There are many other coupling solutions out there.
Many research groups write their custom coupling framework.
Why should I use preCICE?
Such a list would be difficult to maintain, however you can have a look at the
introductory section of our reference paper.
When comparing preCICE to other software, look for the following key points:
Library approach
preCICE is not a framework which is used to call the participating solvers, but a library which the solvers call. This allows for great flexibility: you can easily make your own in-house solvers use the preCICE library and you can allocate different computational resources for each participant, using the same tools that you may already use.
Performance
preCICE is designed especially for massively parallel simulations. For this reason, each process of each participant communicates directly with any other processes of other participants, without passing through a central bottleneck. Additionally, all the communication happens using either
the network TCP/IP sockets or MPI ports, methods much faster than exchanging files through the filesystem. Last but not least, advanced numerical methods can accelerate the coupling already in the algorithmic level.
Coupling algorithms
preCICE supports fully implicit (strong) coupling, accelerated by sophisticated and robust quasi-Newton algorithms. These stabilize and accelerate the solution.
Data mapping techniques
preCICE offers several first and second order methods to map the interface values between non-matching meshes, including Radial-Basis Functions.
Multi-coupling
preCICE can easily be used to couple more than two simulations.
License
preCICE is free software, distributed under the GNU LGPL3 license and actively maintained on GitHub. Of course, as with any free software, the documentation of a commercial alternative may be more extended. However, we constantly improve our documentation, based on the feedback we get from preCICE users.
Moved from our FAQ on precice.org.