COMSOL Multiphysics vs FeenoX
COMSOL Multiphysics
comsol.comFeenoX
seamplex.comSide by side
| Figure | COMSOL Multiphysics | FeenoX |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 2 |
| Spec score · Physics Simulation Software | 8.9 (#2) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Authoring tools | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Yes | Yes |
| Delivery mode | desktop | desktop |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Integrations | Interfacing products include LiveLink for MATLAB, Simulink, and Excel, plus CAD links or import tools for SOLIDWORKS, Inventor, AutoCAD, Revit, Solid Edge, CATIA, and ECAD. | It reads Gmsh meshes, uses PETSc and SLEPc solvers, and writes Gmsh MSH or ParaView VTK/VTU results. |
| Lesson library | Yes | No |
| Offline access | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose | COMSOL Multiphysics simulates designs, devices, and processes across engineering, manufacturing, and scientific research. | FeenoX is a cloud-first computational engineering tool for solving engineering problems with one or many computers in parallel. |
| Support | To contact support, users must sign in with a COMSOL Access account; license options include technical support during the term or the first 12 months of a perpetual license. | The project directs users to GitHub Discussions for help and GitHub Issues for bug reporting. |
| 3D visuals | Yes | Yes |
Plans
COMSOL Multiphysics
- Perpetual license (commercial or academic; license type chosen by quotation)Priced on request
- Term license (commercial or academic; license type chosen by quotation)Priced on request
In their own words
COMSOL Multiphysics
COMSOL Multiphysics is desktop software for simulating designs, devices, and processes in engineering, manufacturing, and scientific research. It supports single-physics and fully coupled multiphysics models, including user-defined physics descriptions and equations. Model Builder covers work from geometry and CAD through physics modeling, meshing, studies, optimization, solving, and visualization. Supported fields include electromagnetics, structural mechanics, acoustics, fluid flow, heat transfer, and chemical reactions.
Model Manager provides version control, storage, search, collaboration, permissions, and support for local or remote server databases. Application Builder lets experts create custom simulation interfaces for collaborators and customers; deploying those applications requires COMSOL Server or COMSOL Compiler. Interfacing products include LiveLink for MATLAB, Simulink, and Excel, as well as CAD links or import tools. The software supports Windows, macOS, and Linux, with offline access, authoring tools, 3D visuals, and data export. It is paid, with pricing on request, and a free trial is available. Customers contact COMSOL to evaluate requirements and choose a license; a sales representative responds within one business day.
FeenoX
FeenoX is free, open-source computational engineering software for solving mathematical and engineering problems, including work across computers in parallel. It handles ODEs and DAEs, along with finite-element problems such as heat conduction, thermo-mechanical analysis, modal analysis, neutron diffusion, and neutron transport. Users describe problems in self-descriptive, English-like plain-text input files, so changes do not require recompiling. FeenoX reads Gmsh meshes and writes results in Gmsh MSH or ParaView VTK/VTU formats. It uses GNU GSL, SUNDIALS, PETSc, and SLEPc for computational tasks, and supports MPI parallelization. Installation options include Debian or Ubuntu packages, source tarballs, the GitHub repository, and generic statically linked GNU/Linux binaries. Ubuntu packages are available from version 25.04 onward. The generic binaries omit MUMPS and MPI and use basic optimization flags. FeenoX has no graphical interface, targets GNU/Linux, and is not expected to run in Windows. Browser access is available through interfaces such as SunCAE and CAEplex.