OVITO Basic

  • Free of charge (open-source license)
  • Only limited feature set
  • Graphical user interface
  • For occasional or educational use
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OVITO Basic is for occasional users who need a convenient tool to visualize and inspect particle-based simulations. Students and teachers can use the software in the classroom. Being open source OVITO Basic gives you access to the underlying data algorithms if needed.

Furthermore, we invite you to contribute new code to the project under the MIT/GPL open source licenses. Share your newly developed computational methods with the research community and make them readily available to a broad audience as part of OVITO Basic.

FREE

OVITO Pro

  • High-quality image and movie generation
  • Powerful data analysis tools
  • Python-based scripting interface
  • Professional software support
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OVITO Pro is our professional solution made for scientists who require unique productivity features such as integrated Python scripting and code generation, advanced data analysis tools and high-quality image rendering functions, which are not available in OVITO Basic. Licensees of OVITO Pro receive priority support directly from the OVITO team.

Proceeds from OVITO Pro enable us to further expand the code and provide the research community with well-maintained program packages on a long-term basis.

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If you have any specific questions, comments or concerns, please get in touch with us. See also our list of frequently asked questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Yes, we offer a 30-days trial license for OVITO Pro, which is free of charge. Please request the trial license here.

Our license agreement (see full text) grants you the right to use OVITO Pro for one year (or longer if agreed). The contract terminates automatically after the year – unless you explicitly renew it. You receive access to all program updates and improvements we publish during this period, and we will provide you and your team with professional technical support. 

Yes, we offer group licenses for OVITO Pro. A mini-group license for up to 5 users/installations and the standard group license (10 installation seats or more).

Note that use of the OVITO Python module on HPC computing clusters is not limited. Thus, you can run an arbitrary number of OVITO data analysis or rendering jobs.

Our license management solution lets each group member manage their OVITO Pro installation(s) on their own. The designated license administrator only monitors the utilization of the available license seats. More details here.

OVITO is a very specific niche product with a relatively small number of paying customers (mostly from academia and research organisations) and no public funding. We must ensure that the sales proceeds are sufficient to sustainably cover all costs of our independent company and its employees (approx. 16,000€ per month). The company must pay salaries of senior researchers/developers, corporate taxes, transaction fees, lawyers, accounting services, computers, web hosting, insurance and more. Also keep in mind that our company bears the full burden of providing and maintaining OVITO Basic – an open source program that benefits the entire research community.

Because we develop the software for a living. In academia, where the OVITO project started 12 years ago, obtaining permanent and long-term funding turned out to be impossible. That’s why we must ask the users (you) for financial contributions in order to keep OVITO available to the scientific community. Creating and supporting a professional, high-quality application software like OVITO is more than a full-time job, and as founders of a university spin-off we need to be compensated for this work in some way.

Giving it away for free was possible because we used to develop the OVITO software on the side – as a pet project of materials researchers working in academia as non-faculty staff. We enjoyed working extra hours to develop the code, fix bugs, and support our users. But without long-term funding and –more importantly– without permanent positions for the people behind OVITO, the conditions were not sustainable. With OVITO becoming more and more popular and a very time-consuming job, it became clear that a different approach was needed. That’s why we founded a spin-off company: Giving us the opportunity to make OVITO better than ever before and to ensure the long-term availability for its many users.

No, we only sell limited-term licenses for our software. Typically periods between 1 and 4 years, during which you receive software updates and support from us.

This licensing model ensures that you and your team will always have access to the latest software releases and to our professional support services. We continuously extend the functionality of OVITO Pro and assist our customers if they need help with the software. Furthermore, the recurring revenue is vital for us as a small startup business to continue the development and maintenance. One-time payments would not be helpful to keep the project alive in the long run. OVITO Pro is a product for an extremely small niche market.

We know that some academic institutions and researchers are heavily underfunded, and the license fee for OVITO Pro may be difficult to afford. If you can show credibly that paying the regular license fee is impossible for you, we can offer the software at a highly reduced price. Please contact us directly and ask for a rebate. Our first objective is to make OVITO accessible to the entire research community.

We do partner with customers to accelerate the development of certain product features driven by customer demand. Customers may fund specific product feature development, for inclusion in the standard product available to all customers. Contact us for more information or to discuss development of specific product features that your research group may require.