Alternatives to Stellarium
A planetarium on your screen showing exactly what is in the sky above you, tonight or on any date you choose. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Stellarium
A planetarium on your screen showing exactly what is in the sky above you, tonight or on any date you choose.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Stellarium.
KStars
A free, open-source desktop planetarium from KDE for simulating the sky and planning observations.
KStars is a free, open-source KDE planetarium for Windows, macOS and Linux with an observation planner and astrophotography workflow, but it has no mobile versions.
Celestia
An open-source real-time 3D space simulator for exploring the solar system, stars and galaxies.
Celestia is an open-source 3D space simulator for moving between planets, stars and galaxies, rather than showing the sky from your location with telescope control.
SpaceEngine
A 3D universe simulator for travelling between stars and galaxies and landing on planets.
SpaceEngine is paid Windows-only software for travelling across a partly procedural universe and landing on planets, instead of simulating the night sky above you.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Universe Sandbox
A physics-based space simulator for experimenting with gravity, collisions, climate and stellar evolution.
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.
Marble
A KDE virtual globe and world atlas that zooms from a desktop globe to OpenStreetMap street level.
Anki
Flashcards that schedule themselves, showing you a card just before you would have forgotten it.
Blender
The free 3D creation suite: modelling, sculpting, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and video editing.
