Autodesk 3ds Max vs. Autodesk Maya

Autodesk Maya

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Autodesk 3ds Max	Score 8.5 out of 10	N/A	Autodesk offers 3ds Max, 3D modeling and rendering software for design visualization, games, and animation. The vendor states that users can produce professional-quality 3D animations, renders, and models with an efficient and flexible toolset to help create better 3D content in less time.	$235 per month per user
Autodesk Maya	Score 8.4 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

Pricing

Autodesk 3ds Max

Autodesk Maya

Editions & Modules

Monthly Subscription: $235
per month per user
Yearly Subscription: $1875
per year per user
3-Year Subscription: $5625
3 years per user

Monthly: $235
per month per user
Yearly: $1875
per year per user
3-Year: $5625
3 years per user

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Autodesk 3ds Max	Autodesk Maya
Free Trial
Yes	Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

Flex pricing available for limited usage. Minimum plan $300 for 100 tokens. 3ds Max costs 6 tokens per day.

Maya 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
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Autodesk Maya
Considered Both Products	Autodesk 3ds Max Walter K. Gibson, Jr. Assistant Director of Admin Systems Chose Autodesk 3ds Max I use Blender, Maya is expensive learned it once but about the same as 3ds Max, just more expensive. Blender is great, open source and hard to learn, but work it. But since I have so much experience in 3ds Max it is my go to software. Incentivized Helpful? RH Rob Holmes Owner / Designer Chose Autodesk 3ds Max Back when 3d programs were becoming more powerful and stable, 3d Studio (yes, it was 3d Studio before it was 3ds Max, more on that later) and Maya were owned by different companies. At that time, you had to Incentivized Helpful? Jitendra Choubisa Assistant Professor Chose Autodesk 3ds Max Blender is a very small and quite easy-to-use software but it lacks some of the things and for that, you need a lot of addons. So that's not a good thing. 3ds Max on the other hand is big in size but it can do pretty much all the tasks by itself. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Consultant Chose Autodesk 3ds Max Maya is an overall better rendering program. Incentivized Helpful? Arbaz Malik FX TD Chose Autodesk 3ds Max [Most] people like to use Maya for modeling but Maya is only good for soft surface modeling not for hard surface. The [Autodesk 3ds] Max has no limitations in this field, it is open to [making] hard or soft surface modeling. [It] even has great command on fx effects [made] by … Helpful? Vipul Tamboli Augmented & Virtual Reality Intern Chose Autodesk 3ds Max 3ds Max provides me with good animations, as well as rendering images and stability for my gaming models. Therefore, I prefer it over Maya software Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Employee Chose Autodesk 3ds Max Best for rendering and geometry flexibility. Interphase is also superior. The stacking of modifiers is unique and allows for combining, and turning on and of which makes presenting options very agile, and clear without destroying the geometry. It's easily reversible. All others … Incentivized Helpful? vijay kumar Sr Lighting Artist Chose Autodesk 3ds Max Complex models are very easy to make in 3ds Max compared to other software, as Autodesk provides safety and security for your data and there are always there to serve you better. My experience with Autodesk was remarkable and Upmarket integration with other plugins makes 3ds … Incentivized Helpful?	Autodesk Maya Verified User Team Lead 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 … Incentivized Helpful? vijay kumar Sr Lighting Artist Chose Autodesk Maya All are different and cannot compare with each other's abilities. Maya is more powerful than any other software compared to. Incentivized Helpful?
Top Pros	Pro Third party Pro Easy to use Pro Value for money	Pro Easy to build Pro Easy to collaborate Pro Useful as well
Top Cons	Minus Nothing to dislike Minus Takes less time Minus Missing functionality	Minus Better design Minus Better price Minus Developer tools

Best Alternatives
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Autodesk Maya
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Medium-sized Companies	Onshape Score 9.5 out of 10	Onshape Score 9.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Autodesk Maya
Likelihood to Recommend	9.0 (11 ratings)	8.8 (8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Usability	7.8 (2 ratings)	8.0 (1 ratings)
Support Rating	10.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Autodesk Maya
Likelihood to Recommend	Autodesk For print media for marketing and for 3d animations for web spots and TV ads/movies/programs. It is less suited for quick 3d graphics or images that you get from AI image programs, but it is much more powerful than most AI image programs. Incentivized Walter K. Gibson, Jr. Assistant Director of Admin Systems Read full review	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. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Pros	Autodesk 3ds Max includes some of the inbuild modifiers which can be very good in the case of beginners. 3rd party Rendering support makes 3ds Max a powerful software for rendering out realistic images. Autodesk 3ds max in comparison to its rivals is lightweight and fast, also the animation case also. Incentivized Jitendra Choubisa Assistant Professor Read full review	Autodesk Easy to build workflow due to strong customizability. Industry share. Easy to collaborate with other companies. Strong cooperation with other software. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Cons	Autodesk working in 2d is very frustrating and unreliable. It just lacks the precision How scaling affects units (or doesn't) There needs to be a way for modifiers to address a change of scale in the object. Booleans are not intuitive. Especially for architecture, creating an opening and putting a door or a window is an incredibly cumbersome process. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	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. Incentivized Miroslav Bobryshev 3D Asset Artist / 3D Generalist Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	Autodesk It satisfies 95% of my 3d visualization need. The left over 5% is handled by a few other programs. If Max just can't perform a specific task I can do that elsewhere and then bring it back to Max to finish up. But, it's rare that this occurs in my work Incentivized RH Rob Holmes Owner / Designer Read full review	Autodesk No answers on this topic
Usability	Autodesk It is a very difficult program to learn to use and even harder to use well. But once you get to using it it is a great software package to know how to use. Getting to be good at using it takes lots of use. Incentivized Walter K. Gibson, Jr. Assistant Director of Admin Systems Read full review	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. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Support Rating	Autodesk I have contacted support many times and have had a good experience. They have always been helpful Incentivized RH Rob Holmes Owner / Designer Read full review	Autodesk No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered	Autodesk In Autodesk 3ds Max you can do camera animation with ease, its complex in Cinema 4D. Even I think same with light setup. Setting up light is quite easy in Autodesk 3ds Max as compare to Cinema 4D. Overall Autodesk 3ds Max is less complex in compare to other 3D softwares. Roohi Malhotra Sr. Graphic Designer 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. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Return on Investment	Autodesk 3ds Max has one of the best control tools that can help someone to sculpt almost anything. With the vertex tool and polyline edit function we can create almost any complex geometry. Default rendering is equipped with almost everything that is needed for process, V-Ray for 3ds Max is the best 3rd party plugin for getting crisp renders. The four view port tools for viewing the model helps from each and every angle. The moment and selection tools in the 3ds Max are quit easy to operate. Incentivized vijay kumar Sr Lighting Artist Read full review	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 Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
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