SimScale Community Plan — The Complete Guide: Cloud CFD and FEA in the Browser, and Its Limits
SimScale is a cloud simulation platform: flow, solid mechanics and heat transfer run on the company’s servers while you work in the browser. You upload geometry, build a mesh, define boundary conditions and view results in the same interface.
SimScale (community plan)
SimScale GmbH
CFD and FEA simulation in the cloud from the browser. Community plan limited in compute hours and public.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- CFD — internal and external flow, including ventilation and wind loads.
- Structural analysis — static, dynamic and natural frequencies.
- Heat transfer — including fluid-solid coupling.
- Every step in the browser — geometry, mesh, setup, run and post-processing.
- Public project library — you can copy other people’s projects and learn from them.
What the free plan allows
The Community plan is free, but it is capped by a yearly compute-hour quota — and every project on it is public: anyone can see the geometry and the results. So it suits learning, practice and demonstrations — not a client project or a confidential product. Private projects and extra compute resources require a paid subscription. Quotas can change — check the official pricing page.
Related tools
For local, private work with no limits — OpenFOAM for flow, PrePoMax with CalculiX for structures, and CAELinux as a ready-made environment.
OpenFOAM
OpenFOAM Foundation
Comprehensive CFD solvers — flow, turbulence, heat transfer and multiphase. Text-file driven, no GUI.
Get it from the vendorPrePoMax
University of Maribor
Full graphical front end for CalculiX — meshing, materials, loads and results in one window.
Get it from the vendor
CalculiX
CalculiX Project
Open-source FEA with syntax close to Abaqus. The solver behind the FreeCAD FEM workbench.
Get it from the vendor
CAELinux
CAELinux Project
A Linux distribution that ships with the whole computational engineering toolbox pre-installed.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
SimScale is an excellent way to start simulating with no installation and no hardware — as long as you remember that on the free plan everything is public.