TrustRadius Insights
Unity has found extensive use in the realm of game development, offering software developers and CTOs the tools to create immersive AR and …
Starting at $200 per person/per month
View PricingOverview
What is Unity?
Unity Technologies headquartered in San Francisco offers the Unity real-time 3D and 2D development platform.
Recent Reviews
Pricing
Enterprise
$200
On Premise
per person/per month
Plus
$399
On Premise
per person/per year
Pro
1,800
On Premise
per person/per year
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Unity GDC demo - Adam - Part I
YouTube
Product Details
- About
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Unity?
Unity is a game engine designed to support 2d and 3d games, using either C# or JavaScript.
Unity Videos
Unity Feature Preview
Prefabs are the building blocks of any Unity project. Prefabs are essential for saving developers time, and maximizing efficiency. We go over how to create a prefab, how to instantiate one in code, and show an example of prefabs in action.
Unity Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Unity Technologies headquartered in San Francisco offers the Unity real-time 3D and 2D development platform.
Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of Unity are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(18)
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!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Unity has found extensive use in the realm of game development, offering software developers and CTOs the tools to create immersive AR and VR experiences. Users appreciate Unity's ability to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms, resulting in efficient code re-use. Integration with Android Studio and Xcode is seamless, simplifying the process of integrating Unity projects with these platforms. The software's power, flexibility, and smooth learning curve have made it a preferred choice for game development, particularly for 3D games. Additionally, Unity's pricing model based on revenue has been beneficial for organizations that provide free games to the population, allowing them to maximize their resources.
Furthermore, Unity is utilized beyond the gaming industry. It is widely employed in architectural visualization and virtual production, enabling designers and owners to gain a better perspective on projects before construction begins. In educational settings, Unity has proven valuable in school projects, assisting individuals with conditions like Asperger Syndrome by creating 3D videogames with virtual reality. Unity's comprehensive tutorials and vast asset library have also made it accessible for students and newcomers to game development.
Additionally, Unity addresses the need for accessible and fun mobile games on Google Play, appealing to users of all ages. The software is employed in various industries outside of gaming as well; for example, in Digital Media Communications programs, it is used to create 2D and 3D applications such as video games and interactive graphical interfaces. Moreover, Unity's capabilities for building 3D simulations and its gamification features make projects engaging and appealing to users across different fields.
Overall, Unity offers a versatile platform for developers looking to create immersive experiences in AR/VR or develop games across multiple platforms. With its intuitive interface and extensive features, Unity continues to be widely utilized across industries due to its efficiency in code re-use, seamless integration with other platforms, powerful capabilities for game development, accessibility for beginners, and versatility beyond gaming.
Effective 3D Space Design: Users have found Unity to be particularly effective for creating 3D spaces, whether for games or educational experiences. Several reviewers have praised its smooth transition between desktop and VR development, allowing them to easily immerse themselves in their creations using devices like the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift.
Wide Range of Reusable Assets: The availability of a wide range of reusable code and libraries in Unity's asset store has been highly appreciated by users. Many reviewers have mentioned that this feature saves a significant amount of time by offering pre-built solutions for common problems. They also appreciate the frequent updates from the Unity community, ensuring developers stay up to date with the latest VR and AR developments.
User-Friendly Interface: Unity's user-friendly interface has received praise from many reviewers. Its simplicity and ease of use make it accessible to beginners and contribute to a smoother learning curve. Additionally, helpers and shortcuts provided within the software facilitate common tasks in game development, further enhancing the user experience.
Overwhelming Interface: Some users have found Unity's interface to be overwhelming and complex, particularly for beginners. They feel that the abundance of options and the ability to attach specific code to objects in the scene can make navigation and organization challenging.
Unidirectional Mobile App Workflow: There is criticism that Unity's mobile app workflow is unidirectional, requiring a lengthy build process and making it difficult to make changes in Unity and see them reflected in Android Studio or Xcode in real-time. This has been mentioned by several reviewers as a drawback.
Shift from C++ to C#: Experienced professionals coming from other game engines may feel annoyed by the shift from using C++ to C# in Unity. While this transition may not be an issue for beginners starting with Unity, some users have expressed concern about having to learn a new programming language if they decide to switch to another game engine in the future.
