Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

This is a browser-based space exploration site built with React Three Fiber and Three.js. Users can navigate through 3D space and interact with celestial bodies and models like the International Space Station. The site… 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. I made a site where you can travel in space in your browser launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   SpaceInBrowser▲76

   Travel space in your browser

   2022 · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Browser-based interactive 3D Three-Body problem simulator▲249

   Features include: - Several preset periodic orbits: the classic Figure-8, plus newly discovered 3D solutions from Li and Liao's recent database of 10,000+ orbits (https://arxiv.org/html/2508.08568v1) - Full 3D camera controls (rotate/pan/zoom) with body-following mode - Force and velocity vector visualization - Timeline scrubbing to explore the full orbital period The 3D presets are particularly interesting. Try "O₂(1.2)" or "Piano O₆(0.6)" from the Load Presets menu to see configurations where bodies weave in and out of the orbital plane. Most browser…

   Nov 2025 · trisolarchaos.com · its alternatives →

3. 3MD
   My daughter and I made a site to explore the photos from the ISS▲528

   2020 · callumprentice.github.io · its alternatives →

4. 4IB
   I built an interactive 3D three-body problem simulator in the browser▲60

   Mar 2026 · structuredlabs.github.io · its alternatives →

5. 5
   Atlas of Spacefree▲770

   Hello HN! Sharing a recent side project of mine, the Atlas of Space, that I built out to explore the Solar System. As a long-time space nerd, I realized recently that I didn't have a good intuition on the scale, speed, and relative orientation of the celestial bodies around us. So over the break I built out a kind of spatial Wikipedia to click around and learn about planets, moons, asteroids, and other bodies orbiting the Sun. The physics is all simulated in the browser using simple Newtonian mechanics. There's a lot left to do from here, including modeling objects in non-Keplerian orbits…

   2025 · atlasof.space · its alternatives →

6. 6
   Beautiful 3D ISS tracker with live video and near-realtime clouds▲139

   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://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/night cycle I'd love for…

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

7. 7
   Three and React = react-three-fiber, a new renderer based on Fiber▲15

   🇨🇭 A React renderer for Three.js. Contribute to pmndrs/react-three-fiber development by creating an account on GitHub.

   2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8IB
   I built an indie, browser-based MMORPG▲340

   I've been working on an MMORPG that is now in alpha as a solo developer. Here are the major open source technologies that I use: Blender - 3D modeling software for creating the overall environment and every game object. I've gotten a lot of CC and Public Domain assets from https://poly.pizza GLTF - I export assets from blender to the GLTF asset format JSON - I write a JSON config for every game object that describes things like its name, its interactions, its collisions, etc. Node.js exporter - I iterate over the environment and every asset to create a scene hierarchy. I use…

   2024 · alpha.reconquer.online · its alternatives →

9. 93M
   3D multiplayer space shooter made with Three.js▲115

   2019 · urk-3d-multi-space-game.herokuapp.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    AstroGrid▲113

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

    Apr 2026 · velonspace.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    A gallery of graphs built with React and D3.js▲297

    Many JS libraries exist to build graphs on the web (Vega, chartJS, Plotly...). They allow to make charts quickly. But you lose flexibility: you're limited by the options they offer. I just created a gallery with hundreds of graphs made with d3.js and React. - Examples are split by graph types - They all come with explanation and code sandboxes - Gradual complexity to ease the learning curve It took me ages to create this project! Feedback welcome!

    2023 · react-graph-gallery.com · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Galaxium, an experimental WebGPU space explorer▲137

    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 →

13. 13
    Curved Space Shader in Three.js (via 4D sphere projection)▲68

    I made a GLSL shader that bends 3D space using a 4D hypersphere projection. The idea: 1. Project a model onto a 4D sphere 2. Rotate the sphere 3. Project the model back to 3D Code and details: https://github.com/bntre/CurvedSpaceShader Curious what you think.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    An ASCII 3D Rendering Engine▲211

    Render 3D models (OBJ, glTF, GLB, STL, .vox) as ASCII art — in the browser, in React or Vue, or straight in your terminal. A three.js-style API with no WebGL and no canvas: just text in a single <pre>.

