Despite the well-known limitations of linear potential flow theory, hydrodynamic coefficients obtained from boundary element methods (BEM) are commonly used to estimate the hydrodynamic parameters of wave energy converters (WECs).These parameters may then be used to simulate the behavior of WECs in response to incident waves. In this work, the usefulness to the wave energy community of the open-source BEM solver, NEMOH, developed by the ́Ecole Centrale de Nantes, is independently considered by comparison with the commercially-available BEM solver, WAMIT. The pre-processing, processing and post-processing stages of analysing four typical wave energy converting concepts are considered. Results for both solvers are presented in both the frequency and time domains. Other issues considered include computational time taken by both solvers, mesh generation, user-friendliness and the availability of supporting documentation.