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Blender

Blender

Overview

What is Blender?

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…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Blender has proven to be a versatile and valuable tool for a wide range of use cases. Users, including professionals in the fields of 3D …
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TrustRadius Insights
TrustRadius Insights

Blender For Free.

10 out of 10
January 20, 2023
Incentivized
For our Livestream service, modeling was used for fill-in effects. Blender, being free, was used to model graphics for this production. We …
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Free, fast and fun!

10 out of 10
January 20, 2023
When creating educational content, powerpoint slides are fine, but having animation is much better. I became aware of Blender from a …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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Blender Cloud Membership

$11.50

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details

What is Blender?

Blender Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac, SteamOS
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(87)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Blender has proven to be a versatile and valuable tool for a wide range of use cases. Users, including professionals in the fields of 3D modeling and sculpting, have found Blender to be an essential tool for their work. It allows them to create precise and detailed 3D models for various purposes, such as virtual environments, product visualization, and interior design projects. Additionally, Blender's animation capabilities have been highly valued by users in educational content creation, as it provides a more engaging experience compared to static slides.

Blender's features extend beyond 3D modeling and animation. Many marketing agencies have found it indispensable for creating eye-catching visuals for product launches, videos, and client logos. The software's rendering capabilities have been particularly appreciated, surpassing those offered by CAD-integrated renderers. Moreover, Blender's integration with three.js has allowed users to generate interactive experiences for websites, further enhancing their marketing efforts.

Blender's lightweight and cost-effective nature have made it accessible to students and those on a budget, serving as an alternative to pricier software like Autodesk 3ds Max. However, the initial learning curve may be steep for beginners without prior knowledge of 3D modeling tools and terminology. Nevertheless, motivated users who take advantage of tutorials and resources have managed to become familiar with Blender's features over time. Its free and open-source nature, along with its support for multiple operating systems, has also attracted a loyal user base.

  1. Free and open-source platform: Users appreciate that Blender is accessible to beginner animators as it doesn't require any charges, making it an ideal choice for those starting out in animation.

  2. Powerful features and tools: Users find the wide array of features in Blender essential for their creative process, allowing them to tackle various tasks efficiently. The availability of precise 3D object placement and manipulation tools, as well as intuitive free-form sculpting tools, are particularly valued by users.

  3. Supportive community and resources: The Blender community's size and online resources are highly regarded by users, making it easy for them to find tutorials and solutions to their queries. This accessibility to resources enhances the overall Blender experience.

Cons:

  1. Performance Issues: Some users have experienced performance issues with Blender, such as slow rendering times and crashes during complex projects.
  2. Steep Learning Curve: Several reviewers have mentioned that Blender has a steep learning curve, making it difficult for beginners to grasp all of its features and functionalities.
  3. Lack of Intuitive Interface: A number of users have expressed frustration with the interface of Blender, finding it less intuitive compared to other 3D software programs.

Users commonly recommend starting with tutorials on YouTube and blender.org to learn the basics of Blender. These resources are found to be valuable for gaining knowledge and skills in using the software.

Users advise not being afraid of the interface and taking time to learn and practice. They suggest that investing time and effort into learning Blender is worth it for 3D modeling and rendering.

Users also recommend exploring the various functionalities of Blender, such as its rendering tool, for different purposes like financing project management, animation, digital content molding, and more. Blender is also suggested for both 3D and 2D work, making it versatile for users with low configuration systems.

Reviews

(1-23 of 23)
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February 01, 2023

Excellent software for Creating Animated Films for Training purposes.

Gloria Varghese | TrustRadius Reviewer
Gloria Varghese
Digital marketing trainer
Rannz studies (E-Learning, 1-10 employees)
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Creating animated films it is awesome software for starters while it is little buggy sometimes.Rendering feature is also works well.It also supports various geometrical shapes which is really useful.On the other hand ,the video editor in blender software is basic version compared to other software in the market.
January 26, 2023

Free tool to create elements for website design

John Crumpton | TrustRadius Reviewer
John Crumpton
Technical Director (CTO)
Doublesided (Design, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender is a versatile tool that can be used to create a wide range of 3D content for web design (at least that's our use case). I'm still learning the animation system and how to translate that into three.js. For us creating the models was the most important then exporting them into a format we could use.
January 25, 2023

The Future of 3D Made Easy

Kèlene Poyurs | TrustRadius Reviewer
Kèlene Poyurs
Co-Founder
Conversion Queens (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
January 23, 2023

A world by itself, extremely powerful and free!

