PCB Antenna Bench

Comparison › Solutions › openEMS

openEMS

Free and open-source FDTD electromagnetic solver. The model, mesh and post-processing are written as MATLAB/Octave or Python scripts.

VendorOpen source (GPL) · website
MethodFDTD
Geometry3D
PlatformsWindows, Linux, macOS
GPUNo (multi-threaded CPU)
Board importVia scripts or third-party converters
PriceFree
Free optionYes
Best forEngineers comfortable with scripting (MATLAB/Octave or Python) who want a free, accurate 3D solver

Strengths

  • Free and open source
  • Accurate 3D full-wave FDTD
  • Large community and many examples

Limits

  • No graphical model editor: everything is a script
  • Mesh must be designed by hand
  • No board import out of the box

Compare with

LW RF Studio · Ansys HFSS · CST Studio Suite · Altair Feko · Keysight ADS (Momentum, RFPro) · Cadence AWR Microwave Office (AXIEM) · Sonnet Suites · COMSOL Multiphysics (RF Module) · MATLAB Antenna Toolbox · 4nec2 (NEC-2) · MEEP