Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
GIMP
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
GIMP is a free, open-source graphics software. GIMP, or General Image Manipulation Program was developed in 1996 and has continued to be updated by volunteers since then.N/A
Autodesk Maya
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Autodesk offers Maya, a 3D animation, modeling, simulation and rendering tool available to artists, animators, and educators, used to create realistic characters, models, and scenes, as well as effects such as explosions, cloth movement, etc.
$234
per month
Blender
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite available in under the GNU General Public License. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline. Blender Cloud is a related service accessible via subscription, and is a training and content platform providing access to expertise from the Blender Institute for advancing one's use of Blender.
$11.50
per month
Pricing
GIMPAutodesk MayaBlender
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Monthly
$235
per month per user
Yearly
$1875
per year per user
3-Year
$5625
3 years per user
Blender Cloud Membership
$11.50
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GIMPAutodesk MayaBlender
Free Trial
NoYesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMaya is also available through Autodesk's Flex plan and pricing. Tokens expire 1 year from date of purchase. Not all products and features are available with Flex. Students and teachers at qualified academic institutions worldwide are eligible for free access to Autodesk software for one-year through the Autodesk Education Community.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GIMPAutodesk MayaBlender
Considered Multiple Products
GIMP

No answer on this topic

Autodesk Maya
Chose Autodesk Maya
Animating in Autodesk Maya is much more convenient and easier in comparison to Blender. It's easier to use features like constrains, motion trails, and attribute editors in Autodesk Maya. Most of the time I use Blender for modeling and Autodesk Maya for animation. Either way, I …
Chose Autodesk Maya
The UI of 3ds Max is not that good and very old, not the best. Blender is the best for everything, especially its modeling and animation tools are not the best as compared to Autodesk Maya. Cinema 4D is good for motion graphics and create vibrant renders but it has limited …
Chose Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya is better than these other softwares because Autodesk Maya is a software that does not have updates every time, and this means that you do not have to waste time seeing what has been updated and what has not.
Blender
Chose Blender
Again, Blender wins over its competition in the number of users and its large community because it is free software. Whether you like it or not, that's a kickstart that makes a noticeable difference.
But, indeed, its competition is usually much more powerful and professional, …
Chose Blender
In addition to being free to use, Blender is competent and complete enough to do the same things as these programs. While some stabilization is still needed in some aspects, many of these They work quite well and practically the same as them. In addition, Blender has a …
Chose Blender
Most obvious answer for why we have chosen blender over others is cost. The cost of other software is too high but because blender is free it helps to put our money and resources in the right places. It also helped us to get quality output without additional cost as octane is …
Chose Blender
We selected Blender for most of use cases because it's availability and ease of use. Having no commitment in terms of plans or pricing also gives us more freedom to try it out, and we ended up staying with Blender.
Chose Blender
Well, in fact, I haven't used any of that software, but there is one thing I know: Blender is free. That's huge for small business owners like me; it is the difference between having the tool and not having it. I have heard other people saying that the Autodesk offerings have …
Chose Blender
Blender is first of all free and open source software. It has very easy to use tools which can help one in navigating and modifying easily and efficiently. It is also very less in size, on my system it is of 355 MB. The rendering engine Cycle works simultaneously in the …
Chose Blender
The biggest advantage of Blender over these alternatives was how easy it was to learn, even for team members with no previous experience in 3D modeling, design, or any artistic field. The fact that it allows you to import or export files in most of the existing 3D model …
Chose Blender

To date, Maya has been and is the undisputed leader in the sector. Despite being at such a high price, there is really no substitute for Maya's quality. Therefore, the use of

