Free alternatives to ANSYS

Leading commercial simulation suite for structural, fluid and electromagnetic analysis. Here are 5 free options, most popular first.

OpenFOAM

Simulation (FEA & CFD)

Free, open-source computational fluid dynamics toolbox

Stars: ★ 2.3k
Licence: GPL-3.0
Updated: yesterday

Alternative to ANSYS

Gmsh

Simulation (FEA & CFD)

3D finite-element mesh generator with a built-in CAD engine

Stars: ★ 125
Licence: GPL-2.0+
Updated: yesterday

Alternative to ANSYS

code_aster

Simulation (FEA & CFD)

Structural and thermomechanical FEA solver developed by EDF

Stars: ★ 32
Licence: GPL-3.0
Updated: 3 days ago

Alternative to Abaqus, ANSYS

CalculiX

Simulation (FEA & CFD)

Free three-dimensional structural finite-element program

Licence: GPL-2.0
Status: Open source

Alternative to Abaqus, ANSYS

SALOME

Simulation (FEA & CFD)

Open-source platform for simulation pre- and post-processing

Licence: LGPL-2.1
Updated: 20 days ago

Alternative to ANSYS

Check file compatibility before switching. Free tools import STEP, DXF and other neutral formats well, but native SolidWorks, Altium or Revit files, drawing standards and PDM workflows may not carry over cleanly.