PyMOL Alternatives

PyMOL is described as 'Powerful and comprehensive molecular visualization product for rendering and animating 3D molecular structures' and is an app in the education & reference category. There are more than 10 alternatives to PyMOL for a variety of platforms, including Mac, Windows, Linux, Web-based and Android apps. The best PyMOL alternative is Avogadro, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like PyMOL are UCSF Chimera, Calistry.org, Jmol and Rasmol.

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Alternatives list

  1. Avogadro icon
     15 likes
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    Avogadro is an advanced molecule editor and visualizer designed for cross-platform use in computational chemistry, molecular modeling, bioinformatics, materials science, and related areas.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
    • Avogadro is the most popular Windows, Mac & Linux alternative to PyMOL.

    • Avogadro is the most popular Open Source & free alternative to PyMOL.

    • Avogadro is Free and Open SourcePyMOL is Paid and Open Source
  2. UCSF Chimera icon
     2 likes
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    UCSF Chimera is a highly extensible program for interactive visualization and analysis of molecular structures and related data.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  3. Calistry.org icon
     6 likes
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    Calistry is an online Chemistry Calculator. Till date Calistry contains 70+ calculators in the field of Chemistry. Everything in the website is entirely free to use. Other than calculators, Calistry also provides online molecular viewers that visualizes coordinate file of...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Android
     
    • Calistry.org is the most popular Web-based & Android alternative to PyMOL.

    • Calistry.org is Free and ProprietaryPyMOL is Paid and Open Source
  4. Jmol icon
     3 likes
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    Jmol is a free, open source molecule viewer for students, educators, and researchers in chemistry and biochemistry. It is cross-platform, running on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux/Unix systems.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  5. Rasmol icon
     2 likes
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    RasMol is a computer program written for molecular graphics visualization intended and used primarily for the depiction and exploration of biological macromolecule structures, such as those found in the Protein Data Bank.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  6. QuteMol icon
     1 like
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    QuteMol is an open source (GPL), interactive, high quality molecular visualization system. QuteMol exploits the current GPU capabilites through OpenGL shaders to offers an array of innovative visual effects.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
     
  7. ChimeraX icon
     1 like
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    UCSF ChimeraX (or simply ChimeraX) is the next-generation molecular visualization program from the Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics (RBVI), following UCSF Chimera. ChimeraX can be downloaded free of charge for academic, government, nonprofit, and...

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  8. CellWalk icon
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    Explore detailed 3D cell biology down to the molecular level, or tour life’s molecular machines. CellWalk is a beautiful new way for students to learn biology.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Pay once)
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • iPhone
    • iPad
    • visionOS
     
    • CellWalk is the most popular iPhone & iPad alternative to PyMOL.

    • CellWalk is Freemium and ProprietaryPyMOL is Paid and Open Source
  9. RasTop icon
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    RasTop is a molecular visualization software adapted from the program RasMol, which was initially developed by Roger Sayle. RasTop is particularly adapted for educational purposes and for the rapid analysis of macromolecules at the bench.

    12 RasTop alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Wine
     
  10. Vipster icon
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    Vipster is a powerful and versatile tool for pre- and post-processing of periodic chemical structures. It's designed from the ground up with periodic simulations in mind.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • Flatpak
    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Self-Hosted
     
    • Vipster is the most popular Self-Hosted alternative to PyMOL.

    • Vipster is Free and Open SourcePyMOL is Paid and Open Source
    • Vipster is Privacy focusedPyMOL is not according to our users
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