Best Alternatives
GIMPAutodesk MayaBlender
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 7.3 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 8.3 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Adobe PhotoShop
Adobe PhotoShop
Score 9.2 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 8.3 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 7.3 out of 10
Navisworks
Navisworks
Score 9.3 out of 10
Navisworks
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
GIMPAutodesk MayaBlender
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(14 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
9.8
(25 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GIMPAutodesk MayaBlender
Likelihood to Recommend
GIMP Development Team
GIMP is great for anyone ranging from personal use to a small business. But, if you are a large business and have a sufficient budget, I would recommend you to opt for an expensive paid software like Photoshop, that would provide not only great features but also public recognition. Its great for beginners wanting to start editing photos, there is a small learning curve that could be gotten used to in no time.
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Autodesk
Autodesk Maya is a great software, it has so many tools that you can create a full movie without even jumping to any other software. Although it's pretty hard to learn but there is nothing more fun, once you get a hang of it. In general, its tools are best for modeling and animation.
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Open Source
Blender is an excellent tool for everything from simple to complex 3D animations, the creation of 3D images, etc. It performs excellently in all of these areas. In the realm of 3D modelling, animation and rendering, there is very little that Blender is not suited for.
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Pros
GIMP Development Team
  • GIMP has a large number of tools at your disposal for manipulating any type of image and exporting in any necessary format.
  • GIMP does a great job of making everything intuitive so that even a new user can layer images or make an image transparent in little time.
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Autodesk
  • Easy to build workflow due to strong customizability.
  • Industry share. Easy to collaborate with other companies.
  • Strong cooperation with other software.
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Open Source
  • Creating complex polygonal geometries is very easy in Blender.
  • Edit Mode and Sculpt Mode helps in creating non uniform surfaces for objects like rocks, surfaces, terrains etc.
  • Blender can use various external plugins to make it work in more smoother way. For example to import any 3d object one can use sketchfab plugin and easily import the free assets from web after logging in.
  • Blender has a better rendering engine known as Cycles, it is far more better than any other stock rendering engine which can generate realistic lightning, shadows and reflections.
  • The animations can easily be generated with blender animation toolbar and also it incorporate any other animations made in any other software.
  • The bone generation and its behavior of animations can be achieved easily in blender.
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Cons
GIMP Development Team
  • GIMP should make the font tool more intuitive. Make it easier to change fonts during edit process without resetting the typeface selection.
  • Build in selection/move ability within tools like the typeface tool... I.e. don't require toggle between selection tool and typeface tool when wanting to move a line of type within a layer. Likewise with shapes, etc.
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Autodesk
  • Right now Maya has no good viewport like Blender 2.8 has. It is good that Maya 2019 devs focused on performance and stability but it's strange to see that mainstream soft aren't on trend in developing really cool and helpful tools.
  • Maya LT is very good for artist who don't need complex FX tools. So the devs must add python API to Maya LT.
  • Add more helpful tools to modeling section especially for retopology.
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Open Source
  • It's really a hard question, but it could be: a game engine. Older versions used to have it; I would use it to simulate machines game-like.
  • I'm struggling to find another one; maybe the fact that it is so powerful and has so many features that learning it can be daunting; better documentation WITH examples and/or a map of Blender capabilities would help to know where you are in terms of knowledge and the planning the roadmap to where you want to go.
  • Precision modeling. Coming from CAD and using Blender as part of my design workflow, I'd love to be able to model inside Blender as I model with CAD tools. At this moment, it's simply impossible.
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Likelihood to Renew
GIMP Development Team
Capability, open architecture, compatibility with Photoshop plugins, wide platform coverage; To me, as an open-source, freely available application, it's the nest-in-class.
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Autodesk
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Usability
GIMP Development Team
I interface GIMP with other software--I need to. I generally use the major calculation, CAD, word processing, and photo editing programs. In my office, my use of this software is not limited to computer-aided design. However, I am sure that if I needed this software for other purposes, it would have no interface problems.
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Autodesk
As Autodesk Maya was one of the first softwares I learned, so I feel very fun to work with it. The overall usabilty feels very natural to me and I felt it's easy to learn but tough to master kind of software. Some people find it very difficult to learn, so I deduced some rating points.
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Open Source
Because while it's a pretty good piece of software, the default built-in commands, the interface layout, and certain functions aren't as logical in their way of being arranged and executed. This, of course, doesn't diminish its use or effectiveness in your field of work, but it is quite awkward at first. A big advantage is that Blender lets you customize the interface however you want as well as keyboard shortcuts and several general program parameters.
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Support Rating
GIMP Development Team
We have never needed to use the support functions for GIMP. Any queries we have or had about whether GIMP could complete a task we have used Google and YouTube. There is a wealth of information, guides, and forums dedicated to GIMP and how to perform certain tasks with the application.
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Autodesk
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
GIMP Development Team
As simple as can be. Download from GIMP website and install.
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Autodesk
No answers on this topic
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
GIMP Development Team
Online services like Canva are fine for quickly designing brochures and marketing materials, videos, etc. They're user friendly and fast if you have a good connection. But if you're in production mode and need to do a lot of photo manipulation at once, without being connected to the web at all times and just want to focus, GIMP is the go-to product for you
Read full review
Autodesk
We were evaluating the products within the Adobe portfolio like Adobe Animate, Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe After Effects majorly among few others before finalising on the Autodesk Maya. One of the major reasons for that was earlier experience with the Autodesk Maya tool for the engineer and also it has more to offer than Adobe with multiple products.
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Open Source
We've only used the consumer (non-pro) version of SketchUp, which we love, but is very limited in features and output capabilities compared to Blender. While Blender's learning curve is MUCH steeper than SketchUp, it feels like truly complete, professional design software.
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Return on Investment
GIMP Development Team
  • GIMP is freeware, which allows organizations that are not graphics-centered to use the powerful toolset without spending money on very expensive alternatives
  • GIMP is fairly easy to learn and does not require extensive user training (especially, if used for basic tasks)
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Autodesk
  • Effectively able to get the designs created and visualised
  • Video creation for concepts has become easy
  • ROI has been good, but if the costing is brought down then its even more amazing
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Open Source
  • As it is a beginner-friendly software with increasing demand in the animation sector again, it positively impacts the business.
  • Except in some specific cases, no one will use Blender on their own at a professional level.
  • When I was a beginner, it took me a lot of time to learn, consequently designing the creation. But if we want to learn to master Blender, we can do it. As long as we have time and a lot of willpower, since, we repeat, it is not a simple program and hides thousands of tools and possibilities.
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ScreenShots