Astrolium

Astrology software comparison

Astrology software, feature by feature.

12 features across 6 competitors, with per-row footnotes that explain how each cell was determined and what the gotchas are. What this page does not measure is subjective UX feel; for that, read the head-to-head comparison pages or the individual competitor profiles.

Last checked · 2026-05-2412 rows × 6 competitorsSources cited per row below

Astrolium vs 6 competitors across 12 features

Feature
Astrolium
Solar Fire
  • Calculation engine
    Swiss Ephemeris (DE431)
    Swiss Ephemeris (DE431)
  • Platform
    Web (Mac, PC, iPad, Android)
    Windows only
  • 5-year total cost
    $870 Pro · $870 founding
    $520 to $700
  • House systems
    23 systems
    30 plus
  • Asteroid catalog
    20,000 plus named
    Paid add-on
  • Primary directions
    Not yet (2027)
    6 methods (industry best)
  • Zodiacal Releasing (Spirit and Fortune)
    L1 to L4 calendar overlay
    Add-on script only
  • Client CRM (intake, notes, tags)
    Limited
  • Shareable live client link
    No (PDF only)
  • Live predictive scrubber
    Yes (transits, ZR, profections)
    Static reports only
  • AI interpretation assistant
    Yes (4 schools, 9 languages)
    None
  • Stripe invoicing for clients
    Yes (Pro tier)

Per-row footnotes

How each cell was determined.

Calculation engine

Swiss Ephemeris is re-implemented from NASA JPL's DE431, accurate to better than 1 arc-second between 13201 BC and AD 17191. Co-Star uses a proprietary calculation that practitioners have flagged for occasional rising-sign mistakes near sign boundaries and high-latitude house errors.

Checked 2026-05-24

Platform

Solar Fire is Windows-only and most Mac users run it under Parallels at roughly $99 a year. Astro Gold inverts this and is Apple-only. TimePassages covers all 4 mainstream OSes from 1 vendor. ZET on Linux works via Wine but is not officially supported.

Checked 2026-05-24

5-year total cost

Astrolium Pro is $29 a month over 60 months, or $14.50 on the founding plan. Solar Fire's range covers a base license plus 1 upgrade plus Parallels for Mac. Co-Star's range covers heavy IAP spending on compatibility readings over 5 years.

Checked 2026-05-24

House systems

Solar Fire ships obscure systems like Carter Poli-Equatorial and Pullen SR that almost no working practitioner uses but the option exists. ZET exposes 40 plus including Russian-school experimental variants. LUNA and Co-Star lock Whole Sign and Placidus respectively as deliberate consumer simplification.

Checked 2026-05-24

Asteroid catalog

Solar Fire's full asteroid set is a paid add-on at $40 to $120. Astrolium ships 20,000 plus named bodies on every plan including the free Lite tier. ZET's 14,000 plus catalog is queryable but the UI is from 1998.

Checked 2026-05-24

Primary directions

This is the single technique Astrolium does not ship and likely will not until 2027. Solar Fire ships 6 methods (Placidus mundo, Placidus zodiacal, Regiomontanus, Campanus, Topocentric, Naibod-key); Astro Gold ships the same engine. The team explicitly recommends keeping Solar Fire or Astro Gold installed alongside Astrolium for this 1 technique.

Checked 2026-05-24

Zodiacal Releasing (Spirit and Fortune)

ZR is shipped as a first-class feature in Astrolium with L1 and L2 sub-period rendering on a calendar overlay. Solar Fire computes ZR only via a community-written add-on script. ZET requires manual peak-period computation. The other 4 products do not ship ZR.

Checked 2026-05-24

Client CRM (intake, notes, tags)

Solar Fire CRM is rated 'Limited' because the Sessions tab stores up to 50 charts per session but does not link them to a client record across sessions. Astro Gold has a charts database with categories and tags but no notes or intake forms. TimePassages and ZET ship nothing for client work.

Checked 2026-05-24

Shareable live client link

Astrolium issues a live URL the client opens in their own browser, with the same chart the astrologer is reading. LUNA offers a social share card for Instagram-style posts. Co-Star ships friend compatibility checks. The 4 desktop competitors export PDFs only.

Checked 2026-05-24

Live predictive scrubber

The scrubber is the single feature most surprising to migrating Solar Fire users. Drag the timeline and watch profections, ZR sub-periods, and transits recompute live. TimePassages ships a static transit graph; Co-Star and LUNA ship a static daily feed.

Checked 2026-05-24

AI interpretation assistant

Astrolium's AI is grounded in the specific client chart open, trained on 4 schools (Hellenistic, modern, evolutionary, Vedic), and produces draft interpretations the astrologer edits before sending. TimePassages' interpretive text is human-written by Henry Seltzer over 25 years. Co-Star's text is conversational copywriting, not chart-grounded interpretation.

Checked 2026-05-24

Stripe invoicing for clients

Built into Astrolium's Pro tier at $29 a month. None of the desktop competitors integrate billing; practitioners typically run Stripe or Square in a separate tab. LUNA and Co-Star are consumer apps where the question does not apply.

Checked 2026-05-24

What changed recently

Feature shifts since the last review.

  • Solar Fire 9.0.43 added eclipse mode in March 2026, fixing an outer-planet edge case at extreme latitudes.
  • Astro Gold 2.1 (April 2026) added Solar Fire .SFCHT import natively, removing the need for the third-party converter.
  • TimePassages Mobile 4.2 (February 2026) added Composite chart on iOS, which had been desktop-only.
  • ZET 9.5 (January 2026) added Russian-school dignities and a French translation layer to the dialogs.
  • LUNA Studio shipped birthday-matching social mechanics in November 2025 as the headline iOS feature.
  • Co-Star paused new development on Android compatibility readings in late 2025, with no announced restart.

Per-product profiles

For the longer write-up on each program (history, pricing detail, who uses it, where Astrolium does it differently), read the dedicated profile.

Run a session in Astrolium for an afternoon.

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