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Molsketch vs ChemCanvas: catalog facts
Molsketch	ChemCanvas
Best for: Students and chemists preparing molecular structure diagrams	Best for: Students and chemists drawing structures and reactions without a ChemDraw licence
Free Free and open source under GPL-2.0-only.	Free Free and open source under GPL-3.0-or-later.
Linux	Windows, Linux
Imports and exports formats supported by OpenBabel Exports SVG, bitmap images, and PDF All 3 strengths for Molsketch Imports and exports formats supported by OpenBabel Exports SVG, bitmap images, and PDF Includes a library of molecules and functional groups	Reads and writes SMILES, Molfile, MRV and CDXML Exports to PDF, PNG and editable SVG All 4 strengths for ChemCanvas Reads and writes SMILES, Molfile, MRV and CDXML Exports to PDF, PNG and editable SVG Fetches structures from PubChem Many packaging options on Linux
Focused on two-dimensional molecular structure diagrams	No macOS build Supports fewer file formats than commercial chemistry suites
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: GPL-2.0-only	License: GPL-3.0-or-later
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Molsketch flathub.org/apps/net.sourceforge.molsketch Catalog checked October 8, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for ChemCanvas ksharindam.github.io/chemcanvas Catalog checked October 1, 2026

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