# Some Questions Regarding Meshing Software

**URL:** <https://community.geodynamics.org/t/some-questions-regarding-meshing-software/4233>\
**Category:** PyLith\
**Created:** [August 1, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://community.geodynamics.org/t/some-questions-regarding-meshing-software/4233 "2025-08-01T18:37:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![haung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@haung](https://community.geodynamics.org/u/haung)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://community.geodynamics.org/t/some-questions-regarding-meshing-software/4233/1 "2025-08-01T18:37:08Z")

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Dear Developers:

In the current PyLith documentation, both **Cubit** and **Gmsh** are supported for mesh generation during the model setup process.  
In earlier releases, PyLith relied solely on **Cubit** , while **Gmsh** , an open-source alternative, was introduced in subsequent versions.  
I would like to understand the respective **strengths and use cases** of these two meshing tools.

Thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![baagaard](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/community.geodynamics.org/baagaard/32/615_2.png) [@baagaard](https://community.geodynamics.org/u/baagaard)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 3:33am UTC](https://community.geodynamics.org/t/some-questions-regarding-meshing-software/4233/2 "2025-08-10T03:33:16Z")

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Cubit and Gmsh are both mature mesh generation tools suitable for a wide variety of applications.

## Installation

- Gmsh is open source, and we include it in the PyLith binary package. It can be installed via pip.
- Cubit is commercial software and requires a license. Support for macOS has been dropped (only Linux and Windows are currently supported).

## Interface

- Cubit has a more intuitive GUI interface/
- Gmsh has a more intuitive Python interface.

## Geometry engines

- Gmsh supports both a built-in geometry engine and a subset of OpenCascade. It is easier to embed faults in a domain using Gmsh.
- Cubit uses a CAD geometry engine. In many cases, faults must extend through a volume in Cubit.

# Meshing algorithms

- The meshing algorithms for triangles and tetrahedra are similar.
- Gmsh supports quad and hex meshes only by converting tri and tet meshes.
- Cubit has algorithms for unstructured quad and hex meshing.
- Gmsh seems to be a bit faster in generating meshes for complex geometry.
- Both Cubit and Gmsh can now discretize domains with the cell size set to increase with distance from geometry entities.