to draw or paint digitally.
It has a 2.5D brush toolset that mimics real-world brushes giving you full control over the final 'style' of your work.
Painter has been a serious alternative to Photoshop for several years and is the company always listens to user requests. They've been working hard to add new features every year and have added a bunch of artist-suggested tools into their latest release.
For example, some users complained of UI sensitivity and slow response times. Those issues were fixed with the 2019 version along with an entire UI design overhaul.
Icons were redesigned to be more intuitive and the interface was changed to a darker theme.
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Painter is for artists who love loose, messy brushwork and want to capture the beauty of traditional mediums on a digital canvas. It comes standard with 900 brushes covering every possible situation you could imagine.
As you might guess from the name, Corel Painter is focused on painting. But this should be great for artists who only want software to draw or paint digitally.
It has a 2.5D brush toolset that mimics real-world brushes giving you full control over the final 'style' of your work.
Painter has been a serious alternative to Photoshop for several years and is the company always listens to user requests. They've been working hard to add new features every year and have added a bunch of artist-suggested tools into their latest release.
For example, some users complained of UI sensitivity and slow response times. Those issues were fixed with the 2019 version along with an entire UI design overhaul.
Icons were redesigned to be more intuitive and the interface was changed to a darker theme.
Among all the new features with that version, the most celebrated was the pinned color wheel.
You can position the color wheel wherever you like on the screen giving an instant look at color options without swatches. This spectral feature means you can work in detail without the circular brush icon obscuring your view.
In Painter's web series 'Paint like Bob Ross' you can learn how to paint digital landscapes in 30 minutes using their brushes—a great introduction to conceptualizing landscapes for beginners.
The software is feature heavy and beginners might still feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of brush options and settings. But Corel is worth learning because it is another trusted industry staple among character designers, concept artists, and visual development artists.
Corel Painter has been around since 1992 and you can find an extensive library of free tutorials on their website. Or if you search on YouTube I'm sure you can find plenty of free tutorials there as well.
You won't find as many resources compared to Photoshop. But Corel Painter is still a beast in the concept art world, or just the digital painting world in general, making it an awesome choice for hobbyists or newbies just picking up digital art for the first time.
As of this writing, a brand new copy of Corel Painter costs $350 making it an expensive once-off purchase. Although you can get a free 30-day trial to demo the software and see if it's right for you.
Krita
Price: Free
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux
Krita is a free open source digital painting program designed for cartoonists, illustrators, concept artists, and pretty much all digital artists.
The software was initially developed as a general image editing competitor to Photoshop but focused their efforts on digital painting starting in 2009. The Krita community donates monthly to the software efforts helping it to stay free and funding development of new features
If you have a background in some other digital art software(Photoshop for example) then Krita's tools will be a little familiar and a little not-so-familiar.
Whether you're switching or just getting into Krita it's worth the time to watch a few tutorials to find out how everything works.
Krita hasn't released many official tutorial videos but they have created detailed documentation online. If it's your first venture into digital art then start off learning about the basic UI and toolsets.
Use the pop-up pallet to select your brushes, erasers, and colors intuitively. All other tools are stored in the panels to the left and right. Krita supports PSD files so that you can switch between Photoshop and Krita with ease.
And there's a ton of freebies online like free brush packs that mimic everything from charcoal to watercolors and so much more. The beauty of Krita is the free price tag and the immensely supportive community around this software.
Krita has been criticized by some professional artists for its lag, seemingly unintuitive design, and uneven brush softness. Although the criticism has merit, the program's core features work well and you will learn them with practice.
Also worth noting this has to be the absolute best choice for anyone on a Linux machine. Photoshop does not support Linux outside of a virtual emulator but Krita can run natively in any Linux distro.
This is a huge +1 for Krita since it's really the best digital painting alternative for our Linux & Unix friends.
If you don't have the cash to burn on digital art programs Krita is the perfect choice.
Use the program while you save up some money to grab another program. Or just stick with Krita and use it free for life! Many professional artists like David Revoy create all of their work with Krita and their stuff looks amazing.
Best thing about Krita is that it's simple for beginners to learn and it doesn't confuse you with a ton features or fancy tools. Krita's purpose is digital painting and that's precisely what it does well.
Clip Studio Paint
Price: $49
Platforms: Mac, Windows
Clip Studio Paint is the most popular software for creating comics and manga artwork.
Clip Studio Paint was originally named Manga Studio but changed names in 2013. It originated in Japan as specialist software for manga, illustration, and animators.
The program has long been a worldwide affordable alternative to Photoshop for digital artists but got more recognition with the name change.
The most notable drawing difference between Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop is the brush tool. In Clip Studio the brush tool instantly corrects any minor wobble you make while drawing on a tablet, leaving you with smooth clean linework.
Clip Studio is optimized for comic book creation and has various tools to speed up the process.
