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Avogadro

Free, open-source molecular editor and 3D viewer for chemistry and materials science.

Open sourceMolecular visualization and chemistry software
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About Avogadro

Avogadro is a cross-platform molecule editor and viewer developed by the OpenChemistry project. Its main strength is building structures: you can sketch molecules in 3D, add fragments, tidy geometry with built-in force fields and then export input files for computational chemistry programs. It also reads results back, with native parsing of output from GAMESS, Gaussian, Molden, MOPAC, NWChem and ORCA, so orbitals and vibrations can be inspected. Avogadro 2 has a rewritten core and multithreaded renderer that handles thousands of atoms, and supports crystals, surfaces and biomolecules. Plugins can be written in Python. It is free under the BSD 3-clause licence and runs on Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon) and Linux, with translations into many languages. It is popular in teaching and research, but for large proteins and density maps, dedicated viewers like ChimeraX or PyMOL are better.

Best for: Chemistry students and computational chemists who build molecules and prepare calculation inputs.

Pros and cons

What works

  • Free and open source under the BSD 3-clause licence
  • Builds and optimises molecules, not just displays them
  • Reads output from GAMESS, Gaussian, ORCA, NWChem and others

Why people leave

  • Less suited to large proteins and cryo-EM maps
  • No web or mobile version
  • Windows on ARM is not supported yet

Top Avogadro alternatives

See all 2
  1. 1Jmol logo
    Jmol

    A free viewer that also runs in web pages, for sharing structures online.

    54.5
  2. 2PyMOL logo
    PyMOL

    Higher-quality rendered figures of biomolecules, with Python scripting.

    50.3

Why people left Avogadro

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Avogadro: common questions

Is Avogadro free?

Yes. Avogadro is free, open-source software.

Is Avogadro open source?

No, Avogadro is not open source. Open-source alternatives include Jmol.

What platforms does Avogadro run on?

Avogadro is available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

What are the best alternatives to Avogadro?

The highest-ranked Avogadro alternatives right now are Jmol and PyMOL. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.

See all 2 Avogadro alternatives