UCSF Chimera Alternatives

UCSF Chimera is described as 'Highly extensible program for interactive visualization and analysis of molecular structures and related data' and is an app. There are nine alternatives to UCSF Chimera for a variety of platforms, including Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and iPad apps. The best UCSF Chimera alternative is PyMOL. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Avogadro or Rasmol. Other great apps like UCSF Chimera are Jmol, VMD - Visual Molecular Dynamics, ChimeraX and Vipster.

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UCSF Chimera alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. PyMOL icon
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    PyMOL is a powerful and comprehensive molecular visualization product for rendering and animating 3D molecular structures.

    11 PyMOL alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Subscription
    • Open Source

    Platforms

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

    • PyMOL is the most popular Open Source & commercial alternative to UCSF Chimera.

    • PyMOL is Paid and Open SourceUCSF Chimera is Free and Proprietary
  2. Avogadro icon
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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.

    22 Avogadro alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
    • Avogadro is the most popular free alternative to UCSF Chimera.

    • Avogadro is Free and Open SourceUCSF Chimera is Free and Proprietary
  3. Rasmol icon
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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
     
  4. Jmol icon
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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. Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard

    VMD is a molecular visualization program for displaying, animating, and analyzing large biomolecular systems using 3-D graphics and built-in scripting.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  6. ChimeraX icon
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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
     
  7. 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 UCSF Chimera.

    • Vipster is Free and Open SourceUCSF Chimera is Free and Proprietary
    • Vipster is Privacy focusedUCSF Chimera is not according to our users
  8. 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.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Wine
     
  9. 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 UCSF Chimera.

    • CellWalk is Freemium and ProprietaryUCSF Chimera is Free and Proprietary
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