A canvas layout tool makes paneling quick with perspective rulers and a library of predefined formats. The pen tool lets you to work in a versatile vector format which means your creations can be scalable without quality loss.
In the most recent release there's a new library of 3D objects and posable models. This is useful for concept artists who like to use references to get poses down quickly.
You can drop in a 3D model, pose it using an intuitive joint system, change the camera angle, make the character fat or thin, and choose between genders. After you've drawn over it you can use that same model's shading as a reference for lighting.
Then when you're done just delete it. Easy-peasy.
With CSP your art will always have a crisp digital finish as the software doesn't strive for a traditional look. Although it's possible to give your brush strokes a blended texture using brushes, Clip Studio Paint is not designed to mimic traditional mediums.
The standard version of Clip Studio Paint also comes with some very basic animation features. You can quickly test character movement over 24 frames without the annoyance of switching programs. But this is not really the best software for animation so it works best in conjunction with other programs for that purpose.
Now Clip Studio Paint comes in two versions: PRO(standard) and EX(full-featured).
Unless you're planning on putting all of your projects through Clip Studio Paint and creating various manga & comic books, you'll probably be happy with the PRO version. The EX edition has only a few extra features that would benefit expert users.
EX lets you save manga & comic pages in a ‘book' which acts like one editable file. You can then bulk save them for printing which shaves off a ton of time and organizational effort.
The animation feature also gets an upgrade with EX and you can create an unlimited number of frames(instead of the standard 24).
EX comes with filters for 3D assets too turning them black and white for easier integration into your scenes.
Generally speaking, the PRO version is the same and EX minus the above features. It's unlikely you'll need those features as a digital painter or concept artist. Only serious comic and manga artists would find the EX features useful.
Try out either version with a free 30-day trial of both PRO and EX versions. If you don't like it then just move on. The free version does give plenty to toy with so you'll know whether you like CSP or don't.
And it's worth mentioning that the PRO edition is an affordable option at only $49 flat fee, while EX comes at a premium of $219.
Although sometimes you can get CSP at a discounted rate from annual sales so keep checking their prices.
GIMP
Price: Free
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux
GIMP is another open source program built as a free Photoshop alternative.
Back when computer graphics were slowly becoming 'a thing' it was up to software developers to create graphics for companies. With Photoshop costing a lot more back then, buying it was out of the budget for many companies.
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GIMP was built to fill the need for a cheaper option to digital imaging editing software.
Unlike other free digital art software, GIMP was designed to be a full replacement for Photoshop. This means you can use it for digital painting but it's really meant for graphic design, photo editing, text effects, and similar features.
Likewise this program has all the tools you need for digital art. If you are looking for Photoshop's functionality without the price tag you'll be happy to with GIMP's default functionality.
If you know a little about software development you can also add to GIMP's code by creating your own plugins for the system. But the default setup is more than enough for artists.
Many versions of GIMP have been released over the years, but their team of volunteers hasn't been able to keep up with the sheer financial power of Adobe. The user interface is definitely unrefined and will be very confusing to beginners.
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There are loads of GIMP tutorials created by their loyal users and there's enough content to help you learn everything you need about the software.
Although GIMP doesn't have a dedicated support team to answer your questions, many issues are well documented on various forums and you'll be able to troubleshoot a solution with a few Google searches.
The painting tools are reasonable, although in my opinion Krita is a stronger option if you just need painting.
Granted you can find plenty of free GIMP brushes all made for digital drawing & painting.
But really this software is the best all-round alternative to Photoshop. If you see yourself doing a bit of design work, some painting, and some photo editing, try out GIMP and see what you think.
ArtRage
Price: $79
Platforms: Mac, Windows
ArtRage is a digital painting powerhouse that's perfect for traditional artists moving digital and for existing professional artists.
Unlike other digital art programs, ArtRage has stepped away from the complicated user interface and ditched the blocky side panels. They want your focus on the canvas creating great work.
When you open the program you'll find a semi-circular brush picker on the bottom left of the screen and a color picker on the bottom right. Both give you immediate access to the most important tools.
Small 'pods' containing extra options hover just above the circles, minimizing extra clutter.
After you've picked your color and brush you can start drawing on the canvas. The UI automatically disappears(although this setting is optional) and without the UI you get a full screen canvas to work on without any distractions. Pretty cool!
If you've never used digital painting software before then ArtRage is fantastic. It's beginner friendly and super affordable.
You can start off slow, familiarizing yourself with the various brushes, and slowly work your way up to painting full scenes and character designs.
If you are coming from Photoshop you'll find the minimalist layout refreshing and easy to pick up. The brush presets are so good that you don't need to waste time adjusting them much at all.
One of ArtRage's most exciting features is called 'real color blending'. It calculates realistic color mixing as you paint and it's useful for digital painting in an oil or watercolor style.
If you want to try your hand at digital painting for the first time, this software will hold your hand and take you from hobbyist to professional if you put in the effort.
