Education · pricing
Stellarium pricing
Stellarium publishes a single tier. Below is what it costs, what it covers, and how that compares with the education tools listed alongside it.
As of 1 September 2026, Stellarium pricing is free. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Open source, no licence fee
- Tiers
- 1
- Free tier
- Yes
Stellarium plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stellarium Desktop | Free | 3 | Entry tier |
Where Stellarium stops being free
Stellarium Desktop, Free
- Full software, GPL licensed
- No account, ads or subscription
- Community-developed plugins
No paid tier on record
Stellarium lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.
What the product covers
The full Stellarium feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Other
- Photorealistic sky rendering
- Large object catalogue
- Telescope control
- Scripting engine
- Free and open source
- Plugin ecosystem
People bring Stellarium in for a student or educator wanting a serious, scriptable planetarium tool without a budget line item, an amateur astronomer wanting telescope control from desktop software they can inspect and modify, someone running a planetarium display or public astronomy event on a scripted show, a hobbyist who wants a large object catalogue without paying a subscription, and does not need a phone app. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Stellarium are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Education
Too few education tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stellarium (this page) | Free | Open source, no licence fee | - | |
| Anki | Free | Open source, no licence fee except a paid iOS app | - | vs Stellarium |
| Busuu | Free | Free with a Premium subscription | - | vs Stellarium |
| PictureThis | On request | Per year, sold via a short free trial that auto-renews | - | vs Stellarium |
| Lumosity | Free | Free with a subscription | - | vs Stellarium |
| Star Walk 2 | Free | Freemium, low-cost ad-free subscription upgrade | - | vs Stellarium |
| Pl@ntNet | Free | Free, no ads and no in-app purchases | - | vs Stellarium |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Stellarium badges page.
Before you pay for Stellarium
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: a single tier at Free. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
Stellarium runs on windows, macos, linux, and is published by Stellarium open source project of Community project, no single headquarters. The full record is on the Stellarium review, and the rest of the category is under best education tools.
Stellarium pricing questions
- How much does Stellarium cost?
- Stellarium publishes a single tier, Stellarium Desktop, at Free.
- Does Stellarium have a free plan?
- Yes. The Stellarium Desktop tier costs nothing and covers full software, gpl licensed, no account, ads or subscription, community-developed plugins.
- Which education tools can I use without paying?
- 7 of the 8 education tools listed alongside Stellarium have a free tier: Anki, Busuu, Lumosity, Star Walk 2, Pl@ntNet.
- What am I actually paying for with Stellarium?
- The record lists 6 features across 1 area: other. In practice it is brought in for a student or educator wanting a serious, scriptable planetarium tool without a budget line item, an amateur astronomer wanting telescope control from desktop software they can inspect and modify, someone running a planetarium display or public astronomy event on a scripted show.
- Does Stellarium charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 1 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Stellarium prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Stellarium against before paying?
- The closest education tools in this directory are Anki, Busuu, PictureThis, Lumosity. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Stellarium covering price, platforms and features.