Name: H5Workbench
Price: 30 USD
Availability: PreOrder

Question 1

What is H5Workbench?

Accepted Answer

H5Workbench is a native desktop application for opening, browsing, and inspecting HDF5 files on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It does not require a Java runtime.

Question 2

How is H5Workbench different from HDFView?

Accepted Answer

H5Workbench is a native application built with Qt; HDFView requires the Java runtime. H5Workbench offers a modern UI, color-mapped image rendering with 100+ presets, selection statistics in the spreadsheet view, and active development. See the feature-by-feature comparison for a full breakdown.

Question 3

What HDF5 file formats does H5Workbench support?

Accepted Answer

H5Workbench reads any file that uses the HDF5 binary format. That includes the standard .h5, .hdf5, and .he5 extensions, as well as MATLAB v7.3 .mat files and NetCDF-4 datasets, both of which are HDF5-based under the hood.

Question 4

Does H5Workbench require Java?

Accepted Answer

No. H5Workbench is a native desktop application. There is no Java runtime, classpath, or IT-approval requirement to install or run it.

Question 5

Can H5Workbench open large HDF5 files?

Accepted Answer

Yes. H5Workbench uses the official HDF5 C library and its chunked I/O capabilities, so multi-gigabyte files load quickly without copying their full contents into memory.

Question 6

How much does H5Workbench cost?

Accepted Answer

H5Workbench is offered at an introductory price of $30 per year while we close the feature-parity gap with HDFView. The regular price will be $60 per year starting with the v2.0 release.

Question 7

When will H5Workbench be available?

Accepted Answer

H5Workbench is in pre-release. Sign up to be notified when the first public version ships.