Users commonly recommend the following three things when using Unity:
- Start with Unity Personal and upgrade to Professional if substantial revenue is generated.
- Utilize Unity's extensive library of tutorials and resources, and be patient and persistent in learning how to code in Unity.
- Take advantage of responsive forums for help, embrace the power of prefabs, and explore the Unity Asset Store for custom tooling and tips.
These recommendations highlight the cost efficiency of Unity compared to its competitors. The users suggest starting with the free version and upgrading to the Professional edition if their projects generate substantial revenue. They also emphasize the importance of utilizing Unity's extensive library of tutorials and resources to learn how to code effectively in Unity, while maintaining patience and persistence throughout the learning process. Seeking help from responsive forums, embracing the power of prefabs, and exploring the Unity Asset Store for custom tooling are also suggested strategies for maximizing productivity with Unity.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
March 17, 2022
Loving Unity and its tools
I currently use unity for architectural visualization and virtual production. One of the best use cases for us is to be able to utilize our existing 3d renderings and create a 1 to 1 environment that you can walk through in virtual reality. This has given both the designers and owners a better perspective on what is being built. This has also been utilized in pre-construction meetings to determine any underlying design issues and catch them before there are issues in the field. This has saved thousands of dollars and a tone of time in our schedule not having to deal with change orders.
- 3D Rendering
- 3D walk through in Virtual Reality
- Interactive menus and UI within the environments
- A larger marketplace
- More Assets added to the base software
- Better instructional videos
- Rendering
- VR capability
- AR Capability
- Multi Platform distribution
- Saving money on construction design costs
- Saved money on finding issues before they arise
- Created a platform to per-cue future investments
We love utilizing unreal engines but we seem to have a better use case for the architectural visualization side of things. This has given us the ability to find better more photo-realistic assets from not only the marketplace but 3rd party sites that have a unity bases file to work off of.
June 03, 2021
Making and Publishing Games with Unity is Fun
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I am using Unity for Game Development. I used VR tools of Unity using library OpenVr. Unity is perfect for creating 3D simulations, and because Unity is a game engine, gaming of a project is really simple, and gamification makes the project not only engaging but also appealing for the user.
- User Friendly
- Assest Library
- Pricing
- Screen play and GUI Quality
- To create an app, you'll need to integrate a variety of technology.
- Compatibility Issues arises sometimes after update
- Continue to develop ML learning models for AI.
- Pricing
- Support
- Availability of assets
- Unity has made the job easy with its build in assets library
- Unity has provided us with brilliant screen play options
- Unity has the best pricing schemes available in comparison with its competitors
Unity offer more variety and more library assets in comparison with any other game development platform out there. The price and support is what actually separate unity from others as you wouldn't get any quality with such cheap prices in any other platform. The unity platform is user friendly thus allowing me to experiment in different scenes without prior information and guiding me all the way so my learning never stops.
5
We are a team of 5 members working on Unity game development. The team consists of both armature and experience user and both are working on the project of building a exiting game. The platform of Unity is quite well manage and it doesn't took much time before the internee learn the art and become efficient in Unity.
1
Only one person in our group is master and he can help unity. For mastering unity one has to master the art of
1- Textures 2- Animations 3- Scripting 4- Graphical User Interface (GUI) along with one must know the session management to effectively time the performance of the game.
1- Textures 2- Animations 3- Scripting 4- Graphical User Interface (GUI) along with one must know the session management to effectively time the performance of the game.
- SteamVR Plugin
- Unity-Chan! Model
- 3D Game Kit
- Yughues Free Ground Materials
No
I
If I had to choose again I would still choose unity as there aren't many others gaming platform available till now that have such valuable and user friendly interface that unity provides. There might be a competition in the future with the development of AI Techniques but till now Unity is head and shoulder above its competitors.
I haven't bought the premium support as I didn't felt the need to buy premium as I don't do multilevel game developments improvising different screenplays rather I do simple 2-D or 3-D game development as for that I didn't felt the need to buy premium support. The community was really helpful and guides me the process of game development.
No
On starting with unity I remember I bought an asset unknowingly whether I would be able to implement it in my screen play or not but the asset comes with built-in guide to help you get familiarize with the assets so that you can used them efficiently in your game. I was so happy that I didn't have to waste my time in order to learn about the asset properties.
