Finite element analysis software now comes in three forms: online platforms that run in a browser, desktop packages installed on a workstation, and open-source solvers you build and maintain yourself. The choice decides how large a model you can run, how many variants you can test at once, and what you pay per analysis. This article compares the three, explains how online FEA software works step by step, and walks through a 997,053-node stress analysis of a welded steel lifting fixture that solved in 15 minutes in the cloud and was used for an insurer-mandated safety assessment.
What is finite element analysis software?
Finite element analysis software is the application layer that turns a CAD model into a solved structural, thermal, or vibration problem: it meshes the geometry, applies materials, loads, and constraints, runs a finite element solver, and renders stress, deformation, and frequency results. Every package, whatever its delivery model, performs those five steps. The differences are where the computation runs, how you pay for it, and how results are shared.
For the method behind the software, see the SimWiki article on what finite element analysis is. This article is about choosing and using the software.
FEA software, FEM software, and FEM simulation
FEM (finite element method) is the numerical method. FEA (finite element analysis) is the engineering application of that method. “FEM software,” “FEA software,” and “FEM simulation software” describe the same category of tools, and everything in this article applies to all three terms.
Three types of FEA software
The three delivery models differ in installation, hardware, cost, and collaboration. The table summarizes; the sections that follow go into each.
| Criterion | Online FEA software (cloud-native) | Desktop FEA software | Open-source FEA software |
|---|---|---|---|
| Examples | SimScale | Ansys® Mechanical, Abaqus, Siemens Simcenter™, SolidWorks® Simulation | CalculiX, Code_Aster, Elmer FEM |
| Installation | None, browser only | Local install, license server | Local install, often a manual build |
| Hardware | Cloud cores, elastic | Workstation or on-prem HPC | Your own machine |
| Model size limit | Core-hour budget | Local RAM and cores | Local RAM and cores |
| Parallel design studies | Yes, concurrent runs | Limited by seats and machines | Limited by machines |
| Cost model | Subscription plus core hours; free tier | Perpetual or annual license plus hardware | Free software, your time |
| Collaboration | Share by link, no license needed | File exchange | File exchange |
| Support | Vendor, in-platform | Vendor | Community forums |
| Validation documentation | Published validation cases | Vendor verification manuals | Varies by project |
Online FEA software
Online FEA software runs the full workflow in a browser tab, with meshing and solving on cloud hardware. Nothing is installed and no license server is involved. It suits teams that need large models, parallel studies, or easy sharing without owning HPC hardware. “Cloud-hosted” desktop tools are a different thing: a conventional desktop application on a remote virtual machine reached over remote desktop or VPN. A cloud-native platform runs in the browser itself.
Desktop FEA software
Desktop packages are installed locally and licensed per seat or per solver token. They fit established analyst groups with existing workstations, mature scripted workflows, and customers or regulators who name a specific code in the contract. Model size is bounded by local RAM, and parallel studies are bounded by the number of licensed seats and machines.
Open-source FEA software
Open-source solvers such as CalculiX, Code_Aster, and Elmer FEM are free to use and well validated, but they ship without a maintained pre- and post-processor, vendor support, or a hosted compute layer. They suit users with the time to assemble and maintain a toolchain and the expertise to verify their own setups.
How does online finite element analysis software work?
An online FEA run follows the same five steps as a desktop run. The difference is where each step executes.
1. Upload and prepare CAD
You upload a STEP, Parasolid, IGES, or native CAD file to the platform, or connect directly from a cloud CAD tool such as Onshape. Geometry cleanup, part simplification, and contact detection happen in the browser.
2. Mesh in the cloud
The mesher runs on cloud servers, so mesh size is limited by the core-hour budget rather than by local RAM. Second-order tetrahedral meshes of a million nodes or more are routine. Local refinement zones, element order, and sizing controls are set in the browser and the mesh job runs remotely.
3. Define materials, contacts, loads, and boundary conditions
Material libraries, contact definitions, loads, and constraints are set up in the same browser interface. Nonlinear material models (plasticity, hyperelasticity), friction and sliding contact, and thermal loads are available on the SimScale structural mechanics platform.
4. Solve on parallel cloud cores
The solver runs on a cluster provisioned for the job. Runtime is governed by model size, element order, contact complexity, and the number of cores allocated. Several simulations can run at the same time, so a design study with 10 variants takes about as long as one.
