Talk:List of finite element software packages

Unfortunate removal of entries
The user Mecanismo's past few edits seem to have removed several mentions of decent and promising software from the list, on the grounds of having no Wikipedia article, containing external link "spam" etc.

Please consider reintroducing several of the removed entries. 80.232.11.13 (talk) 17:52, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The article should not be used for spam purposes. If you wish to include any software package in this discussion then at least make sure it deserves a dedicated article in wikipedia.  If not, it amounts to spam and it will be removed from here -- Mecanismo | Talk

That makes this a 'list of FEM software with wikipedia articles'. Seems to me that there is an awful lot of software in the world, most of which has its own home site and filling wikipedia up with pages about every single one of them is not particularly useful. But putting some of that software in lists on wikipedia _is_ useful as it lets people see what options are available/used. I do agree that some kind of usefulness/popularity/quality criteria make sense rather than listing every bit of software in the world, no matter how much it is someone's pet project. But equally there is a genuine problem that at the lower end of that scale something should qualify for the list, but not really need a wikipedia article too. Am I missing something? (I was brought to this discussion because I added Energy2D to the list, but it was removed again for this reason https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_finite_element_software_packages&oldid=prev&diff=888424581 That's just an example, but it fits this situation well IMHO. It's good software, well-used, in many published papers, deserving of a place in a FEM list, but I wouldn't naturally write a wikipedia article about it - I'd just point at its webpage). Is it really wikipedia policy that all (software?) lists want an article on list entries before something can be added to a list? Wookey | talk

FEMM
Missing. Does provide Magnetics, Electrostatics and Heat Flow solutions. FEM analysis can be also done by using scripts.



I agree. FEMM is used frequently in industry and academia (see e.g. ). It solves 2D problems (specified with 3D depth or rotation symmetry), which often is sufficient and usually solves very quickly on regular desktop computers. It comes with a useful material library and has a rudimentary but very effective user interface. Should definitely be included here. --Langenforth (talk) 20:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)


 * This is a list of software packages that have Wikipedia articles. If it meets Wikipedia's inclusion standards, feel free to write an article, then it can be listed here. MrOllie (talk) 20:53, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

CATIA
I heard that CATIA has a FEM, too. 80.171.219.20 (talk) 19:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Franc2d/3d
Seems to be currently missing Franc2d/3d http://www.cfg.cornell.edu/software/franc2d_casca.htm
 * You may include it in the list if it is notable product. Salih  ( talk ) 14:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Table of comparison
It would be better to arrange this list in a table.

--Vireax (talk) 22:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I Think that this is a good idea.Nicoguaro (talk) 16:36, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I created the table with the opensource ones and some of the commercial ones. I think we should remove some of them... they are too much.Nicoguaro (talk) 20:04, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Algor, Patran
not in your list — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.74.185 (talk) 03:31, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Johns Hopkins Bridge Designer
Not sure if it is worthy of inclusion. It is very basic, but good for middle school students doing basic bridge design.

http://www.jhu.edu/virtlab/bridge-designer/

It is web/java based, so should be considered proprietary, even though it is freely available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spin2Win (talk • contribs) 18:30, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

OpenSees is not "Free/Open source"
Non-commercial licenses don't meet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition Simul8or (talk) 21:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

FEM?
Are all of this packages based on Finite Elements? As far as I know, OpenFoam works on the basis of Finite Volumes.. 88.101.184.52 (talk) 18:45, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

GetFEM++
I am willing to create a Wikipedia article about GetFEM++ to comply with this condition for having it listed here. In my opinion GetFEM++ is clearly more mature and rich in features than other already included software. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Logari81 (talk • contribs) 08:17, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Why include pre and post processors
I was wondering why we include pre and post processors in this list. In and of themselves they are not FEM software packages. They are just tools that let you use FEM. XFEM Skier (talk) 14:28, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Midas
Midas family products are missing (http://www.midasfea.com/). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pilafa (talk • contribs) 15:30, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Libmesh and moose
I would also like to suggest an other library missing here: Libmesh and Moose which is based on libmesh. I also think they both deserve a wikipedia entry; its quite large projects with a huge amount of possibilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.30.0.63 (talk) 10:34, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

FreeCAD
FreeCAD is in itself not a FE software, instead a CAD software with integration to FE software. Therefore, I am of the opinion that it should be removed from this list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drejdub (talk • contribs) 12:01, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

code_aster
I added code_aster back because it's a significant open source FEA tool. Another user removed the entry due to the lack of a Wikipedia page. This is rather frustrating, as it used to have a page but was deleted due to WP:Notability and it was considered too niche. This is rather annoying, as many entries on this page would not pass the Notability standard as used in the case of the code_aster page. So what's the solution here? EndingPop (talk) 13:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

COI edit request: adding a new Software product to the list
Hi. My name is Sriya. I work for MathWorks, which develops MATLAB. MATLAB has a notable toolbox that provides finite element software, but hasn't been included on this list yet. I wanted to ask that we be added and provided the wiki-code and information for it below. Thank you in advance for considering my request and let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Pinging who is familiar with MATLAB and looked at a similar request on another page. Skmathworks (talk) 21:05, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Done. Very helpful, formatting it like that. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:25, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Feature comparison table
(Edited) I maintain this table since 2015 at https://github.com/kostyfisik/FEA-compare It is a convenient way for devs to provide info about the software and I got contribution from many open source devs of FEM software. However, MrOllie doesn't like it. What is a valid way to solve this type of conflicts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kostyfisik (talk • contribs) 20:47, 6 July 2020 (UTC)


 * This is a Wikipedia page, either you maintain it here (and accept local edits), or it shouldn't be on this page at all. - MrOllie (talk) 21:11, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Let us start from the very beginning.

