Astro Gold alternative
Astro Gold calculates beautifully, on more platforms than most people think. What it does not hold is the person you calculated for, or the two hours you spent talking to them. Steliara reads the same chart files and keeps both.
Free 14-day trial. No card needed.
Astro Gold is not Apple-only. On 2 November 2026 astrogold.io sold four versions: macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. The desktop app is US$249.99, and their Windows page calls that one purchase a single dual-platform licence, so it covers Mac and Windows both.
We are starting here because it matters to anyone comparing. Half the directory pages and best-of roundups still describe Astro Gold as the Mac answer for people who cannot run Solar Fire, which was the shape of the market years ago and is not the shape of it now. If you came looking for Astro Gold for Windows, the honest answer is that the makers sell it, and your existing Mac licence already includes it. That is not a reason to look at anything else, and we are not going to pretend it is.
The same correction runs the other way. Solar Fire, from the same creators, used to be the Windows-only half of the pair. Solar Fire X is now native on Mac too. So the platform argument that used to drive these comparisons has quietly gone, for both of them, and what is left is a more interesting question: what do you actually need that a chart program is not built to do?
It is a serious piece of professional software and it would be dishonest to open with anything else. From its own macOS page, checked on 2 November 2026: 44 displayed points with midpoints, minor bodies, lots, stars, nodes and apsides on top, more than 25 house systems, the tropical zodiac and nine sidereal ones, and natal, transit, return, secondary progressed, arc directed, composite, harmonic and antiscia charts, all on the Swiss Ephemeris.
Then the parts a working astrologer actually reaches for: wheels, dials, bi-, tri- and quad-wheels, aspect and synastry grids, interactive interpretations on a double-click, the Chart Explorer, graphic ephemerides, Astro Sheets covering traditional technique, Firdaria and life time arcs, Astro Locality Mapping with geodetic and parans options, an ACS Atlas of more than 250,000 places, and Professional Reports as optional paid add-ons.
It is installed on your own computer, so it opens on a train with no signal. And it has real apps in the Apple and Android stores, which is something we cannot say.
If what you want is a deeper calculator, this page has nothing better to offer you. Keep it.
This question comes up constantly, and the usual answer, Solar Fire for Windows and Astro Gold for Mac, is no longer true of either. Both now run on Mac and Windows. Their chart files are interchangeable: astrogold.io states that Astro Gold's files are fully compatible with the Solar Fire desktop program, version 6 or higher.
So the difference is breadth and shape. Solar Fire X is the wider program and costs US$360 on Astrolabe's order page. Astro Gold is US$249.99 for both desktop platforms and is the only one of the two with phone and tablet apps, though on Android their own comparison table marks Astro Maps, Professional Reports and iCloud sync as absent. If you are choosing between them, choose on depth against portability.
What neither of them does, on any platform, is hold the people you read for or the consultations you had with them. On 2 November 2026 we read the Astro Gold home page, the macOS, Windows and iOS pages, the cross-platform comparison table and the FAQ, and found no mention of recording a session, transcribing one, or keeping any record of a person beyond a saved chart file. That is not a flaw in either program. It is simply outside what chart software was built to be, which is why swapping one calculator for another calculator never fixes it.
| Astro Gold | Steliara | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | macOS 10.13 or later, Windows 10 or later, plus iOS and Android apps | Any browser: Mac, Windows, a tablet or a phone |
| App in the store | Yes, Apple and Android | No, the browser on your phone |
| Works offline | Yes, installed on your machine | No, it needs a connection |
| Price | US$249.99 desktop, one licence for Mac and Windows; iOS from free, or US$7.99 a month | $24 or $39 a month |
| House systems | More than 25 | 6 |
| Astro-mapping | Yes, on desktop and iOS | No |
| Interpretation reports | Professional Reports, as paid add-ons | No, by design |
| Chart files | .SFcht, interchangeable with Solar Fire | Imports .SFcht and Solar Fire text exports |
| Profile per person you read for | Saved chart files; no record of people described on its pages | Their charts, your notes and past sessions together |
| Runs the consultation | Not described on its pages | Yes, as a video call in the app |
| Records and transcribes it | Not described on its pages | Yes, with a summary filed on their profile, on Studio |
Read the top half and Astro Gold wins, on depth, on offline, and on having an app you install. Read the bottom half and it is not competing, because it never set out to. That is the whole of the choice.
Stated plainly, because finding this out in week three is worse than reading it now.
You do not have to give any of it up at once. Astro Gold stays installed, and nothing about starting a trial here takes it away.
Astro Gold saves the same .SFcht chart files Solar Fire uses, and Steliara reads them, so you upload the file directly. Up to 5 MiB and 2,000 records per file, with likely duplicates flagged before anything is saved rather than after.
What comes over. The name on each record, the birth date and local time, the place and its coordinates, the UTC offset stored in the file, and the notes you kept against each chart, which arrive as notes on the chart here. You can send a file into your library as separate charts, or gather a set into one person's profile. The import lives in your account settings and a large file can be paused and finished later.
What you re-enter. Your calculation settings do not travel, so charts are recalculated here with the house system and zodiac you choose during the import; check those before you confirm. Subsidiary charts stored inside a record, such as a progression saved alongside the radix, are not carried over either. The main chart is saved and you rebuild the derived ones in seconds. Anything that was never in a chart file, your notebook and your folder of session documents, is still yours to bring across by hand, and most people bring only the people they are still reading for.