5. Post-process and share online
Results are rendered in the browser: deformation, von Mises stress, principal stress, reaction forces, eigenmodes. A project can be shared by link with a colleague, client, or certifier who has no license and no software installed.
What can FEA software simulate?
Modern FEA software covers the analysis types a structural engineer uses day to day. SimScale supports linear static, nonlinear static (large deformation, contact, plasticity, hyperelasticity), modal (eigenfrequency), harmonic response, transient dynamic, and thermomechanical analysis.
The same platform also runs CFD and conjugate heat transfer, so a bracket that carries a thermal load from a heat source, or a rotor blade under combined pressure and thermal loading, can be analyzed without moving data between tools. CFD pressure results transfer directly to the FEA model for stress and fatigue assessment.
Case study: cloud FEA software on a steel lifting fixture
A 997,053-node linear static stress analysis of a custom carrying fixture, required by a client’s insurer, solved in 15 minutes on SimScale. The analysis found two allowable-stress violations and gave the consultant enough information to recommend reinforcement or a follow-up nonlinear study.
The problem
The engineering consultancy Senid was asked by one of its customers for a structural stress analysis of a custom-made carrying fixture, which was requested by their insurance company. The client is a steel shop that fabricates and provides maintenance for a mining company. Since large (and expensive) mining equipment and its components are being replaced, moved, and maintained, a structural safety analysis is required for all equipment and tools identified as critical. This fixture is one of these cases.
The design of the structure is shown in Figure 1, as depicted in the design drawings delivered by the client. The fixture bolts a 4 Ton piece of equipment in the upper flanges and is carried using a forklift through the bottom rectangular holes. The fixture is made of welded structural steel, plates, and channel profiles.
Modeling and meshing
As the structure is composed of thin-walled parts, shell elements would cut down on the time and simulation resource requirements. In this case, however, the modeling has to fully capture the stiffness and material redundancies in joints and the changes in thickness, which is difficult with shells. Solid modeling with tetrahedral elements is faster and easier to model and post-process for this geometry, so that is what Senid used.
When modeling with these types of elements, some general rules are always advised:
- Use second-order elements.
- In thin-walled parts subjected to bending, use a minimum of two elements through the thickness, if first-order elements are used. One element should be enough in the case of second-order elements.
- Keep the elements’ aspect ratio close to 1.
Condition three in conjunction with condition two dictates that a first-order mesh would be very fine, which goes against condition one anyway. So a second-order mesh was used, with the element size specified to give one element through the minimum thickness while keeping the aspect ratio as close to 1 as possible. The resulting mesh, computed in the SimScale platform, is shown in Figure 2.
This is the minimum viable mesh. Depending on the first results, areas of stress concentration can be identified and local refinements added. As it is, it has the following statistics:
- Number of nodes: 997 053
- Number of elements: 524 627
That is a sizable problem. Running it on a typical workstation would take some time and require considerable memory resources, and that is equally true for the minimum viable model. In the cloud, hardware is not the constraint.
Load case
The type of simulation is linear static, considering the following load case:
- 4 Ton load applied to flange holes
- Self-weight of the structure
- 2.5% lateral load, in the weak direction
- Displacement constraint on bottom holes
Results
The simulation run finished in 15 minutes. The deformation plot shows a maximum displacement of around 4 mm.
Stress concentration zones occur at the top of the reinforcement rib and in the lower carrying holes. Clipping the stress plot to the allowable stress range shows where the allowable stress is exceeded.
Allowable stress violation is found in two areas. The first area is the top of the reinforcement rib. The second is in the vicinity of the carrying holes.
With this information, safety can be assessed. As the allowable stress criteria are violated, the part could be rejected directly, with reinforcements and plate thickness augmentation recommended in the problem zones. Alternatively, a more advanced, nonlinear simulation could analyze yielding and stress redistribution, which would provide more information for the assessment, and possibly allow the structure to be accepted as it is.
What the cloud changed
The mesh order and refinement level were chosen on engineering grounds, without compromising for storage, computing power, or simulation time. The 15-minute turnaround made it practical to change simulation parameters and models to find the best setup, and to iterate the design quickly enough to meet the client’s delivery deadline.
Is online FEA software accurate enough for professional work?
Yes. The solvers behind online FEA platforms are the same class of implicit finite element solvers used in desktop tools, and accuracy is governed by the model, mesh, and boundary conditions rather than by where the computation runs.