It doesn't have all the gadgets and gizmos that some prominent art programs have, but it's got all you need to make fun paintings(and a little extra).
ArtRage is budget software and friendly to those getting started. You can also use the demo version for an unlimited amount of time. The demo doesn't let you save anything, which of course is a drag, but you can use that to familiarize yourself with the program.
If you decide you want the full version it costs $79 and you'll receive all future updates included with your license.
If that sounds a bit expensive you could go for ArtRage Lite which is only $29.90. The lite version is great for beginners and includes all the painting features of the full version.
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Think of this much like Krita but aimed for simplicity. It's cheap enough that you could run ArtRage for life and it's certainly refreshing when you come from a big bulky art program.
Paint Tool SAI
Price: $49
Platforms: Windows
Lastly on this list is Paint Tool SAI: a simple painting program that's exceptionally popular among anime & manga artists.
Paint Tool SAI was first released in 2008 to a wave of popularity. It quickly spread among the art community who loved the clean brush strokes and unique interface.
SAI is a small, old program and has not been significantly updated over the years. It only runs on windows and has a limited set of features.
That being said, it's aged remarkably well and is easy for beginners to pick up.
Many artists use SAI to achieve a digital watercolor effect where the blending modes can mimic watercolor, but the overall feel is smooth and sleek. Others use it primarily for lineart, or for creating a ton of anime.
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You'll find that Japanese artists almost exclusively use SAI for their artwork. It's a very popular choice in Japan, likely because this software was originally developed by the Japanese Systemax Software.
SAI's learning curve is minimal and if you're coming from Photoshop you'll pick it up almost instantly. It's still very detailed though and great to use as a sketching program.
Use the pencil brush to get realistic sketches down on a textured canvas. Then switch over to brushes and color your line art to completion.
Now there are some minor limitations like that new projects are limited to 256 layers per canvas. It's also known to slow down with larger file sizes and glitch when trying to preview .gifs in the explorer window.
They also have a weird system of brushes where you can import textures to merge with brush styles and create totally new brushes. I haven't mastered this setup but you can find a ton of textures in this post with dozens of free brush assets for SAI users.
SAI is a Japanese program and is priced in JPY(Japanese Yen). It costs ¥5400 which roughly equates to $49.
Compared to other software on this list, SAI is a tad on the pricier side considering the last update was in 2016.
Small complaints aside, considering the price tag and the anime-centric fanbase I'd say SAI is an awesome choice for anime lovers the world over.
Get started using SAI by following some easy beginner tutorials on painting in the program. If you put in the time you'll be a pro within a few weeks.
A fantastic program for anyone serious about anime-style art or any kind of digital painting. Biggest downside is you'll have to be a Windows user.
Although if I had to cast a vote for the absolute best digital painting software, that title falls with Photoshop.
Here's hoping even more digital art software comes out in the next 10 years and gives some stiff competition to Adobe's reign.
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This is a list of software packages that implement the finite element method for solving partial differential equations.
| Software | Features | Developer | Version | Released | License | Price | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agros2D | Multiplatform open source application for the solution of physical problems based on the Hermes library | University of West Bohemia | 3.2 | 2014-03-03 | GNU GPL | Free | Linux, Windows |
| CalculiX | It is an Open Source FEA project. The solver uses a partially compatible ABAQUS file format. The pre/post-processor generates input data for many FEA and CFD applications | Guido Dhondt, Klaus Wittig | 2.16 | 2019-11-24 | GNU GPL | Free | Linux, Windows |
| DIANA FEA | General purpose finite element package utilised by civil, structural and geotechnical engineers. | DIANA FEA BV, The Netherlands | 10.1 | 2016-11-14 | Paid | Windows, Linux | |
| deal.II | Comprehensive set of tools for finite element codes, scaling from laptops to clusters with 10,000+ cores. Written in C++. | Wolfgang Bangerth, Timo Heister, Guido Kanschat, Matthias Maier et al. | 9.0 | 2018-05-12 | LGPL | Free | Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows |
