Who is OpenFOAM?
openfoam.org (UK based) says "...there are no contributors from ESI-OpenCFD (openfoam.com)" but openfoam.com (US based) says "ESI-OpenCFD produces the OpenFOAM® open source CFD toolbox and distributes freely via https://www.openfoam.com/."
Comments
good question ... apparently there are two projects out there.
Last version of the openFOAM foundation is v9 and that of ESI is v2112. I've seen some cloud services offer both options but I've no idea about the differences and the story behind
This is a great summary from a well respected moderator at www.cfd-online.com .
In a nutshell, both are open source and both have their merits so it will depends on the features that you need.
ESI-OpenCFD has more frequent releases. The OpenFOAM foundation releases once a year, but you can use their development branch if you need.
I have been using the OpenFOAM foundation (.org) for quite a while and found it quite good and easy to install and manage, at least for pedestrian comfort, wind analysis and a bit of HVAC. I would like to explore the ESI version at some point, but time is a limited resource unfortunately :-)
@ruggieroguida is there a more specific page you could link to? Maybe you could help by cleaning up the page on the wiki? https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=OpenFOAM
@duncan Do you mean a more specific page on the respective websites? If so
https://openfoam.org/ip-history/
and
https://www.openfoam.com/governance/overview
As you can see, it is quite convoluted. I would be happy to help with the Wiki using the content from the post on cfd-online. Let's see if I find a bit of time during the next weekends. Lots of things going on at the moment.
that would be great, I can't find anywhere else online that would help get people started with deciding where to place their bet when starting a new project.
Has anybody had any success using OpenFOAM with Blender as a visualizer instead of Paraview?
That's really a Blender question, so I'd encourage you to jump out of this thread but please make a new one or jump onto a relevant one. It's easier for people to find things if they're in predictable places.