Autodesk 3ds Max vs. Blender vs. Kuula

Autodesk 3ds Max

40 Reviews and Ratings

Blender

108 Reviews and Ratings

Kuula

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Autodesk 3ds Max	Score8.9 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
Blender	Score9 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
Kuula	N/A	N/A	Kuula is presented as an easy-to-use and budget friendly solution to create 360 Virtual Tours for real estate, architecture, hospitality, construction and education, from the company of the same name in Santa Monica, California. Through Kuula users can upload, edit and share Virtual Tours to impress clients, generate leads and boost sales.	$20 per month

Pricing

Autodesk 3ds Max

Blender

Kuula

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

Blender Cloud Membership: $11.50
per month

Pro: $20
per month
Business: $48
per month

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

No setup fee

No setup fee

No setup fee

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

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Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Blender	Kuula
Considered Multiple Products	Autodesk Walter K. Gibson, Jr. Assistant Director of Admin Systems in Information Technology at The University of Virginia's College at Wise (Education Management, 1001-5000 employees) 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? Rob Holmes Owner / Designer at NVision4D (Animation, 1-10 employees) 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 in Engineering at Techno India NJR Institute of Technology, Udaipur (Education Management, 51-200 employees) 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? Ron Ruvalcava 3D Illustrator/Animator at Virtual Designs Group (Design, 1-10 employees) Chose Autodesk 3ds Max Sketch-up week to be vertically integrated to produce concept all the way to high-end render, an animation (effects, particles, soft-body, etc..) All 3 other softwares are fully capable, it just comes down to what software an operator is most familiar with and if it works in … Incentivized Helpful? vijay kumar Sr Lighting Artist in Research & Development at Labyrinth cinematic sollutions pvr.ltd (Motion Pictures & Film, 11-50 employees) 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?	Open Source Verified User 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 … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User 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, … Incentivized Helpful? Jitendra Choubisa AR VR Content Developer in Professional Services at Techno India NJR Institute of Technology, Udaipur (Design, 51-200 employees) 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 … Incentivized Helpful?	Kuula No answer on this topic
	Would buy again
	92% Would buy again 12 Answers	100% Would buy again 26 Answers	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	83% Delivers good value for the price 10 Answers	100% Delivers good value for the price 26 Answers	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	100% Happy with the feature set 13 Answers	100% Happy with the feature set 26 Answers	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	100% Lived up to sales and marketing promises 9 Answers	100% Lived up to sales and marketing promises 22 Answers	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
100% Implementation went as expected 11 Answers	100% Implementation went as expected 25 Answers	No answers on this topic

Best Alternatives
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Blender	Kuula
Small Businesses	Autodesk Maya Score8.3 out of 10	Autodesk Maya Score8.3 out of 10	Gather Score8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	Navisworks Score9.1 out of 10	Navisworks Score9.1 out of 10	No answers on this topic
Enterprises	Navisworks Score9.1 out of 10	Navisworks Score9.1 out of 10	No answers on this topic
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Blender	Kuula
Likelihood to Recommend	9.4 (13 ratings)	9.9 (25 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Usability	9.2 (4 ratings)	8.1 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Support Rating	10.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Autodesk 3ds Max	Blender	Kuula
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	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. Incentivized Kèlene Poyurs Co-Founder Read full review	Kuula No answers on this topic
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	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. Incentivized Jitendra Choubisa AR VR Content Developer Read full review	Kuula No answers on this topic
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 Read full review	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. Incentivized Verified User Read full review	Kuula No answers on this topic
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 Rob Holmes Owner / Designer Read full review	Open Source No answers on this topic	Kuula 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	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. Incentivized Carlos Lopez Animation and VFX Engineer Read full review	Kuula No answers on this topic
Support Rating	Autodesk I have contacted support many times and have had a good experience. They have always been helpful Incentivized Rob Holmes Owner / Designer Read full review	Open Source No answers on this topic	Kuula No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered	Autodesk Sketch-up week to be vertically integrated to produce concept all the way to high-end render, an animation (effects, particles, soft-body, etc..) All 3 other softwares are fully capable, it just comes down to what software an operator is most familiar with and if it works in the production pipeline for the client. Incentivized Ron Ruvalcava 3D Illustrator/Animator Read full review	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. Incentivized Matt Eddy Creative Director Read full review	Kuula No answers on this topic
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	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. Incentivized Aniket Kumar Chaudhary Content Writer & Video Editor Read full review	Kuula No answers on this topic
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