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Research · head to head

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences vs Terra

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences logo

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences

Research

Computational chemistry toolkits and the Orion cloud platform, now inside Cadence

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Terra logo

Terra

Research

Open biomedical research platform for genomic analysis, priced only by the cloud you consume

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Terra has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences the free Public Domain Research Licence requires surrendering intellectual property rights and publishing results into the public domain, which rules it out for any academic group with a technology transfer office or patent ambitions.; Terra the absence of a licence fee hides the real cost driver: an idle notebook virtual machine left running overnight, or a workspace bucket full of intermediate workflow outputs, quietly consumes grant money with no vendor invoice to prompt a review.
  • They diverge on capability: OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences covers OMEGA, Terra covers No platform licence fee.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences and Terra actually diverge.

Attributes where OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences and Terra differ
AttributeOpenEye, Cadence Molecular SciencesTerra
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsLinux, Windows, macOS, Web, APIWeb, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Research).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences

  • OMEGA
  • ROCS
  • ROCS X
  • Orion platform
  • Programmatic toolkits
  • Academic routes
  • Structure preparation
  • Docking and scoring

Only in Terra

  • No platform licence fee
  • Cloud pass-through billing
  • WDL workflow execution
  • Notebook environments
  • Controlled-access data
  • Workspace sharing
  • Compliance posture
  • Multi-cloud

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences

  • A pharmaceutical discovery team screening a multi-billion compound library by three-dimensional shape rather than by two-dimensional similaritynot Terra
  • A computational chemist embedding conformer generation into an internal pipeline through the Python toolkitsnot Terra
  • A university group publishing openly that can accept the public domain licence terms in exchange for zero costnot Terra
  • A biotech scaling virtual screening on cloud compute without building its own clusternot Terra

Terra

  • A genomics lab running whole-genome alignment and variant calling pipelines without provisioning or maintaining a local clusternot OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences
  • A consortium sharing controlled-access human data across institutions where the data cannot be copied to each sitenot OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences
  • A health system analysing patient genomic data under a HIPAA business associate agreementnot OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences
  • A federal or federally funded project needing FedRAMP Moderate authorisation for its analysis environmentnot OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences

  • The free Public Domain Research Licence requires surrendering intellectual property rights and publishing results into the public domain, which rules it out for any academic group with a technology transfer office or patent ambitions.
  • Free academic licences are renewable but re-evaluated annually with no guarantee of continuation, so a multi-year research programme has no assured software entitlement beyond the current year.
  • OpenEye now sits inside Cadence Design Systems, whose core business is chip design, so the roadmap and licensing culture are set by a company for which molecular sciences is one growth line among several.
  • Commercial pricing is entirely unpublished and structured as annual subscriptions with separate Orion compute, making total cost of a screening programme hard to forecast before contracting.
  • The toolkits assume real computational chemistry expertise; they are libraries and applications for specialists, not an interface a medicinal chemist can drive without training.

Terra

  • The absence of a licence fee hides the real cost driver: an idle notebook virtual machine left running overnight, or a workspace bucket full of intermediate workflow outputs, quietly consumes grant money with no vendor invoice to prompt a review.
  • Cost governance is entirely the customer responsibility, and grant-funded groups without a cloud engineer routinely overspend before anyone reads the Google or Azure bill in enough detail to find the cause.
  • It assumes genuine bioinformatics competence: writing or adapting WDL workflows, managing data tables and debugging failed tasks are all on you, so a wet lab without computational staff cannot use it productively.
  • Feature parity between the Google Cloud and Azure deployments is not identical, so a decision on cloud provider constrains which capabilities and datasets you can reach and is expensive to reverse later.
  • It is a research platform rather than a regulated clinical system: it is not a validated GxP environment and does not carry the qualification package a diagnostic or submission workflow would require, so clinical use needs additional infrastructure and validation you provide yourself.

Pricing, plan by plan

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences

On request
  • Commercial licence$undefined/year
    • Annual subscription priced through Cadence sales
    • Toolkits and applications licensed separately from the Orion platform
    • Orion compute billed on top of software entitlements
  • Academic Package$undefined/year
    • Paid annual subscription for university groups under ten members
    • Includes support
    • Researchers retain intellectual property rights
  • Public Domain Research LicenceFree
    • No cost
    • No support of any kind
    • No intellectual property rights retained

Terra

Free
  • Terra platformFree
    • No charge for the platform, administration, security controls or frontline support
    • Workspaces, workflow execution and notebook environments included
    • Available on Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure
  • Cloud consumption$undefined/month
    • Google Cloud or Azure charges passed through at cost with no markup
    • Running notebook virtual machines around 0.22 USD per hour, roughly 0.027 USD per hour when paused
    • Storage billed continuously on workspace buckets and intermediate workflow outputs

Which should you pick?

Choose OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences if

  • You need omega.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, macOS, Web, API.
  • You also want rocs.
OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences review

Choose Terra if

  • You need no platform licence fee.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.
  • You also want cloud pass-through billing.
Terra review

Questions people ask

Is OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences or Terra better?
Neither clearly leads. OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences starts at On request and Terra at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences or Terra?
Terra has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences and Free for Terra.
Does OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences or Terra run on more platforms?
OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, Web, API. Terra runs on Web, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure.
Can I use Terra for free?
Yes. Terra has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences starts at On request.
What is OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences best used for?
OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences is most often used for a pharmaceutical discovery team screening a multi-billion compound library by three-dimensional shape rather than by two-dimensional similarity, a computational chemist embedding conformer generation into an internal pipeline through the python toolkits, a university group publishing openly that can accept the public domain licence terms in exchange for zero cost, a biotech scaling virtual screening on cloud compute without building its own cluster. Of those, a pharmaceutical discovery team screening a multi-billion compound library by three-dimensional shape rather than by two-dimensional similarity and a computational chemist embedding conformer generation into an internal pipeline through the python toolkits are not what Terra is typically brought in for.
What can OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences do that Terra cannot?
OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences covers OMEGA, ROCS, ROCS X, Orion platform. Terra covers No platform licence fee, Cloud pass-through billing, WDL workflow execution, Notebook environments.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences: Is OpenEye still OpenEye?

It trades as OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences, and is part of Cadence Design Systems following acquisition. The product names OMEGA, ROCS and Orion continue.

Terra: Is Terra really free?

The platform is. There is no licence fee. Everything you pay is Google Cloud or Azure compute, storage and egress, passed through at cost.

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences: Can academics use it for free?

Yes, through the Public Domain Research Licence or a Teaching Licence, but both come with no support and no intellectual property rights. Keeping IP rights and support requires the paid Academic Package.

Terra: What actually drives the bill?

Running virtual machines and stored data. Pausing notebooks drops a virtual machine from about 0.22 to about 0.027 dollars an hour, and deleting intermediate workflow outputs is the other main saving.

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences: What is ROCS X?

A machine learning enabled extension of ROCS shape search, built on the Orion platform, aimed at screening chemical spaces in the trillions of molecules.

Terra: Can I use it with protected health information?

Yes. Terra signs HIPAA business associate agreements and GDPR data processing agreements, and the Azure deployment holds FedRAMP Moderate authorisation.

OpenEye, Cadence Molecular Sciences: Is commercial pricing published?

No. Commercial licences are annual subscriptions quoted through Cadence sales, with Orion compute charged separately.

Terra: Is it validated for clinical or GxP use?

No. It is a research platform. Regulated clinical or submission workflows need validation and controls you build yourself.

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