August 09, 2019
The best game engine for independent studios and solo devs
We use Unity to develop modern video games titles for the main gaming platforms like Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PCs. We are an independent game studio with 2 years experience in video game development and right now we are working on two titles, one for cell phones and the other for the major gaming platforms.
- Great and simple interface.
- Good pricing model for independent developers.
- Powerful and flexible tool for making video games.
- Great library of assets to save time in the asset store.
- The Linux version of the Unity editor can be improved.
- There are some aspects in the development process that Unity is not as good as Unreal Engine.
- Some of the core functions of the tool, like the Mecanin State Machines could have some improvements to match the competition.
- Unity has a positive impact because, as of now, we don't have to pay for our license because we do not go beyond the revenue roof.
- We cannot say more than that because the games that we are producing in Unity are not yet launched.
The main competitors of Unity are Unreal Engine, Cry Engine, Game Maker Studio, RPG Maker and Godot (none of those were available in the list). I've tested Unreal and Game Maker. I've chosen Unity because of these factors: It's simple to get started, the great community behind the engine, the great number of tutorials online for accomplishing almost anything, the better asset store and the stability of Unity's editor even on computers that are not very powerful.
February 02, 2019
Great Tool for AR & VR Experiences
Unity is used by our software developers and CTO to produce rich, immersive AR and VR experiences. We use Unity to produce cross-platform content that is usable in a number of ways: as standard 2D and 3D desktop apps, on desktops for VR platforms such as HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and on mobile devices as both 2D and 3D apps as well as AR and VR experiences.
The business needs that Unity meets are being able to write code once that can be rendered on a number of platforms. While we do have specific code integration paths for Android versus iOS, and there are unique differences when writing code for different use cases, our ability to reuse assets and much of the business logic in the apps is simply incredible. Unity gives us tremendous efficiency in code re-use and allows us to meet business needs such as being able to rapidly prototype, as well as integration with Android Studio and Xcode. We are also able to easily update 3D assets in Blender and view changes in realtime in Unity, thanks to Unity's excellent integration with Blender.
The business needs that Unity meets are being able to write code once that can be rendered on a number of platforms. While we do have specific code integration paths for Android versus iOS, and there are unique differences when writing code for different use cases, our ability to reuse assets and much of the business logic in the apps is simply incredible. Unity gives us tremendous efficiency in code re-use and allows us to meet business needs such as being able to rapidly prototype, as well as integration with Android Studio and Xcode. We are also able to easily update 3D assets in Blender and view changes in realtime in Unity, thanks to Unity's excellent integration with Blender.
- 3D space design is especially easy in Unity, whether for 3D games or educational experiences.
- VR development is one of Unity's greatest strengths. The ability to be working in a 3D environment on the desktop and then hit Play and be immersed in that environment in the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift is incredible.
- Reusable code from the asset store is a huge plus. Being able to find libraries which solve the problems you are trying to solve can save an incredible amount of time.
- Staying up to date with changes in VR and AR development is a big plus. Unity has such a strong community that libraries are always being updated.
- Finding example code is not very hard, and there are "scenes" that other developers have created that you can import and view, to see how they achieved particular goals. This makes learning Unity by reverse-engineering others' publicly available code a great way to learn.
- There are so many free video tutorials in Unity that it is much easier to learn than some of its competitors in the space.
- Unity's AR plugins are still in their infancy and as they grow more robust, Unity will only get better.
- Unity's VR development requires the use of much third-party functionality that could be included in core Unity libraries in order to create less external dependencies.
- Unity's mobile integration requires building for mobile devices in a one-way movement. It would be nice if you could be coding in Android Studio or Xcode, and making changes in Unity in realtime, then running the apps from AS or Xcode. In short: Unity's mobile app workflow is unidirectional right now and requires a lengthy build process, which could be vastly improved if you were able to make changes in Unity and hotswap code.
- Unity has allowed us to serve customers which we would otherwise not be able to serve, which has brought in new markets and along with it helped us achieve our business goals of providing top-notch AR and VR experiences.
- Unity has also allowed us to rapidly produce educational materials which we use for teaching VR and AR to students, so that's been a big win.