    Jun 2026 · glyphcss.com · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Browse HN Together in Three.js▲268

    Hey HN, We’re Philip, Amby, and Declan, and we made “multiplayer virtual computers” that you can embed anywhere, including 3D spaces. We decided to build this because we noticed that embedding third-party apps and websites can be a nightmare due to incompatible platforms, security issues, and poor UX. Adding multiplayer functionality to these embeds makes this problem exponentially more difficult. On the backend, we’re spinning up a VM and running a resource-optimized fork of Chromium which we then stream to participants via WebRTC. Since we’re hosting the servers running the applications,…

    2022 · threejs-example.hyperbeam.com · its alternatives →

16. 16NJ
    Nexus.js - Fabric.js for 3D▲91

    I was looking for a tiny library to easily transform both 2D & 3D objects with simple mouse &#x2F; touch controls and a fixed camera, in the browser. Like a simple 3D editor but without requiring the user to be a Blender expert. Couldn't find anything lightweight, so I’m building one. Think Fabric.js but for 3D. Built entirely with Three.js &#x2F; R3F. Borrowed some inspiration from VR&#x2F;AR interaction systems for controls. Feel free to play with it and let me know what you think!

    2025 · punk.cam · its alternatives →

17. 17
    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 →

18. 18
    Get any piece of Google Earth as a single normalized glTF 3D model▲177

    Google released an API in May to get fetch 3D Tiles of anywhere on Earth. Using this in standard 3D engines like Blender is tricky because (1) the tiles are in a geographic coordinate system (2) you get a lot of little tiles at varying quality levels I wanted to simplify this so all you need to do is get an API key, select a map region and a zoom level, and get one combined glTF file that you can throw into any engine. Especially if you're just prototyping and want to see how this data looks in your engine before investing in figuring out all the nuances of the API & coordinate system. (Note…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

19. 19
    ISS in Real Time – 25 Years Aboard the International Space Station▲165

    Today my collaborator and I are releasing issinrealtime.org, a multimedia project that plays back every day onboard the ISS. Feedback welcomed. Here's an article that was just released about it: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.collectspace.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;news-102725a-iss-in-real-t... I also wrote a "making of" post about it here: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;benfeist.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;iss-in-real-time&#x2F;

    Oct 2025 · issinrealtime.org · its alternatives →

20. 20
    VRland▲72

    Create and host 3D/VR immersive spaces on the web

    2021 · w3dge.io · its alternatives →

21. 21IB
    I built a space travel calculator using Vanilla JavaScript▲54

    I built this because measuring my age in years felt boring—I wanted to see the kilometers. The first version only used Earth's orbital speed (~30km&#x2F;s), but the number moved too slowly. To get the "existential dread" feeling, I switched to using the Milky Way's velocity relative to the CMB (~600km&#x2F;s). The math takes some liberties (using scalar sum instead of vector) to make the speed feel "fast," but it gets the point across. Under the hood, it's a single HTML file with zero dependencies. No React, no build step. The main challenge was the canvas starfield—I had to pre-allocate the…

    Jan 2026 · cosmic-odometer.vercel.app · its alternatives →

22. 22WP
    Weekend project - a WebGL Orrery▲17

    This was my recent weekend project, aimed at teaching me JavaScript, a bit of HTML5, and (mostly) WebGL. The orbital data are from NASA JPL. I was inspired in part by this Flash app: http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/orrery_2011_bce.swf, but wanted to do something in 3D. Coming from the games-dev world, this is my first introduction to web coding. The UI is jquery. I mostly used http://learningwebgl.com/blog for the 3D stuff. Being WebGL, it will work mostly on Chrome, Firefox 4 Beta. Forget about IE. I needed to figure out how to render text to the WebGL canvas - I…

    2011 · solar-system-explorer.com · its alternatives →

23. 23IM
    I made React with a faster Virtual DOM▲109

    Hi! I made a React compatibility library for a Virtual DOM library (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;aidenybai&#x2F;million). The idea is to have much faster rendering (a compiler optimizes virtual DOM beforehand) while ensuring the same developer experience React provides. This is very, VERY early stage, so be prepared for weird bugs &#x2F; plugin incompatibility &#x2F; etc. If you have any suggestions, I'd be more than happy if you replied in a comment with it! You can spin up the demo here >> https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackblitz.com&#x2F;github&#x2F;aidenybai&#x2F;million-react-compat

    2022 · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Gltfjsx, a tool that turns 3D GLTF files into React components▲29

    published a major release of the GLTFJSX tool that i made last year: https://t.co/Tnt6GoOG8n it turns @glTF3D files into re-usable react threejs components that are easy to modify and customize! the comfort you get from this is close to a scene editor, but in a real prod env.

    2020 · twitter.com · its alternatives →

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 →