Calculating charts used to be the biggest hurdle for those who wanted to practice astrology. But modern astrologers have been blessed with computers and astrology software. What a relief!
Your computer makes the job of running charts so much easier. But how do you choose the best astrology software app for your budget and needs? I’ll lay out what I think are the best options available. I encourage you to leave your feedback, comments, and questions at the end of the post.
Whoever said nothing in life is free never visited Astrodienst (say it: astro-DEENST) at astro.com. This is a great place for an astrology student, hobbyist, or enthusiast to calculate charts online, for free. They are based in Switzerland, so you know the charts are accurate. Astro.com has a ton of useful options, some great free reports, and valuable subscription services. I really like their “Personal Daily Horoscope”. Another free gem you can access here is Astrodatabank, an extensive collection of charts for research and education.
Visit Astrodienst at astro.com
This online software is as impressive as it is promising. You can use LUNA’s intuitive interface to easily create a beautiful, printable chart and generate some really useful reports and sortable lists. Save and organize your chart data. Because it’s web-based, you can access your charts from your desktop or mobile. All you need is a browser. At $5 a month or $36 a year, this is a great option for you if you’re not ready to lay out a chunk of change on a desktop package. Tech support is fast and friendly.
Visit LUNA at lunaastrology.com
Astro Gold is a suite of Android and iOS apps. Astro Gold makes it easy to get charts, bi-wheels, and aspect grids on the run, fast and easy. It’s my go-to when I check the “chart of the day” on my iPad in the mornings.
At $25 for Android, $40 for your iPhone/iPad, this is a great addition to your mobile toolbox.
iPhemeris is another easy charting app for iOS. The interface takes a little more patience to master, but it is a solid chart calculator and on-the-spot ephemeris for your mobile. The price points make iPhemeris apps attractive options.
Astro Gold is relatively new, having appeared around 2012 if memory serves. I cannot hide my love for this software.
$230 gets you a full-featured copy for your Mac. Astro Gold is constantly improving and adding new features, making your software investment more valuable as time passes. Customer service is friendly and quick to respond to bug reports.
And when I thought I couldn’t love them more, Astro Gold incorporated some of my favorite features from the old Io series from Time Cycles Research, which I used for YEARS early on in my practice. And they made those features a lot more user-friendly.
A potential drawback of Astro Gold is that some of the best features do not work on older Macs that cannot run the newest version of Mac OS. I was not able to print transits lists from my 2010 iMac, and that was a bummer.
Solar Fire is the deluxe toolkit. It has everything AND the kitchen sink when it comes to astrological tricks and techniques!! It’s also fully customizable– configure the settings and use the Page Designer to get just the chart you want.
If you struggle to understand your Windows computer, this may not be the right package for you. There is a learning curve with the Solar Fire interface. It’s not the most intuitive. Check out the online tutorials to see if it looks like something you can comfortably handle. Once you have the “lay of the land” and know your way around the software, it is pretty fast and easy to get what you want out of it.
Solar Fire’s $360 price tag may put it out of reach for astrologers who are on a limited budget. (But– keep your eye on it on Black Friday!)
Pegasus is a robust little entry-level astrology software package that I was able to preview at the 2019 NCGR conference in Baltimore. It almost looks perfect for students, but you might eventually want to upgrade. Their top-of-the-line package, Sirius, goes for $550 and has all the bells and whistles. But – I have heard mixed reviews and buyers’ remorse from Sirius users.
Matrix probably has the biggest and best selection of computer-interpreted chart reports. (Preview some here.) Of course, a live reading is so much better than a computer, but the reports are still fun– and often enlightening.
Learn more at astrosoftware.com
There are scads of astrology software apps and programs available for the Windows platform, and many of them are free! I couldn’t even begin to review them all.
Luckily, someone else has done the hard work for us. If you dare go down the rabbit hole, check out Hank Friedman’s extensive astrology software reviews.
Are you an astrology software company looking for a review? Please leave a comment below, and I’ll get back to you quickly.
What do you think? Did I miss a good one? Let me know in the comments.
© 2023 Molly C. Gauthier
