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Blender

A complete 3D creation suite for modelling, animation, rendering and more.

Instead of Maya, Cinema 4D and Adobe Substance

M · SystemOpen sourceFreeNo accountNonprofit
www.blender.org
Screenshot of the Blender website

Screenshot from www.blender.org, taken 2026-10-23, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.

In 2008 a small team at the Blender Institute in Amsterdam released Big Buck Bunny, a short film about a giant rabbit with a grudge, made with Blender itself and handed to the world as a demonstration of what the software could do. Blender is a complete 3D creation suite for modelling, animation, rendering and more, it describes itself as free and open-source software forever, and it is released under the GPL for any purpose including commercial work. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

The Blender Foundation coordinates the community project, development happens at the Blender Institute in Amsterdam, and most of the money comes from donations and Development Fund memberships. Blender Studio sells subscriptions for training and assets, which sit outside the software. Blender scores a 5 on lock-in, power, longevity and delivery and a 3 on footprint and self-direction.

It does the job of several expensive programs in one, and nobody can take it away or put it behind a subscription. The price is complexity: it is big, it wants decent hardware, and the learning curve is steep.

Having it means a studio on your computer that no company can switch off, and a long apprenticeship ahead of you.

    What stands out

  • Modelling, animation, rendering and more in one program
  • GPL licensed for any purpose, including commercial work
  • Funded mostly by donations and Development Fund memberships
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For comparison, we also reviewed Adobe Creative Cloud (12/30) as a benchmark.

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