Solver verification
SimScale publishes a library of validation cases benchmarked against analytical solutions, NAFEMS benchmarks, and experimental data. Each case documents the setup, the reference result, and the deviation.
Mesh convergence and result checks
The same discipline applies online as on a desktop: check convergence by refining the mesh in stress-concentration zones, compare reaction forces against applied loads, and sanity-check deflections against hand calculations. OxTS, validating an ADAS roof mount, reported that the deflections of the bar and restraining components were shown to agree with the hand calculations.
Third-party acceptance
The fixture case study above was run for an insurer-mandated safety assessment. TechSAT uses cloud-native vibration FEA on airborne electronics housings during DO-160G development, identifying 46 eigenfrequencies in the 10 to 2000 Hz test range and finding 18% less PCB deflection with a full-rack support versus a flange-mounted design. In both cases the simulation platform supported the assessment; the certification or sign-off was issued by the responsible third party.
Benefits of cloud FEA software
The practical gains over desktop software are hardware, licensing, parallel throughput, and sharing.
No hardware limits
A million-node second-order model solves without a workstation upgrade. OxTS completed a 64-core frequency analysis in 37 minutes, and most of the roughly 30 simulations in that project took under 30 minutes.
No installation or license server
Work starts from a login. There is no version mismatch between colleagues, no license queue at month-end, and no IT ticket to add a user.
Parallel runs
Design variants run at the same time rather than in sequence. This is what makes early design exploration practical: a 10-variant bracket study finishes in one solve time, not ten.
Sharing with non-specialists
A project link opens in a browser for a client, reviewer, or manager. OxTS used the stress and deformation imagery to explain the project to upper management as well as to guide the design.
TechSAT summarized the cost side of this: “We saved over €15K in licensing and hardware costs by opting for the fully cloud-native solution by SimScale.”
Is cloud FEA software secure?
CAD uploads and simulation results on SimScale are stored in AES-encrypted storage and encrypted in transfer, and SimScale GmbH has completed a SOC 2 Type II audit. Project access is controlled per user, and passwords are stored only as salted hashes.
For confidential designs, use a plan with private projects. The free Community plan is public-project only (see the next section). Details are on the SimScale security page.
How much does FEA software cost?
Desktop FEA software is priced per seat, typically as a perpetual license with annual maintenance or as an annual subscription, plus the workstation or HPC hardware to run it. Online FEA software is priced on users and compute. On SimScale, one core hour is counted when a simulation or meshing job runs for 1 hour on 1 computing core.
Free FEA software
Three routes to free finite element analysis software exist, each with a trade-off.
- Free online FEA. The SimScale Community plan is free for testing and learning, with public projects only, selected analysis types, 10 unrestricted simulations, and up to 3,000 core hours. No installation, no hardware requirement, and the same solvers as the paid plans.
- Open-source solvers. CalculiX, Code_Aster, and Elmer FEM are free and validated, but run locally, need a separate pre- and post-processor, and have no vendor support.
- Student editions of desktop software. Most desktop vendors offer node-limited or time-limited student licenses. These are for learning, not commercial work, and the limits usually rule out a model the size of the fixture above.
Students and educators can also apply to the SimScale academic program.
Professional and enterprise plans
Mechanical, Professional, and Enterprise plans add private projects, more analysis types, larger core-hour allocations (Professional includes 10,000), and multiple users. Overage is billed monthly, with volume discounts for packages bought upfront.
Total cost versus workstation plus license
The comparison is a subscription against a perpetual license, annual maintenance, an HPC-grade workstation, and the IT time to keep it running. TechSAT put its saving at over €15K in licensing and hardware. OxTS estimated the platform removed at least three physical design iterations from the roadmap, with test-house quotes running to tens of thousands of pounds for a few weeks of testing.
How to choose finite element analysis software
Six criteria settle most FEA software decisions. Work through them in this order.
- Physics coverage. List the analysis types you need in the next two years (nonlinear contact, thermomechanical, harmonic, fatigue, coupled CFD) and rule out tools that lack any of them.
- Model size and turnaround. Estimate your largest realistic model. If it exceeds what a workstation solves in a working day, cloud compute or on-prem HPC is required.
- Parallel studies. If design exploration matters, count how many variants you need to run at once. Seat-licensed desktop tools cap this at the number of seats.
- Validation documentation. Check that the vendor publishes verification cases for your problem class, and that you can reproduce one.
