What it is
ZET is a Windows astrology program developed by Anatoly Zaitsev, a Russian astrologer-programmer who has been shipping releases since 1994. The current line includes ZET Lite (free), ZET Geo (around $90), ZET 9 Geo (around $200), and a full professional license that reaches roughly $300. ZET runs natively on Windows from XP through 11, with a Wine-compatible build that works on Linux for the determined user. The interface looks like 1998 by design, the documentation is sparse and partially Russian, and the program ships more configurable options than any other astrology software on the market. ZET's audience is small in the United States but devoted in Russia, Eastern Europe, and India, with active forum communities at zaytsev.net and astro-forum.ru.
Who uses it
ZET attracts the deep researcher who has been studying astrology for 10 years or more and wants every knob exposed. The typical user mixes Hellenistic technique with Russian astrological school (Avessalom Podvodny, Pavel Globa lineage), runs experimental house systems, and writes custom transit search queries against arbitrary asteroid combinations. ZET is rarely the daily program for a working astrologer with paying clients. The UI friction is real, the PDF output is dated, and there is no client side. It is a research playground that lives next to a working tool.
Headline features
- Free Lite edition: full chart calculation, no expiry, no nag screens
- Extreme configurability: thousands of options across more than 200 dialogs
- Asteroid search against 14,000 plus named bodies, configurable by aspect
- Custom transit queries: find every time Mars opposes natal Jupiter within 1 degree from 1950 to 2050
- Swiss Ephemeris core, accurate to better than 1 arc-second
- Native Windows only, with Wine-on-Linux as a community workaround
- No iOS, no Android, no Mac build, no cloud sync
Headline price and 5-year cost
ZET Free is free. ZET Geo costs roughly $90, ZET 9 Geo runs around $200, and the full professional license reaches $300. There are no recurring fees, no required upgrades across 5 years, and no platform tax beyond Parallels for Mac users (about $99 a year if Wine does not cooperate). Realistic 5-year total for a heavy user across 60 months: $0 to $300.
Where Astrolium does it differently
ZET and Astrolium are aimed at different humans. ZET is the deep-research playground for the practitioner who wants every Hellenistic, Vedic, Russian-school, and experimental option exposed in 1 Windows program. Astrolium is the workspace for paid client practice, where the chart is the start of the work, not the work itself.
The honest answer about overlap: ZET ships techniques Astrolium does not, like configurable transit search queries and Russian-school house systems. Astrolium ships techniques ZET does not surface cleanly, including Zodiacal Releasing with L1 and L2 calendar overlay across 23 house systems, profections highlighted on the natal chart, and the live predictive scrubber. Both run Swiss Ephemeris under the hood, so positions agree to the arc second.
For working astrologers who use ZET for research and need a separate tool for client sessions, Astrolium fills the second slot. The 2 tools coexist cleanly. For practitioners on Mac, Astrolium also removes the Parallels tax that ZET requires.
If you are moving from ZET
There is no head-to-head ZET vs Astrolium page yet. The audiences overlap less than with Solar Fire or Astro Gold. For the closest comparison on the Windows desktop research side, see Solar Fire vs Astrolium. For Astrolium's pricing, the features hub, and the comparison hub, the links go directly to the working pages.
Start the migration wizard for a 45 minute parallel session with the team.