| DUNE | Distributed and Unified Numerics Environment, written in C++ | DUNE Developer team | 2.4.1 | 2016-02-29 | GPL Version 2 with Run-Time Exception | Free | Linux, Unix, Mac OS X |
| Elmer | Open source multiphysical simulation software developed by Finnish Ministry of Education's CSC, written primarily in Fortran (written in Fortran90, C and C++) | CSC | 8.2 | 2016-03-15 | GPL | Free | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows |
| FEBio | Finite Elements for Biomechanics | University of Utah (MRL), Columbia University (MBL) | 2.7 | April, 2018 | Custom | Free | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows |
| FEniCS Project | Software package developed by American and European researchers with the goal to enable automated solution of differential equations | FEniCS Team | 1.6.0 | 2015-07-29 | LGPL (Core) & GPL/LGPL (Non-Core)[1] | Free | Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows |
| FEATool Multiphysics | MATLAB FEM and PDE multiphysics simulation toolbox | Precise Simulation | 1.10 | 2019-05-17 | Free for personal use[2] | Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Unix | |
| FreeFEM[3] | FreeFEM is a free and open-source parallel FEA software for multiphysics simulations. The problems are defined in terms of their variational formulation and can be easily implemented using FreeFEM language. Written in C++. | Sorbonne University[4] and Jacques-Louis Lions Laboratory[5] | 4.2.1 | 2019-06-06 | LGPL | Free | Linux, MacOS, Windows, Solaris |
| GOMA | GOMA is an open-source, parallel, and scalable multiphysics software package for modeling and simulation of real-life physical processes, with a basis in computational fluid dynamics for problems with evolving geometry. | Sandia National Laboratories, University of New Mexico | 6.1 | Aug 28, 2015 | GPL Version 2 | Free | Linux |
| GetFEM++ | A generic finite element library written in C++ with interfaces for Python, Matlab and Scilab. It focuses on modeling of contact mechanics and discontinuities (e.g. cracks). | Yves Renard, Julien Pommier | 5.0 | 2015-07 | LGPL | Free | Unix, Mac OS X, Windows |
| Hermes Project | Modular C/C++ library for rapid development of space- and space-time adaptive hp-FEM solvers | hp-FEM group | 3.0 | 2014-03-01 | LGPL | Free | Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows |
| Mathematica[6] | General purpose computation software. | Wolfram Research | 12.2 (December 16, 2020; 48 days ago) [±][7] | Regularly | Proprietary | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Raspbian, Online service. | |
| MATLAB Partial Differential Equation Toolbox | MATLAB Toolbox for solving structural, thermal, electromagnetics, and other general PDEs | MathWorks | 3.3 (R2019b) | 2019-09-11 | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows | ||
| MFEM | MFEM is a free, lightweight, scalable C++ library for finite element methods that features arbitrary high-order finite element meshes and spaces, support for a wide variety of discretizations, and emphasis on usability, generality, and high-performance computing efficiency. | MFEM team | 4.2 | 2020-10-30 | BSD | Free | Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, Windows |
| MoFEM JosePH | Mesh Oriented hp-FE code, written in C++ | University of Glasgow | 0.6.8 | 2017-11-16 | LGPL | Free | Unix, Mac OS X |
| MOOSE | Object Oriented FE framework, written in C++ | Idaho National Laboratory | regularly | LGPL | Free | Unix, Mac OS X | |
| OOFEM | Object Oriented Finite EleMent solver, written in C++ | Bořek Patzák | 2.4 | 2016-02-15 | GPL Version 2 | Free | Unix, Windows |
| OpenSees | Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation | Non Commercial | Free | Unix, Linux, Windows | |||
| SESAM (FEM) | Software suite for structural and hydrodynamic analysis of ships and offshore structures | DNV GL | regularly | Proprietary, SaaS | Windows, Web browser | ||
| Range Software | Multiphysics Finite Element Analysis Software | Tomáš Šoltys | 3.0 | 2018-04-30 | GPL | Free | Linux, Windows |
| Z88/Z88Aurora | Freeware finite element package; The present version Z88Aurora V4 offers, in addition to static strength analysis modules such as non-linear strength calculations (large displacements), simulations with non-linear materials, natural frequency, static thermal analysis and a contact module. | Frank Rieg | Z88 V15, Z88Aurora V5 | 2017-07-17, 2019-04-01 | GNU GPL, Custom | Free | Linux, Windows, Mac OS X |
| Abaqus | Advanced Franco-USA software from SIMULIA, owned by Dassault Systemes | Abaqus Inc. | 2019 | 2019-12 | Linux, Windows | ||
| CONSELF | CAE simulation from your browser | CONSELF SRL | 2.9 | 2015-10 | SaaS | Freemium | Web browser |
