Delft3D FM
Open Source
Deltares' open flexible-mesh suite for rivers, estuaries and coasts — hydrodynamics to morphology.
openTELEMAC
ActiveEDF's open-source finite-element suite for free-surface flow — 2D/3D rivers, estuaries, waves and sediment.
by EDF R&D / TELEMAC Consortium
- Pricing
- Open Source
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- Fortran, Python
- Platform
- Windows, Linux
About openTELEMAC
The openTELEMAC-MASCARET suite, led by EDF R&D, solves free-surface hydrodynamics by finite elements on unstructured meshes: TELEMAC-2D/3D for flow, GAIA for sediment and morphodynamics, TOMAWAC for waves and MASCARET for 1D. It carries decades of production use in European river, estuarine and coastal engineering, including safety-critical EDF studies.
Fully open source with an active consortium, it scales to large parallel runs and is a serious free alternative to Delft3D for estuarine and coastal work. Expect a steeper setup curve than desktop-GUI packages; the QGIS and BlueKenue toolchains ease model building.
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 openTELEMAC
Ranked by the topics, categories and workflow stages they share with openTELEMAC.
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.
ANUGA
Open Source
Open-source 2D shallow-water modelling in Python from Geoscience Australia — strong for dam break and tsunami.
Flood Modeller
Freemium
Jacobs' 1D/2D river and floodplain suite — a UK practice staple with a genuinely useful free tier.