Alternatives to SpaceEngine
A 3D universe simulator for travelling between stars and galaxies and landing on planets. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
SpaceEngine
A 3D universe simulator for travelling between stars and galaxies and landing on planets.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as SpaceEngine.
Universe Sandbox
A physics-based space simulator for experimenting with gravity, collisions, climate and stellar evolution.
Universe Sandbox is also paid but runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and focuses on gravity simulation and building or destroying star systems.
Celestia
An open-source real-time 3D space simulator for exploring the solar system, stars and galaxies.
Celestia is free and open source under GPL-2.0, runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and offers real-time 3D exploration without procedural planets.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Stellarium
A planetarium on your screen showing exactly what is in the sky above you, tonight or on any date you choose.
KStars
A free, open-source desktop planetarium from KDE for simulating the sky and planning observations.
Google Earth
A free 3D globe with high-resolution imagery, historical imagery layers and guided Voyager stories.
NASA Worldview
A browser tool from NASA for exploring full-resolution daily satellite imagery of the whole globe.