| FreeCAD | Parametric 3D modeler with a FEM workbench allowing it to use external solvers like CalculiX, Z88, Elmer, and OpenFoam | FreeCAD Team | 0.18 | 12 March 2019 | LGPL 2 | Free | Linux, Windows, Mac OS X |
| ADINA | Finite element software for structural, fluid, heat transfer, electromagnetic, and multiphysics problems, including fluid-structure interaction and thermo-mechanical coupling | Adina R&D | |||||
| Advance Design | BIM software for FEM structural analysis, including international design eurocodes | GRAITEC | 2014 | 2013-09 | |||
| Autodesk Simulation | Finite Element software of Autodesk | Autodesk | Windows | ||||
| ANSYS | US-based and -developed full CAE software package | Ansys Inc. | 19.2 | 2018-09-18 | Free student version available, up to 32,000 nodes/elements[8] | Windows, Linux | |
| COMSOL Multiphysics | COMSOL Multiphysics Finite Element Analysis Software (formerly FEMLAB) | COMSOL Inc. | 5.5 | 2019-11-14 | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Web browser | ||
| CosmosWorks | Part of SolidWorks | Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. | Windows | ||||
| Quickfield | EM, Heat Transfer and Stress Analysis [9] | Tera Analysis Ltd | 6.4 [10] | 2020-04-17 | Free Student Edition available[11] | Windows | |
| Pam Crash | Best used for explicit dynamics / crash analysis | ESI | 15.5.1 | 2020-03-05 | Linux, Windows | ||
| LS-DYNA | Best known for explicit dynamics / crash analysis | LSTC - Livermore Software Technology Corporation | R8.0 | 2015-03 | Linux, Windows | ||
| Midas Civil | Finite element software for bridge structural modeling, analysis and design | MIDAS IT - MIDAS Information Technology | 2020 v3.2 | 2001-11 | Windows, Linux | ||
| Nastran | Originally developed for NASA, now available commercially from several software companies | MSC NASTRAN, Siemens PLM NX Nastran[12] | 2014 | 2014 | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows | ||
| RFEM | 3D finite element analysis software | Dlubal Software | 5.06 | 2016-02 | Free student license available[13] | Windows | |
| SimScale | German 100% web-based CAE platform | SimScale GmbH | 14 | 2013-07 | SaaS | Free community version available[14] | Web browser |
| VisualFEA | Finite element software for structural, geotechnical, heat transfer and seepage analysis | Intuition Software | 5.11 | 2016-01 | Proprietary software | Free educational version available[15] | Mac OS X, Windows |
| JCMsuite | Finite element software for the analysis of electromagnetic waves, elasticity and heat conduction | JCMwave GmbH | 3.6.1 | 2017-01-27 | Linux, Windows | ||
| JMAG | 2D and 3D finite element analysis software for electromagnetic field, thermal, structural | JSOL | 18.1 | 2019-06 | Education pack available | Linux, Windows, Web browser | |
| StressCheck | Finite element analysis software based on hp-FEM with a focus on solid mechanics applications | ESRD, Inc. | 10.5 | 2019-06-06 | Windows | ||
| SDC Verifier | An extension for Ansys Mechanical, Femap and Simcenter with out of the box predefined standards on fatigue, stiffener and plate buckling, beam member checks, joint checks and weld. Such as AISC 360-10, API 2A RP, ISO 19902, Norsok N004, DIN15018, Eurocode 3, FEM 1.001, ABS 2004, ABS 2014, DNV RP-C201 2010, DNV CN30/1995, FKM etc. | SDC Verifier | 5.3.1 | 2020-03 | Student version available | Windows |
Feature comparison[edit]
This table is contributed by a FEA-compare[16] project, which provides an alternative view of this table with the first row and Feature column being fixed for ease of table exploration.
| Feature | COMSOL Multiphysics | MFEM | GetFEM++ | deal.II | Range Software | Elmer | MOOSE | FEniCS Project | FEATool Multiphysics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| license: | Proprietary | BSD | LGPL | LGPL | GPL | GNU (L)GPL | LGPL | GNU GPLLGPL | Proprietary |
| GUI: | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes, partial functionality | Yes | Postprocessing only | Matlab and Octave GUI |
| Documentation: | User guides, reference manuals, API documentation, application libraries with solved examples, online tutorials | examples, miniapps, Doxygen, online documentation | User doc, tutorials, demos, developer's guide | tutorials, video lectures, Doxygen | user manual, tutorials | ElmerSolver Manual, Elmer Models Manual, ElmerGUI Tutorials, etc. LaTeX documentation available in PDFs | Doxygen, Markdown, example codes, test inputs | Tutorial, demos, book | Online FEATool documentation, tutorials, and model examples |
| Mesh | |||||||||
