Chemical structures drawing software

Avogadro screenshot

• Avogadro free 3D cross-platform chemical drawing software

Comment: I had some stability issues w v1.0.3 on OS X but found the software very useful overall. The peptide inserter is a very nice feature. No 2D drawing.

• MarvinSketch 2D/3D chemical drawing software; discounted educational & commercial (Win/Unix/Mac)

Comment: very clean 2D drawing software but the licensing is obscure; still not sure whether my installation is a trial and if so for how long; no pricing information on the website whatsoever :-(

• ChemDoodle 2D drawing software (Win/Unix/Mac) $60 (2012) review

• ACD/ChemSketch (Win/Linux with emulator) freeware & commercial

• Accelrys Draw (Win only) no-fee educational version & commercial

• ISIS/Draw no longer available; successor Symyx, already itself superceded by Accelrys Draw

• XDrawChem free 2D drawing software (Win/Unix/Mac)

• free Chemistry Development Kit including JChemPaint runs as a browser applet

Links

• thorough comparison of chemical drawing software by Tamas Gunda (last updated 2011)
• overview of chemical informatics toolkits by Abhishek Tiwari
• broader comparison of chemical writing, drawing and viewing software by Bob Bruner (last updated 2011)
• short list of software with a brief description
• chemical drawing software list in the Wikipedia