Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover motion graphics & animation and design & graphics. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Blender | Spline | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $15 |
| Pricing model | Free | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | macOS, Windows, Linux | Web |
| Covers | Motion Graphics & Animation, Design & Graphics, Video Editing | Motion Graphics & Animation, Design & Graphics |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
3D, motion and compositing, free forever
Blender models, animates, simulates, renders, composites and cuts video, and the Blender Foundation gives all of it away under the GPL with no tier above it. For motion graphics it is the free answer to a monthly subscription, and the ceiling is the artist rather than the licence. The learning curve is what it costs instead, and that is a real price.
Our note
The honest comparison is not against a cheaper subscription but against time: Blender costs nothing and asks for weeks. If motion graphics is a recurring part of the work that trade is worth making, and if it comes up twice a year it is not.
Only on this side
3D scenes that run in a browser
Spline is a 3D editor in the browser whose output is an interactive scene rather than a rendered file, so the thing you made can sit on a web page and respond to a cursor. Video export and code export are there for when it needs to be flat or embedded properly. The learning curve is much shorter than the desktop tools it competes with.
Our note
Spline is the fastest route from nothing to a 3D thing on a web page, and the free plan is enough to find out whether you enjoy it. Blender is free and does everything, and will take you a month to reach the point Spline reaches in an afternoon.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.