openTELEMAC
Open Source
EDF's open-source finite-element suite for free-surface flow — 2D/3D rivers, estuaries, waves and sediment.
Delft3D FM
ActiveDeltares' open flexible-mesh suite for rivers, estuaries and coasts — hydrodynamics to morphology.
by Deltares
- Pricing
- Open Source
- License
- AGPL/GPL (open source engines)
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- Standalone, Python (dfm_tools)
- Platform
- Windows, Linux
About Delft3D FM
Delft3D Flexible Mesh is Deltares' flagship modelling suite for rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal seas: 1D/2D/3D hydrodynamics on unstructured meshes, with tightly coupled modules for waves, sediment transport and morphology, and water quality (DELWAQ). It is the reference tool where rivers meet salt water — estuarine salinity, sediment budgets, delta morphodynamics.
The computational engines are open source, and a large international user community exists; in practice serious use often pairs the free engines with Deltares' service packages and GUIs. For estuarine and coastal-river problems it has few equals at any price.
Where it fits in the workflow
TerrainCatchmentRainfallRunoffRoutingHydraulicsMappingReporting
Appears in collections
- Alternatives to HEC-RAS
Free and commercial hydraulic engines worth knowing when HEC-RAS is not the answer.
Alternatives to Delft3D FM
Ranked by the topics, categories and workflow stages they share with Delft3D FM.
BASEMENT
Free
ETH Zurich's free 2D hydraulics and morphodynamics simulator — rivers, sediment and hazard mapping.
HEC-RAS
FreeVerified
The world's most used hydraulic model: free 1D/2D river analysis, sediment, water quality and flood mapping.
SRH-2D
Free
The US Bureau of Reclamation's free 2D river model — FHWA's preferred engine for bridge hydraulics.
EFDC+
Freemium
Open-source 3D hydrodynamics and water quality — the EFDC lineage modernised, with a commercial GUI option.
ANUGA
Open Source
Open-source 2D shallow-water modelling in Python from Geoscience Australia — strong for dam break and tsunami.