Three situations, and we would rather say so here than waste your trial.
You want an app on your phone. Astro Gold has one on iOS and Android, with a free level that casts natal and transit charts and a US$69.99 lifetime unlock if you want the rest. Steliara works in a phone browser, which is genuinely useful during a session and still is not the same thing as an app you install.
Your practice is calculation and research, not consultation. If most of your hours go into harmonics, astro-mapping, traditional technique or rectification rather than sitting with people, you would be buying the half of Steliara that is thinner and skipping the half that is the point.
You read in person, or you would rather not record. The consultation capture is the reason to be here. If your readings happen across a table and stay there, a one-off licence beats a monthly bill.
Practitioner is $24 a month, or $20 a month billed annually, and covers charts, unlimited profiles for the people you read for, notes, and the forecast timeline and tables. Studio is $39 a month, or $32 annually, and adds the recorded consultations, transcription and summaries. Every account starts on a 14-day trial with every feature unlocked and no card.
Practitioner
$24 / month
$20 per month billed annually. Charts, unlimited people profiles, notes, forecast timeline and tables, multiple house systems.
Studio
$39 / month
$32 per month billed annually. Everything in Practitioner, plus recorded consultations, transcription, session summaries and fast answers from chart data.
Against a US$249.99 licence you own outright, a subscription has to keep proving itself, so it is fair to say what it buys: not the calculation, which you already have and which Astro Gold does in more depth, but the consultation and the person it was about. If a subscription lapses the account turns read-only rather than locking you out, so your charts and records stay reachable.
AI will never read a chart for you. It just finds the facts faster: the aspects, the exact dates, where a planet sits. The summary captures what you said. You stay the astrologer.
No, and this is the most common thing written about it that is wrong. On 2 November 2026 astrogold.io sold four versions: macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. The two desktop versions come under one licence, which their Windows page describes as a single dual-platform licence, not a separate second licence. So if you are reading an aggregator page that says Astro Gold is Apple-only and you need Windows, that page is out of date.
On astrogold.io on 2 November 2026, the desktop app is US$249.99, and that one price covers both macOS and Windows. The iOS app has a free level that casts natal and transit charts, then a 7-day trial and a choice of US$7.99 a month, US$39.99 a year or a US$69.99 lifetime unlock. Professional Reports are separate paid add-ons. The macOS demo only casts natal charts for dates in the 1930s and cannot save them.
They come from the same people, and their chart files are interchangeable: astrogold.io says Astro Gold files are fully compatible with the Solar Fire desktop program, version 6 or higher. Both now run on Mac and Windows, so platform is no longer the deciding question. On price, Astro Gold is US$249.99 for both desktop platforms and Solar Fire X is US$360 on Astrolabe's order page. Solar Fire is the broader program; Astro Gold is the one with phone and tablet apps. Neither keeps a record of the people you read for or the consultations themselves.
It depends on what is missing. If you want more calculation depth on a desktop, Solar Fire X from the same makers is the closest match. If what is missing is everything around the chart, the people you read for, what you said to them last time, the recording of the session itself, then Steliara is built around that: charts, a profile per person, and the consultation recorded, transcribed and summarized in one browser-based workspace.
Yes. Astro Gold saves the same .SFcht chart files Solar Fire uses, and Steliara reads them, so you upload the file directly. Names, birth dates and local times, places, coordinates, the stored UTC offset and the notes kept against each chart come across, up to 5 MiB and 2,000 records per file, with likely duplicates flagged before anything is saved. Your calculation settings do not travel, so charts are recalculated with the house system and zodiac you pick during the import.
A good deal on the calculation side. Its macOS page lists 44 displayed points, more than 25 house systems, the tropical zodiac and nine sidereal ones, Astro Locality Mapping, the Chart Explorer, graphic ephemerides, Astro Sheets for traditional technique, harmonics, Firdaria and an atlas of more than 250,000 places, with Professional Reports as paid add-ons. Steliara has six house systems, five ayanamshas, no astro-mapping, no Vedic dasas and no written interpretation reports. Astro Gold is also installed on your machine and works without a connection, and it has real apps in the Apple and Android stores where Steliara has a browser.
Not that its own pages describe. On 2 November 2026 we read the Astro Gold home page, the macOS, Windows and iOS pages, the cross-platform comparison table and the FAQ, and none of them mentions recording a session, transcribing one, or keeping a record of the people you read for. What they describe is chart work, saved as chart files. Steliara runs the consultation as a video call and records the audio, never the video, once both sides agree, then files a transcript and a short summary on that person's profile. That is on the Studio plan.
Yes, in the browser. The forecast workspace has a phone layout, with the chart on top and the panels switched by a segmented control, and on the Studio plan you can tap the mic and say what you want done, such as adding transits for a date. It is honestly a web app in a phone browser rather than something you install from a store, and the desktop remains the main surface. If an app on your phone is what you are shopping for, Astro Gold ships one and we do not.
Yes, 14 days with every feature unlocked, including the recording, and no card. If a subscription later lapses the account turns read-only rather than locking, so your charts and records stay reachable.
Upload your .SFcht file and see your whole practice in one place.
Start free, no card neededLast reviewed 2 November 2026.