| mesh elements: | Intervals (1D); triangles, quadrilaterals (2D and 3D boundaries); tetrahedra, pyramids, prisms, hexahedra (3d) | segments, triangles, quadrilaterals, tetrahedra, hexahedra, prisms | intervals, triangles, tetrahedra, quads, hexes, prisms, some 4D elements, easily extensible. | intervals (1d), quads (2d), and hexes (3d) only | points(0d), segments (1d), triangles, quadrilaterals (2d), tetrahedra, hexahedra (3d) | intervals (1d), triangles, quadrilaterals (2d), tetrahedra, pyramids, wedges, hexahedra (3d) | Tria, Quad, Tetra, Prism, etc. | intervals, triangles, tetrahedra (quads, hexes - work in progress) | intervals, triangles, tetrahedra, quads, hexes |
| mesh high-order mapping: | Any? Second-order is the default for most cases. | arbitrary-order meshes and NURBS meshes | any order | Yes, for Lagrange elements | (Any - work in progress) | ||||
| mesh generation: | Built-in | meshing miniapps and target-matrix mesh optimization | Experimental in any dimension + predefined shapes + Extrusion. | external+predefined shapes | Yes (TetGen) | Limited own meshing capabilities with ElmerGrid and netgen/tetgen APIs. Internal extrusion and mesh multiplication on parallel level. | Built-in | Yes, Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) supported via mshr (CGAL and Tetgen used as backends) | Integrated DistMesh, Gmsh, and Triangle GUI and CLI interfaces |
| mesh adaptive-refinement: | Yes, full adaptive mesh refinement (h-refinement); no p-refinement but several higher-order elements are included. Mesh adaptation on the whole or parts of the geometry, for stationary, eigenvalue, and time-dependent simulations and by rebuilding the entire mesh or refining chosen mesh elements. | conforming and non-conforming adaptive refinement for tensor product and simplex meshes | Only h | h, p, and hp for CG and DG | h-refinement for selected equations | h, p, mached hp, singular hp | Only h | ||
| mesh inputoutput: | STL, PLY, NASTRAN, 3MF, VRML (import only), native format | VTK, Gmsh, CUBIT, NETGEN, TrueGrid, and MFEM format | gmsh, GiD, Ansys | rbm, stl | ExodusII, Nemesis, Abaqus, Ensight, Gmsh, GMV, OFF, TecPlot TetGen, etc. | XDMF (and FEniCS XML) | FeatFlow, FEniCS XML, GiD, Gmsh, GMV, Triangle | ||
| mesh check: | Avoids inverted and degenerated elements; various mesh quality measures | ? | limited features (double nodes, degenerated elements, intersected elements) | intersections (collision testing) | |||||
| CAD files support: | STEP, IGES, others. | No | IGES, STEP (with OpenCascade wrapper) | Yes (stl) | Limited support via OpenCASCADE in ElmerGUI | ||||
| mesh operation: | Merge, copy, refine; convert; boundary layers; extrude, revolve, sweep, loft for 3D geometies | Extrude, rotate, translation, refine | Extrude, rotate, translation, refine | Merge, join, extrude, modular mesh modifier system | Merge, join, extrude, and revolve operations | ||||
| Parallel possibilities | |||||||||
| automatic mesh partitioning: | METIS and space-filling curve partitioning | Yes (METIS) | yes, shared (METIS/Parmetis) and distributed (p4est) | No | partitioning with ElmerGrid using Metis or geometric division, internal partitioning in ElmerSolver using Zoltan | Metis, Parmetis, Hilbert (shared and distributed meshes) | Yes (ParMETIS and SCOTCH) | ||
| MPI: | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (up to 147k processes) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| threads: | Supports multithreading | Using OpenMP, RAJA, or OCCA backends | Threading Build Blocks | Yes | threadsafe, some modules threaded and vectorized. | Yes | |||
| OpenMP: | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (vectorization only) | Yes | Yes, partially | Yes | ||
| OpenCL: | No | Through OCCA backends | No | No | No | No | |||
| CUDA: | No | Yes | No | since 9.1, see step-64 for matrix-free GPU+MPI example | No | Preliminary API for sparse linear algebra | |||
| Solver | |||||||||
| Dimension: | 0D, 1D, 2D, 3D (can coexist) | 1D/2D/3D | Any, possibility to mix and couple problem of different dimension | 1/2/3D | 0D/1D/2D/3D (dimensions may coexist) | 1D/2D/3D (dimensions may coexist) | 1/2/3D | 1/2/3D | 1/2/3D |
| FE: | Lagrange (order 1-7), Hermite (order 3-7), discontinuous Lagrange (order 0-7), bubble, Gauss point, serendipity, Nedelec | Arbitrary-order Lagrange elements (continuous and discontinuous), Bernstein basis, Nedelec and Raviart-Thomas elements, support for NURBS spaces (IGA) | Continuous and discontinuous Lagrange, Hermite, Argyris, Morley, Nedelec, Raviart-Thomas, composite elements (HCT, FVS), Hierarchical elements, Xfem, easily extensible. | Lagrange elements of any order, continuous and discontinuous; Nedelec and Raviart-Thomas elements of any order; BDM and Bernstein; elements composed of other elements. | Lagrange elements | Lagrange elements, p-elements up to 10th order, Hcurl conforming elements (linear and quadratic) for | Lagrange, Hierarchic, Discontinuous Monomials, Nedelec | Lagrange, BDM, RT, Nedelic, Crouzeix-Raviart, all simplex elements in the Periodic Table (femtable.org), any | Lagrange (1st-5th order), Crouzeix-Raviart, Hermite |