- There have been no negative impacts from Unity besides the initial upfront cost of learning the software, although the learning curve was very accessible. Our investment of time in learning this tool and putting it into practice has paid off in our ability to provide rich, immersive AR and VR experiences for our clients.
Unreal Engine is a fantastic piece of software but it has a much steeper learning curve and an arcane, idiosyncratic way of developing software that is quite foreign. Unity uses some similar concepts to Adobe Flex, which we've always found easy and sensible. It is also easier to go to Unity having either a Java or C# background.
We also explored using Android Studio and Xcode on their own for AR experiences and that is a suitable option depending on the use case, but Unity is still a great tool for rapid prototyping and even for building finished, shipped apps.
We also explored using Android Studio and Xcode on their own for AR experiences and that is a suitable option depending on the use case, but Unity is still a great tool for rapid prototyping and even for building finished, shipped apps.
- Building 3D environments
- Adding physics to 3D objects
- Positioning 3D objects
- Restricting the camera in certain ways in VR (e.g. giving the user the experience of sitting in a canoe).
- Complex user interaction with 3D objects in VR (some interactions like grabbing are easy and straightforward but others take time to get right).
No
December 12, 2018
The Game Engine for the Rest of Us
I work in a public health institution in Brazil and since 2012 we have started to develop games mainly for health communication. At first, 2D game engines were enough for our projects, but soon we were in need of a more powerful solution, able to deal with 3D games. We tried other engines, but Unity's power, flexibility and, particularly, its smooth learning curve proved to be decisive in our choice. Since our games are given free of charge to the population, Unity's price model, based on revenue, allows us to use the engine freely and maximize our resources in benefit of the population. Right now there are at least four other teams in my institution using Unity for their projects.
- Unity is a multiplatform game engine. It has more than 20 options for exporting your game, ranging from desktop, mobile, console, web and, lately, VR and AR. Unity was one of the first game engines able to export games playable on internet browsers and it helped to cement the World Wide Web as a place fit for gaming.
- Unity has a very smooth learning curve for beginners. It is easy to start and soon you are seeing some tangible results of your efforts. The game engine has all sorts of helpers and shortcuts to facilitate some frequent tasks in game development.
- Another of Unity's advantage is the access to Assets Store from within the game engine, allowing the user to import instantly objects, scripts and textures from the store into their projects. Such easy access to these elements from inside a project greatly enhances speed production and is particularly helpful to beginners.
- Since game development is so complex in itself, Unity also has a lot of complexity in its interface. Despite the efforts of its creators, the many options in Unity's interface can be overwhelming to the beginner, particularly, taking into account that each object in the scene can have its specific piece of code attached. It takes time and practice to learn to navigate the interface.
- Unity operates with C#, which is easier to grasp than C++. However, traditionally, C++ has been the standard in the game industry for many years and some experienced professionals coming to Unity can feel a bit annoyed with this change. On the opposite side, if you start in Unity and for some reason, you decide to change to another game engine (like Unreal, for example), you will have to be prepared to learn C++.
- The Asset Store, at the same time it is an advantage, is accused by many critics of encouraging "asset flippers", which are games made completely by getting ready-made assets at the store, where the "creator" does not actually create anything. It is not a disadvantage of Unity in itself, but it is advisable to the beginner to be careful to not use too many third-party game assets.
- Unity allowed us to make engaging 3D games deliverable through our website. We can produce high-quality games with comparatively low effort.
- Since it has a smooth learning curve, we started to develop in Unity even without specialized courses.
- Unity has a huge community. This makes very easy to ask for help when some doubt arises and also to recruit people for our projects. There is a very active ecosystem around the game engine.
Unreal and CryEngine are both the direct competitors of Unity. Both were designed for high-end games (AAA games), while Unity was designed with the indie game designer in mind. This way, historically, Unreal and Cryengine used to be very expensive, hard to set up and understand without training. In recent years, this changed and both are now similar to Unity, being cheap or free, easy to install and to learn. However, it is possible to say that Unity is still the major force due to its community. It is the game engine that most of the people know and love, making it easier to conclude a project since there are more assets available for it, more people to ask when you are in doubt and more professionals to recruit when you need more workforce.
No