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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to AstroGrid

Explore the entire universe in your browser, in real 3D

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1PA

    We have a black hole at home — with actual relativistic physics, live in your browser. I'm Sasha (Alexander) Plavin, an astrophysicist at Harvard's Black Hole Initiative studying quasars and black hole environments. I work with raytracing/radiative transfer simulations professionally, and wanted to make one anyone can play with — so I built this app. Put the black hole onto your screen (any browser), or directly into your room with AR or VR (requires WebXR, for example Chrome on Android, or any VR headset). When looking around, pay attention to unintuitive relativistic effects: rays…

    Jul 2026 · blackhole.plav.in · its alternatives →

  2. 2IM

    I made this site using R3F (https://github.com/pmndrs/react-three-fiber), a React renderer for 3JS (https://threejs.org/). The celestial bodies are Three.JS meshes. I used loaders (namely 'useLoader' from R3F and 'GLTFLoader' from 3JS) to import 3D models, such as International Space Station. More on loading models in R3F: https://docs.pmnd.rs/react-three-fiber/tutorials/loading-mod... I've future plans for this side project. It would be great to hear from the HN community before diving into them. Enjoy! P.S: Getting an empty…

    2022 · spaceinbrowser.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system

    2014 · joshworth.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4AA
    Astro App▲291

    I really like Stellarium and SkySafari but I felt like these are primarily geared towards exploring the sky but not so much "here are the long list of things I want to see, when can I see them tonight and where". There's also not really a great option I've found that combines sky object planning + location weather details while still being free so I built this. The UI's heavily inspired by NINAs sky atlas + Robinhood. Right now you can: View the altitude chart of objects and 3D view Create lists of objects of interest View the annual max/min daily altitude of an object to find the best…

    2024 · astro.sshh.io · its alternatives →

  5. 5
    AstraPixelsfree tier, from $5/mo▲267

    ​​A pixel-art solar system at its real current positions.​

    Aug 2026 · astrapixels.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6
  7. 7

    Renders black hole gravitational lensing effects in an image canvas using WebGL, glfx.js, and numeric.js - cliffcrosland/black-hole.js

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Hello, I am the creator and maintainer of Stellarium Mobile. I have been working in my free time for about a year on this new project Galaxium, that is more about traveling in the universe rather than looking at the sky from Earth. It is still experimental, and at the moment I am not sure what it will become. Feedback is welcome.

    Aug 2026 · galaxium.app · its alternatives →

  9. 9
    Spatium▲182

    Hi there, humans! I'm excited to announce Spatium! I'm a big fan of any topic related to our universe. I'm also a developer, so I've put these things together and I built this new tab Chrome Extension for space lovers, astronomy fans, and science geeks like me. If you enjoyed it, please spread some love <3 FEATURES • Space images • Every day, get a fascinating image of our universe. Enjoy pictures of stars, planets, moons, galaxies, nebulae, comets and more right on your browser tab. • Sun Widget • Find out when the sunrise, sunset, first and last light times will be precisely at your…

    2021 · spatium.earth · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Guide your spacecraft through the gravity

    2016 · ianmaclarty.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    We ported pbrt-v4 to Julia and built it into a Makie backend. Any Makie plot can now be rendered with physically-based path tracing. Julia compiles user-defined physics directly into GPU kernels, so anyone can extend the ray tracer with new materials and media - a black hole with gravitational lensing is ~200 lines of Julia. Runs on AMD, NVIDIA, and CPU via KernelAbstractions.jl, with Metal coming soon. Demo scenes: github.com&#x2F;SimonDanisch&#x2F;RayDemo

    Feb 2026 · makie.org · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    A game about gravity and asteroids

    2014 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Travel through galaxies into deep space

    2016 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    This is a little hobby project that I hope you enjoy. You can see where the International Space Station is now, with live HD video from NASA, on a realistic 3D globe. The positions of the sun and moon are also accurate, though distances aren't to scale. The clouds are also near-realtime; I span that out into a separate project at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;clouds.matteason.co.uk, where the cloud images I create from EUMETSAT data are freely available. I've got more features almost ready to go, like the ability to turn off all UI, toggleable clouds and turning off the day&#x2F;night cycle I'd love for…

    2024 · iss.matteason.co.uk · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Gravity WebGL experiment in the Solar System

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16IB
  17. 17IB
  18. 18

    I've been iterating on a small galaxy visualization project that originally started as a university course assignment, using only provided sample data (no real astronomical distances). Recently, I updated it to include redshift-based distance data, which makes the 3D structure more meaningful and closer to real large-scale galaxy distributions. Repo: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Avicted&#x2F;galaxy_visualization_raylib Demo video (3D navigation + galaxy structures): https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=fC83RDWuPvw Current state: - Written in C (C99 standard) using Raylib -…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    A game of aerospace industry and interplanetary exploration

    2015 · astroneer.space · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    The open world (galaxy?) version of a really great iOS game!

    2015 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Fly through millions of galaxies in your browser. Interactive WebGPU 3D explorer for the SDSS, GLADE, and 2MRS catalogs with cosmic-web filaments.

    May 2026 · skymap.rulkens.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    I didn't realize Universe Sandbox ran on MacOS, and I was in the mood to play around a bit. Some functions it's got: - Random system generation - Sonification is super fun too - Habitability Simulation (Just for fun, don't cite this please) - Replacing, spawning, deleting objects I've had tons of fun building this, so I hope someone else can share the joy. It's free and runs in the browser. I'd love to hear any feedback. I think this is at a state where I might leave it as it is, but if people are interested in other features, maybe I'll keep working on it. I've kept saying I'll stop working…

    Dec 2025 · luna.watermelonson.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    An abstract gravitational puzzler

    2015 · 0rbitalis.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Become a black hole

    2015 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →