3DVista Stitcher vs PTGui

3DVista Stitcher 4 turns groups of photographs into panoramas through a guided, one-click workflow. It accepts standard, wide-angle, fisheye, and one-shot lenses and most popular camera types. Outputs can be full or partial panoramas in cubic, spherical, or small-planet forms, with 18 projection types including equirectangular, rectilinear, cylindrical, and small-planet. Automatic control-point detection helps align images, and you can add, move, change, or delete those points. One-click standard HDR and Adaptive HDR stitching are included, as is batch stitching for multiple panoramas. Stitcher can process 3DVista Live Panoramas and Adaptive HDR Panoramas; publishing those as immersive virtual tours requires Virtual Tour Pro. The software runs on macOS and Windows, supports HDR blending and control-point editing, and does not support RAW input. A free trial is available.

PTGui stitches photographs into panoramic images, including spherical panoramas that cover 360° × 180°. It can detect overlap between photos and join multiple rows, including images made with fisheye lenses. Manual stitching, a live preview, and a perspective editor provide additional control. On supported hardware, OpenCL can accelerate stitching with the GPU. PTGui accepts JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and camera RAW source images; listed output formats include JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop, and DNG. The Pro edition adds HDR stitching, masking, viewpoint correction, exposure fusion, and a patch tool. PTGui runs on Linux, macOS 10.15 or later, and Windows 10 build 18362 or later. It processes photos, projects, and templates on the user's computer and primarily works offline; HTTPS is used for optional update checks, license activation, and opt-in crash reports. The fully functional trial has no time limit, but exported panoramas carry a visible watermark. Personal licenses include one year of upgrades. Technical support is through a public forum, not email or telephone.