| Quadrature: | Gauss-Legendre, Gauss-Lobatto, and uniform quadrature rules. | Gauss-Legendre, Gauss-Lobatto, midpoint, trapezoidal, Simpson, Milne and Weddle (closed Newton-Cotes for 4 and 7 order polinomials), Gauss quadrature with logarithmic or 1/R weighting function, Telles quadrature of arbitrary order. | Gauss-Legendre (1D and tensor product rules in 2D and 3D) tabulated up to 44th-order to high precision, best available rules for triangles and tetrahedra to very high order, best available monomial rules for quadrilaterals and hexahedra. | ||||||
| Transient problems: | Yes, BDF, Runge-Kutta (RK34, Cash-Karp 5, Dormand-Prince 5), and generalized alpha time stepping | Runge-Kutta, SSP, SDIRK, Adams-Bashforth, Adams-Moulton, Symplectic Integration Algorithm, Newmark method, Generalized-alpha method | Any user implemented and/or from a set of predifined. Explicit methods: forward Euler, 3rd and 4th order Runge-Kutta. Implicit methods: backward Euler, implicit Midpoint, Crank-Nicolson, SDIRK. Embedded explicit methods: Heun-Euler, Bogacki-Shampine, Dopri, Fehlberg, Cash-Karp. | Yes | implicit-euler explicit-euler crank-nicolson bdf2 explicit-midpoint dirk explicit-tvd-rk-2 newmark-beta | BE, CN, and Fractional-Step-Theta schemes | |||
| Predifined equations: | Incompressible Navier-Stokes, heat transfer, convection-diffusion-reaction, linear elasticity, electromagnetics, pressure acoustics, Darcy's law, and support for custom PDE equations | Miniapps and examples for Laplace, elasticity, Maxwell, Darcy, advection, Euler, Helmholtz, and others | Laplace? | Yes (Incompressible Navier-Stokes, Heat transfer (convection-conduction-radiation), Stress analysis, Soft body dynamics, Modal analysis, Electrostatics, Magnetostatics ) | Around 50 predefined solvers | Phase Field, Solid Mechanics, Navier-Stokes, Porous Flow, Level Set, Chemical Reactions, Heat Conduction, support for custom PDEs | Incompressible Navier-Stokes, Heat transfer, convection-diffusion-reaction, linear elasticity, electromagnetics, Darcy's, Brinkman equations, and support for custom PDE equations | ||
| Automated assembly: | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||||
| Visualization: | Built-in | In situ visualization with GLVis. Export to VisIt and ParaView. | External or with the Scilab/Matlab/Python interface. Possibility to perform complex slices. | External (export to *.vtk and many others) | GUI (built-in) | ElmerGUI comes VTK based visualization tool (but Paraview is recommended) | Yes, VTK-based GUI, Python visualizatuion library | Buil-in simple plotting + External | Built-in with optional Plotly and GMV export |
| Output format: | Text and unstructured VTK-file for data.BMP,PNG, GIF, TIFF, JPEG, glTF, Windows clipboard, Microsoft PowerPoint (for images). GIF, Flash, AVI, WebM (for animatios). Touchstone data (for networks). | VisIt, ParaView (VTU), GLVis format | vtk, gmsh, OpenDX. | *.dx *.ucd *.gnuplot *.povray *.eps *.gmv *.tecplot *.tecplot_binary *.vtk *.vtu *.svg *.hdf5 | Several output formats (VTU, gmsh,..) | ExodusII, Xdr, etc. | VTK(.pvd, .vtu) and XDMF/HDF5 | GMV and Plotly | |
| Boundary elements solver: | Yes | No | Yes | Existing but without multipole acceleration (not usable for large problems) | No | ||||
| Use multiple meshes: | Yes including different dimensions and taking account of any transformation. | Yes, autorefined from same initial mesh for each variable of a coupled problem | Continuity of non-conforming interfaces ensured by mortar finite elements | Yes, including non-matching meshes | |||||
| Linear algebra | |||||||||
| Used libs: | MUMPS, PARDISO, SPOOLES; ARPACK, BLAS, BLIS, Intel MKL, LAPACK | Built-in and integrated with hypre. Optional integrations with PETSc, Ginkgo, SuperLU, Suite Sparse, libCEED, and more | SuperLU, MUMPS, Built-in. | Built-in + Trilinos, PETSc, and SLEPc | No | Built-in, Hypre, Trilinos, umfpack, MUMPS, Pardiso, etc. (optional) | PETSc, Trilinos, LASPack, SLEPc | PETSc, Trilinos/TPetra, Eigen. | Matlab/Octave built-in (Umfpack), supports integration with the FEniCS and FeatFlow solvers |
| Iterative matrix solvers: | GMRES, FGMRES, BiCGStab, conjugate gradients, TFQMR, or any precoditioner. Algebraic and geometric multigrid. Domain decomponsition (Schwarz, Schur) | Krylov methods (CG, MINRES, GMRES, BiCGStab) | All Krylov | All Krylov (CG, Minres, GMRES, BiCGStab, QMRS) | GMRES, CG | Built-in Krylov solvers, Krylov and multigrid solvers from external libraries | LASPack serial, PETSc parallel | Matlab/Octave built-in | |