1) Does this comparison is useful for anyone, who needs to select some FEM software for his study or research from your point of view? (For me the answer is yes, the table is the result of my attempt to answer this question during my research in the university, I am a lecturer on numerical methods. What is your opinion?)

2) To make this type of comparison is a lot of work, as soon as it is not always easy to get needed information from the software documentations (sometimes it is just in code). It took several years to reach the current state. What are other ways to make an easy way to access this comparison? For me, Wikipedia looks to be an only valid choice.

3) What are other possible ways to represent this data other than a huge and ugly table in Wikipedia?

Note, that to manage this table it seems to be possible only to wikipedia guru, which are most likely not FEM guru. And you need to be both to make some valid contribution. So even if you accept local edit, no one is going to edit it (except, probably, paid guys from commercial companies). The problem is that FEM has a lot of aspects, and the table is extremely long. Moreover, I do not say that I know what should be in the features list for this table, so it is open to be extended (some packages some unique features, that are important for some special applications).

The reason I have created that project on GitHub is to separate complexity, and it seems to work. I would be very happy if you can propose any other way to do the job, so I can stop maintaining it. However, just dropping it out does not look to be a reasonable solution for me at the moment. Kostyfisik (talk) 06:34, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * 1) This is beside the point. The phone book is useful, but we don't include phone listings on Wikipedia.
 * 2) Wikipedia is not your web hosting, just because you see it as the only option to share your content does not mean your content is appropriate here.
 * 3) A huge and ugly table on your own web site, if you insist on blowing away other people's changes whenever you update it.
 * People have been editing it (myself included). You've been ignoring those edits and reverting them when you next do an update. This is one of the problems, along with the section including inappropriate stuff such as external links and promotional text. Either you need to leave it alone and never use your script to update it again to allow Wikipedia volunteers edits to stand, or it needs to not be in the article at all. - MrOllie (talk) 11:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Great! I hope I got it!

1) I will add an additional step to my workflow, I will backport changes from wiki editors of the table to the GitHub repo, at the moment I still think that there will be just a few (if any) of them per year.

2) As I checked few last edits from you, they are pure editorial ones, just to enforce the policy for external links, right? Sorry for this. I will modify my script, so it will keep links for GitHub table, and remove them all in wiki table. I will update the table and leading paragraph to reflect this. Just give me few days, it should be done by next Monday.

If you can point any other changes done via wiki edits, I will backport them to GitHub too. I am really sorry for this, I was petty sure that it is much easier for any FEM expert to propose these changes at GitHub (where most of them develop FEM software anyway) when try to go thru wiki syntax. Kostyfisik (talk) 13:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I look forward to seeing what you come up with. In the mean time, please self revert your latest changes, as the article as you have left it is not policy compliant. - MrOllie (talk) 13:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, someone else has removed it again. Please don't re-add it. - MrOllie (talk) 13:19, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with MrOllie This information is not appropriate for this project. Wikipedia is not a WP:NOTWEBHOST VViking Talk Edits 13:19, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I hope I`ve fixed it. Any comments what can be wrong with it now?Kostyfisik (talk) 20:29, 7 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I cleaned up some more promotional wording, removed a couple of rows that shouldn't be there, removed the columns for all the stuff that doesn't have Wikipedia articles (and thus fails the standard list inclusion criteria), gave the rest a quick scan for promo-ish wording, and I linked all the column headers. It is still borderline (lots of this information is lacking sources it probably should have), but I'm willing to let stay like this as a compromise if Viewmont Viking is. Again, please don't just run your script again in the future, this table must retain local changes made by Wikipedia editors. - MrOllie (talk) 20:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Why you have removed stats on documentation? Most of the software mentioned here is opensource, this way documentation is an essential part to make any conclusion which one to use (there is no paid support for most of this software). As soon as it can be easily compared by amount and types of supporting documentation it is usefull to see overall numbers. On the other hand it is not easy to detect all types of documentation of a particular project as soon as it can be spread between various resources and obviously if you would like to compare different codes you need to visit each website and to write out numbers for every one (wich takes some time).

All the information in this table can be supported by external links, however, for me it looks to be safer not to use any of them to avoid conflicts with multiple Wiki policies. If you can list them (e.g. 5 items to start with) I will try to provide needed references, and you might help to include them in a proper way. Kostyfisik (talk) 07:30, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Why was SimPlas removed
It's legit and two of the most cited Authors created it. Simplas (talk) 15:16, 5 September 2020 (UTC)


 * As I replied when you asked the same question on my user talk page: :That is a list of software with preexisting Wikipedia articles. Also see WP:COI and WP:PAID. - MrOllie (talk) 15:48, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Update Link to Ansys's Website
Hi all,

Any chance we can update the link in footnote #9?

The current link — http://www.ansys.com/Products/Academic/ANSYS-Student — automatically redirects to https://www.ansys.com/academic/students. Can we therefore update the former to the latter?

Even though this seems to be an "uncontroversial" edit, given my conflict of interest, I'd prefer that an independent editor review it first.

Thank you.

Signed, BlueRoses13 (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Regards, Spintendo  17:23, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, @Spintendo! Signed, BlueRoses13 (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2023 (UTC)