[JuPa]

It's quite confusing.

This site (https://www.openfoam.com/releases/openfoam-v1706/) says OpenFOAM v1706 is the latest version.

However

This site (https://openfoam.org/download/5-0-ubuntu/) says OpenFOAM v5.0 is the latest version.

What's the deal?

[akidess]

There is no OpenFOAM as you think of it.. There is ESi-OpenFOAM, Weller-OpenFOAM, foamExtend, iconCFD, Helyx/EngysFoam, TurbomachineryCFD, SimscaleFOAM, caelusFoam, ... It's not that different from the Linux distribution variety.

See also:
Overview on the different OF-players like "CFD Direct" or OpenCFD Ltd (ESI Group)
https://sites.google.com/view/olaflo...am-environment

[JuPa]

Okay thank you for that.

How do I know what the differences are between all versions? How do I figure out which one is best for me?

[akidess]

If you need to ask that question, I think you will be happy with either ESi or WellerFoam (CFDdirect). It doesn't make a huge difference.

[JuPa]

Fantastic.

Are all of the tutorials the same between ESi and WellerFoam?

In academic papers when authors write “we used openfoam” they don’t mention which flavour (ESi, WellerFoam etc.,). Isn’t this information pertinent since each OpenFoam distribution is different?

Thanks

[wyldckat]

Greetings to all!

Originally Posted by JuPa

This site (https://www.openfoam.com/releases/openfoam-v1706/) says OpenFOAM v1706 is the latest version.

Quoting from that page:

Incorporates all relevant Foundation code changes to commit level d2a62df7 26-04-2017 - with some additional ad-hoc fixes

This means that OpenFOAM v1706 (by ESI-OpenCFD) incorporates several of the features that are present in OpenFOAM 5.0 (the one released by the OpenFOAM Foundation, which Anton referred to as WellerFoam ).

Given that OpenFOAM v1706 was released in June and OpenFOAM 5.0 was released in July, both of this year, this means that OpenFOAM 5.0 has a few features that v1706 does not.
On the other hand, OpenFOAM v1706 has a non-metric ton more features than 5.0. Check the release notes in OpenFOAM.com for versions v3.0+ and newer, to see what it has beyond the code provided by the OpenFOAM Foundation.

Originally Posted by JuPa

In academic papers when authors write “we used openfoam” they don’t mention which flavour (ESi, WellerFoam etc.,). Isn’t this information pertinent since each OpenFoam distribution is different?

Hopefully authors specify which specific version they have used.
The way that OpenFOAM has evolved over the years, even though most of the settings are compatible, there were so many changes made between versions, that it's almost as if OpenFOAM has been a fork of itself since v1.0 was launched. Having versions from OpenFOAM.com and OpenFOAM.org is almost an evolutionary reflection of that.

Beyond OpenFOAM's evolution, this also tries to induce people to not assume that CFD simply works out-of-the-box and that instead people should always have a set of test cases that can be used to validate/verify if the results are still the same. Something as simple as a bug fix or a new feature in a turbulence model, could be enough to result in complete different results. It doesn't matter if you are using OpenFOAM or any other CFD software, simply don't assume that it will give you the same exact results.
Even using different compilers could give different results... or different CPU models could do that (e.g. old AMD vs Intel CPUs could do that, some 10 years or so ago).


Going back to the forks issue, there is a list here: http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Forks_and_Variants

Best regards,
Bruno

-----
edit: I've grown tired of having to write about this so many times... I've created a sticky post here: OpenFOAM.com versus OpenFOAM.org: Which version to use?