Verified User
Director in Engineering
Automotive Company, 1-10 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender is perfect for producing stunning 3d models of anything, and I'm mainly talking from my own experience (in fact, very unique) of using artistic software, as this is, for engineering purposes. So I'm convinced Blender is perfectly suited for rendering engineering models, even animating them, but it really, really struggles with modeling at the engineering level. Don't get me wrong, Blender is a great tool for 3d modeling, but it lacks the precision needed when model dimensions are important. It can be done, but in Blender, it would take a hundred times more time to model something like that compared an any CAD. Regarding recommendations, I would recommend Blender to colleagues from a technical perspective, but from the business point of view, I wouldn't tell anyone which tools I use; that's part of what makes my offerings better than my colleagues.
January 23, 2023

Industry Standard 3D Modeling & Animation Software for FREE.

Arpad Szucs | TrustRadius Reviewer
Arpad Szucs
Brand Designer | UI, UX & Visual Designer
WhiteX.Design (Design, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
As I mentioned earlier, we're using blender in multiple scenarios, but mainly for 3d product visualization and interior design. Allows us to present a nearly photo-realistic image of a client's vision. This is invaluable for our customers and us. Blender might be less appropriate in situations when complex scenes are involved in the production. Its viewport is getting better and better; however, when we're dealing with millions of polygons, the viewing experience can degrade somewhat. Also, different simulations are not the highest quality yet, i.e., cloth simulation.
January 23, 2023

Blender for 3D animation.

Verified User
Engineer in Customer Service
Semiconductors Company, 5001-10,000 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
I am using Blender to make cartoons and 3D animation to show my concept of research results to the audiance ranging from low-level to excellent in the field. It saves a lot of time to explain and makes attraction to the audiance. It is exceptionally used in academia, classroom, and industry.
January 21, 2023

Get into the 3D world with Blender

Verified User
Manager in Marketing
Information Technology & Services Company, 51-200 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender has been improving for over 10 years, and it is impressive that the software keeps being this current. Thanks to its zero cost and this amount of years in the market, it has managed to form an incredible community that provides thousands of tutorials to shorten the learning gap.
Thanks to its number of updates, it stopped being that software dedicated exclusively to 3D beginners, to begin to be considered as one of the excellent software for comprehensive projects.
January 20, 2023

Blender - An easy tool to start creating your dream 3d world with animations.

Jitendra Choubisa | TrustRadius Reviewer
Jitendra Choubisa
AR VR Content Developer
Techno India NJR Institute of Technology, Udaipur (Design, 51-200 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
For beginners blender is an awesome tool to start with. Those who wants to have a career in animations and 3d modelling can start with blender and apply the skills to get a good job or work.
Blender comes handy when we want to make 3d objects and environments. One can also make a CG Movie with it as it has good camera controls. It's open source, so suggestion from all over the world comes in to developer which helps in making it more strong in the field.

Overall its free so one cant start learning it right away and the tutorials for it are also freely available everywhere on the internet.
January 20, 2023

Incredible Power and TRULY Incredible Value.

ME
Matt Eddy
Creative Director
The Buzz Lab (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
It feels like there's nothing in the 3D design space Blender can't do -- if you have the patience to research techniques online. We use Blender to make very accurate 3D tool and hardware models -- and it's great at placing vertices and edges and manipulating them precisely. For more freeform modeling, it has a sculpting mode that lets you virtually manipulate a surface like clay. Between these two modes, you can create everything from ultra-precise machine templates to organic figurines. It has a 3D printing add-on that checks your models before slicing, then it outputs it to one of many different formats. We output to .stl and have had good results.
January 20, 2023

Blender is the best

Zeel Pandya | TrustRadius Reviewer
Zeel Pandya
SAP ABAP Consultant
AeonX Digital Solutions (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees)
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender is supporting almost everything , modelling, texturing, animation, compositing, simulation, FX, lighting and rendering and even sculpting. Which you can use in your organization .Finding plugin for blender is too easy as it's an open source .Setting up with blender is too easy , you just have to download from site and follow the instruction provided there, no need to create account anything.

I feel ZBrush of Blender is very powerful tool that let you do all pipeline work in one package without paying for a separate piece of software for sculpting .
January 20, 2023

Blender For Free.

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Religious Institutions Company, 11-50 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Modeling and rendering are my main uses. Animation, motion graphics, and 3-D graphics are areas particularly suited for Blender. With any software for modeling and rendering, you must make sure you have a properly spaced computer. I did try using graphic editing in place of Adobe PhotoShop and was unsuccessful.
January 20, 2023

Excellent results and it's Free!

Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Graphic Design Company, 1-10 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
The software is free which is amazing and is updated with new features regularly, not to steep a learning curve and has many powerful functions other software programmes have that cost ÂŁ1000's.

Lots of users and online tutorials make it very easy to learn, plus the Cycles ray tracer is amazing and creates stunning results
January 20, 2023

Blenders great for new users or experienced 3D modelers.

Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Mechanical Or Industrial Engineering Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Building our products in the platform that can be used for marketing materials or previews for customers has been helpful; I want to get the product teams involved and do imports from original CAD drawings so they can be seen in real word scenarios and environments. If you only want something small and you want to build it, sometimes it's worth hiring instead of undertaking the work yourself if you have other time commitments.
January 20, 2023

Free, fast and fun!

Verified User
Project Manager in Professional Services
Entertainment Company, 201-500 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender works on both MAC and PCs have a far shorter learning curve than I expected (especially since this was the first time I was using any kind of animation software and am NOT a trained artist), and the tutorials do an excellent job of explaining and demonstrating the various aspects of the software. It works very well for creating educational content, which is what we use it for. I don’t think I’d make a 2-hour move with it, but I don’t see why that couldn’t be done if you wanted to.
November 29, 2021

Open source Tool

Mahmoud obaid | TrustRadius Reviewer
Mahmoud obaid
Graduate Mechanical Engineer
AECOM (Civil Engineering, 201-500 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Being open-source & free is very convenient for any designer or modeler since you can use it in various ways. Not only engineers who are using this software but also animators and this is considered as big plus to this software. Personally, I use Blender as preprocess CFD tool where u can directly can create meshes with any needed dimensions and numbers then export them with any format but on the other hand, sometimes blinder tends to have issues while creating these meshes such as showing error messages and you cant tell we’re exactly the problem is hence taking a lot of time for troubleshooting.
November 28, 2021

Blender is the best 3D program to get yourself started in that field!

LH
Liz Hogan
Content Manager
Find My Profession (Writing & Editing, 11-50 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender is well suited for character design from scratch. Designing any element from scratch is what blender is ideal for. Creating 3d animation and 2d background. You can test out different animations on a scene in a blender. If you a trying to design a full-on scene and 3d characters in one project it can get quite slow to render and load.
November 13, 2021

A great tool for 3D modeling, texture creation and simple animation.

DV
Dominique Vilbrun
Lead Designer
IndieSmasher (Entertainment, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender has been an amazing tool for the creation of new models for our games, be it characters, enemies, buildings, or equipment (weapons, armor, accessories), and continues to be our go-to software to meet these needs. Detailed animations are however challenging to create with the current setup/UI it provides.
November 11, 2021

Free doesn't always mean its inferior

Salomi Rai | TrustRadius Reviewer
Salomi Rai
Junior Animator
Creative Smart Pathshala (Animation, 51-200 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are a new 3D artist, Blender is a perfect choice. It's free and has every 3D feature you need. In my opinion, Blender is great for modeling and sculpting compared to animation. personally, I feel a little uncomfortable animating in Blender so I only use bender for modeling and sculpting.
June 28, 2021

Create 3D Animations For Free...

Aniket Kumar Chaudhary | TrustRadius Reviewer
Aniket Kumar Chaudhary
Content Writer & Video Editor
IT Zone (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender is one of the best software focused mainly on modeling, lighting control, rendering, animation, and 3D graphics. This software is completely free and open-source, and it is more than at the level of other similar alternatives within the professional field. Some movies such as Coffee Run (2020), Spring (2019), and movie studios (like Marvel) have used it to animate and process their films and effects. The only issue is that it slows down the PC sometimes.
March 31, 2021

Doesn't get better than free!

DF
Dominic Farrow
Graphic Designer
Blkmarket (Design, 1-10 employees)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
Blender is an excellent program for anyone looking to learn 3D modeling or even animation. Blender not only makes learning how to do 3D modeling easier, but it is also absolutely free. You will not find a better program for your 3D workflow than Blender, especially not a program that is also for free.
March 25, 2021

Best FREE investment ever! Fast, quality and super easy to use

Verified User
Director in Marketing
Consumer Goods Company, 51-200 employees
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Likelihood to Recommend
I always recommend Blender. Not only its easy to use and the return on investment is fast and cheap since the software is free and the community is super great and helpful. I always sell Blender to other designers as if I work for Blender
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