FreeFEM is a free open-source software designed for 1D, 2D and 3D multi-physics simulations. It is widely used internationally in academia and industry and targets a broad audience thanks to its versatile high-level Domain Specific Language (DSL), allowing users with minimal programming knowledge to describe and solve their problems with a few lines of code. It is written in C++ for speed and features easy custom extensions through dynamically loaded plugins. While its DSL stays close to the math and allows to easily define and manipulate high-level notions such as variational forms, adapted meshes and FEM or BEM spaces, the user can easily access the underlying data. FreeFEM's main objective is to bring scientific computing to all. A lot of efforts have been made to provide easy access to distributed parallel simulations and solvers while hiding technical programming difficulties to the end user. FreeFEM is used as a teaching and research tool or investigation software by a continuously increasing community gathering scientists from a wide area of research. Recent research work carried out with FreeFEM related to solid mechanics includes the design of robust parallel saddle-point solvers for nearly incompressible heterogeneous elasticity and the design of new algorithms for mechanical contact.