ChemDraw is described as 'Communication suite for managing, reporting and presenting Chemistry research. Produce precise chemical structures with our premier chemical drawing solution' and is an app in the education & reference category. There are more than 10 alternatives to ChemDraw for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iPhone apps. The best ChemDraw alternative is Chemaxon Marvin, which is free. Other great apps like ChemDraw are ChemDoodle, ACD/ChemSketch, MedChem Designer and JChemPaint.
Marvin suite is a chemically intelligent desktop toolkit built to help you draw, edit, publish, render, import and export your chemical structures and as well as allowing you to convert between various chemical and graphical file formats.
If you are looking for a chemical sketcher or an alternative to your current chemical drawing application, there is no better choice than ChemDoodle. ChemDoodle works on all operating systems (both 32 and 64 bit), has one of the largest feature sets in the industry, has the most...
Closest thing to ChemDraw functionality and, unlike ChemDraw, it works natively on Linux. Sadly, the author has chosen a frustrating atom-first drawing mechanic which is hugely counterintuitive. But if you can learn to accept it, ChemDoodle is a respectable ChemDraw alternative (unless you need to draw pi complexes).
Functionally equivalent and very similar in features. Very similar layout makes it very easy for chemists to switch
ACD/ChemSketch is a chemically intelligent drawing interface that allows you to draw almost any chemical structure including organics, organometallics, polymers, and Markush structures. Use it to produce professional looking structures and diagrams for reports and publications.
A good alternative to ChemDraw in very limited circumstances: 1) you need it on Windows only, 2) You don't have to collaborate with ChemDraw users, 3) You don't mind looking at a confusing, dated interface. Otherwise, fine.
"MedChem Designer 3.0 is a free chemical structure drawing program. MedChem Designer can open SMILES, SDF, MOL, CSK, and RXN file types. Up to 32 compounds can be displayed in one window. Images can be exported in SMILES, SD, MOL, CQF, bitmap, JPG, or PNG formats.
JChemPaint (or JCP for short here) is the editor and viewer for 2D chemical structures developed using the Chemistry Development Kit (CDK).
KingDraw App is a free chemical drawing editor that allows users to sketch molecules and reactions, as well as organic chemistry objects and pathways.
XDrawChem is a free software program for drawing chemical structural formulas, available for Unix and Mac OS. It is distributed under the GNU GPL. In Microsoft Windows this program is called WinDrawChem.
More simply for use in class
A 2D molecular editing tool for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Its goal is to help you draw molecules quick and easily. Of course your creations can be exported afterwards in high quality in a number of vector and bitmap formats.
What's your favorite molecule? With ChemJuice, chemical structure drawing is now at your fingertips.
MolView is an intuitive, Open-Source web-application to make science and education more awesome!
BKChem is a free (as in free software :o) chemical drawing program. It was conceived and written by Beda Kosata and is currently maintained by Reinis Danne.
BKchem is an old attempt at replacing some of ChemDraw's functionality. It succeeded partially in providing some of ChemDraw's very core chemical structure drawing features. Unfortunately, BKchem has seen no new development since 2010, leaving it in limbo.
Very usefull software. You can paste images created with BKChem in a text processor or another open source graphical software like InkScape.
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Simple structures are needed.