- Collaboration and hand-off. Decide who needs to see results: analysts only, or designers, clients, and certifiers without licenses.
- Cost model. Compare total cost over three years, including hardware and maintenance, not the license line alone.
When online FEA software is not the right fit
Online FEA is a poor fit when a customer or regulator contractually requires a specific named desktop code, when the analysis depends on a vendor-specific user subroutine or element formulation that only exists in one desktop package, or when the site has no reliable internet connection. An engineer who understands FEA is still required in every case: the software runs the model, and the engineer owns the assumptions and the interpretation.
Who uses online FEA software?
Consultancies, product teams, and manufacturers use online FEA where they previously either outsourced analysis or skipped it. Published SimScale FEA cases include:
- Machinery and lifting equipment: the Senid fixture above.
- Aerospace electronics: TechSAT’s DO-160G vibration studies.
- Automotive test equipment: OxTS’s ADAS roof mount, with about 15 stress studies and several drag studies in one project.
- Consumer and medical devices: Withings reduced design-to-prototype cycles from weeks to days with cloud FEA.
- Industrial components: Samco increased product lifetime 10 times through design changes identified in structural FEA.
More than 900,000 engineers, designers, and students now use SimScale across CFD, FEA, thermal, and electromagnetic simulation.
How to get started with online FEA software
Run your first structural simulation
Create a free Community account, then follow the linear static analysis of a crane tutorial. It covers CAD import, meshing, boundary conditions, solving, and post-processing in one session. The bracket structural analysis project in the public project library can be copied and modified directly.
Learn FEA online
The SimWiki FEA section covers the method, stress measures, natural frequency, fatigue, and structural analysis fundamentals. For a structured course, ASME and several universities offer online FEA programs; the SimWiki and tutorials are enough to run and interpret a first linear static model.
Need it done for you?
Consultancies such as Senid run FEA projects on SimScale for clients who need a one-off analysis rather than an in-house capability. Shareable project links make it straightforward to hand results back to a client with no software on their side.
Frequently asked questions
There is no single best FEA software. Pick by physics coverage, largest model size, how many variants you run in parallel, published validation, sharing needs, and three-year total cost. Online platforms win on model size, parallel runs, and sharing; desktop codes win where a contract names them; open-source wins on license cost if you can maintain the toolchain.
Yes. The SimScale Community plan is free online FEA with public projects, selected analysis types, 10 unrestricted simulations, and up to 3,000 core hours. Open-source solvers such as CalculiX, Code_Aster, and Elmer FEM are free but require local installation and a separate pre- and post-processor.
Yes. Platforms such as SimScale run the full FEA workflow (CAD import, meshing, setup, solving, post-processing) in a browser, with computation on cloud servers.
Your browser is the interface; the mesher and solver run on cloud hardware. You set up the model online, the job is dispatched to a cluster sized for it, and results are streamed back to the browser for post-processing.
Accuracy depends on the model, mesh, and boundary conditions, not on where the solver runs. SimScale publishes validation cases against analytical solutions and NAFEMS benchmarks so users can check solver behavior for their problem class.
For desktop FEA software, yes: RAM and core count set your model-size limit. For online FEA, no: any device that runs a modern browser works, including a laptop or Chromebook, because the computation happens on cloud cores.
It depends on model size, element order, contact, and cores. The 997,053-node linear static fixture in this article solved in 15 minutes. A 64-core frequency analysis for OxTS finished in 37 minutes.
SimScale uses AES-encrypted storage, encrypts data in transfer, and has completed a SOC 2 Type II audit. Use a paid plan for private projects; Community plan projects are public.
FEM is the numerical method. FEA is the engineering analysis performed using that method. “FEA software” and “FEM software” describe the same tools.
STEP, Parasolid, IGES, and common native CAD formats are supported, and cloud CAD tools such as Onshape connect directly.
Conclusion
Finite element analysis software is a choice between three delivery models, and the choice sets your model-size ceiling, your parallel capacity, and your cost per analysis. The Senid fixture study shows what the online model looks like in practice: a million-node second-order mesh chosen on engineering grounds, a 15-minute solve, and results the client’s insurer could act on. The same workflow scales down to a first bracket tutorial and up to a parallel design study.
Compare FEA software on a real model
Run the fixture tutorial, a bracket study, or your own CAD on the free Community plan. No install, no hardware.
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