CARA Downloads

CARA is deployed as compressed single-file executables. Download the ZIP/GZ file and uncompress it. The resulting executable can be run without any installations or administrator privileges.

Windows 9x/2k/XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10

Note that these versions in case also run on Linux or Mac OS X using the Wine compatibility layer. It's quite easy to accomplish. Just install the binary Wine download compatible with your Linux distro or OS X version. After this, you can directly double-click CARA.exe from the file manager.

Linux x86

You can also run the Windows executable using Wine on Linux.

Macintosh OSX x86

NOTE: CARA on OS X now makes use of Qt 4.8.6 which we think is stable enough for productive use; comments are welcome. Remember that on OS X the right-click of the mouse (to show the popup menu) is mapped to CTRL+Click. Because of this the CTRL key needed for zooming and scrolling in the scopes is mapped to the COMMAND key on the Apple keyboard. Note that the context menus of the CARA Explorer are displayed as top-level menus too.

Remember that you can still run Windows executables of CARA on OS X using WINE. Running 32 bit applications on Catalina is supported e.g. by https://www.codeweavers.com/products/crossover-mac/features or https://www.playonmac.com/en/. The CARA team didn't make tests though. If you have experience, please report to the CARA forum.

Macintosh macOS x86-64

  • Current alpha 64 bit release: 1.9.1

This release was compiled on macOS 10.11. It should also be able to run on macOS Catalina 10.15. Don't be surprised to experience unexpected behavour or crashes. In that case please report the issue in the CARA forum with as much information to reproduce the issue as possible.

Macintosh X11

These executables support the Darwin part of Macintosh OS X; they run a usual X11 engine next to the OS X window system with a different look and feel; there might also be missing some libraries on a standard installation so you need some administration work to run these executables.

  • Last stable PowerPC: 1.8.4
  • Last stable x86: 1.8.4

Sun Solaris

This platform is no longer actively supportet; we recommend to migrate to a more common platform.

  • Last stable release: 1.8.3

SGI Irix R10000

This platform is no longer actively supportet; we recommend to migrate to a more common platform.

  • Last stable release: 1.8.3

Source Code

CARA is free software. The source code is hosted on GitHub:

See the README.md file on GitHub for build instructions. For convenience the modified Lua, Newmat and Expat sources you need for the build are available as compressed archives from here:


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