| Preconditioners: | Direct preconditioner, Krylov, SOR, SSOR, SORU, SOR line, SOR gauge, SOR vector, Jacobi, incomplete and hierarchical LU, SAI, SCGS, Vanka, AMS | Algebraic, Geometric, and p-multigrid. Block ILU preconditioning. Support for hypre's AMS and ADS preconditioners for H(curl) and H(div). | Basic ones (ILU, ILUT) | Many, including algebraic multigrid (via Hypre and ML) and geometric multigrid | ILU, Jacobi | Built-in preconditioners (ILU, diagonal, vanka, block) and | LASPack serial, PETSc parallel, algebraic multigrid (via Hypre) | Matlab/Octave built-in | |
| Matrix-free | |||||||||
| matrix-free: | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Experimental implementation | |||
| matrix-free save memory: | Yes | No | Yes | No | |||||
| matrix-free speed-up: | Yes | No | Yes | No | |||||
| Used language | |||||||||
| Native language: | Primarily C++ and Java | C++ | C++ | C++ | C++ | Fortran (2008 standard) | C++ | C++ | Matlab / Octave |
| Bindings to language: | Full API for Java and Matlab (the latter via add-on product) | PyMFEM | Python, Scilab or Matlab | No | No | Python | |||
| Other | |||||||||
| Predefined equations: | Yes, many predefined physics and multiphysics interfaces in COMSOL Multiphysics and its add-ons. | A large number of Bilinear and Linear forms | Model bricks: Laplace, linear and nonlinear elasticity, Helmholtz, plasticity, Mindlin and K.L. plates, boundary conditions including contact with friction. | ||||||
| Coupled nonlinear problems: | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||||
| Binary: | Windows, Linux, macOS | Yes, via OpenHPC. Also available as part of Spack, xSDK, E4S, FASTMath, RADIUSS and CEED. | Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) | Linux, Windows (work in progress), Mac | Windows, Linux (launchpad: Debian/Ubuntu), Mac (homebrew) (all with MPI) | Linux (DebianUbuntu), Mac | Windows, Linux, Mac | ||
| fullname: | Elmer finite element software | ||||||||
| Testing: | Comprehensive unit and regression tests. Continuous integration through Travis CI | 3500+ tests | More than 700 consistency tests ensuring backward compatibility | 4300+ tests, Testing as a service for derived applications | |||||
| scripting: | Full API for Java and, through add-on product, Matlab | Runtime parsed mathematical expression in input files | Fully scriptable in as m-file Matlab scripts and the GUI supports exporting models in script format | ||||||
| automatic differentiation: | Yes | Forward-mode for Jacobian computation, symbolic differentiation capabilities | |||||||
| multiphysics: | Yes, full custom and predefined multiphysics couplings between all kinds of physics | Arbitrary multiphysics couplings are supported | Arbitrary multiphysics couplings are supported | Arbitrary multiphysics couplings are supported | |||||
| Optimization Solvers: | With the Optimization Module add-on: Coorinate search, Nelder-Mead, Monte Carlo, BOBYQA, COBYLA, SNOPT, MMA, Levenberg-Marquardt | Integration with HiOp. Built-in SLBQP optimizer | Support for TAO- and nlopt-based constrained optimization solvers incorporating gradient and Hessian information. | ||||||
| HIP: | Yes | ||||||||
| Symbolic derivation of the tangent system for nonlinear problems: | Yes | ||||||||
| Support for fictitious domain methods: | Yes |
References[edit]
- ^'FEniCS Project'. Retrieved 2017-06-21.
- ^'FEATool Multiphysics - Product Information'. Retrieved 2018-06-12.
- ^'FreeFem++'. freefem.org. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
- ^'Sorbonne Université | Lettres, Médecine, Sciences'. www.sorbonne-universite.fr. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
- ^Curie, UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie. 'Jacques-Louis Lions Laboratory (LJLL) - UMR 7598 - SCIENCE'. sciences.sorbonne-universite.fr. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
- ^Mathematica Documentation
- ^'Mathematica Quick Revision History'. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
- ^'Student Products - Free Simulation Software'. Ansys.com. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
- ^http://quickfield.com/pack.htm
- ^http://quickfield.com/allnews/qf64.htm
- ^http://www.quickfield.com/free_soft.htm
- ^'NX Nastran: Siemens PLM Software'. Plm.automation.siemens.com. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
- ^'Free Student License | Dlubal Software'. Dlubal.com. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
- ^'Plans & Pricing - SimScale Simulation Platform'. Simscale.com. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
- ^'Browsing VisualFEA (Finite Element Analysis) by Title'. Ecommons.cornell.edu. 2016-03-01. Retrieved 2017-05-28.
- ^GitHub For ease of maintenance of this table, please, first consider to contribute changes directly to the project instead of editing the table below, however, direct wiki edits are also valid and will be backported
