8th Wall vs Lens Studio

8th Wall provides tools for building 3D experiences and WebAR for web browsers or self-hosted projects. Its XR Engine includes World Effects, Absolute Scale, Image Targets, Face Effects, and Sky Effects, and is designed to work with A-Frame, Three.js, Babylon.js, and PlayCanvas. 8th Wall Desktop is an XR game engine with a visual editor; downloads are available for Apple Silicon Mac, Intel Mac, and Windows x64. Projects can be deployed and hosted wherever a developer needs. The Free plan costs nothing, with no login required. The engine binary is closed source, cannot be modified or reverse engineered, and is subject to a limited-use license; other listed tools and example projects use MIT licenses. The distributed binary omits Niantic Spatial VPS, Lightship Maps, and Hand Tracking. Native export is coming soon, and export through the retired hosted platform is no longer available. Projects exported before February 28, 2026 can be moved to local or self-hosted use. Hosted projects are scheduled to remain live through February 28, 2027, when hosting is due to be decommissioned.

Lens Studio is a free desktop application for artists and developers building augmented-reality experiences on Windows 11 (64 bit) or macOS 12.0 and later. It includes a visual editor with face, image and world tracking, plus plugins, JavaScript, TypeScript and package management. The GenAI Suite can produce custom machine-learning models and 2D or 3D assets from text or image prompts without coding, while an AI Assistant answers development questions using Snap’s learning materials. Shared Spectacles projects can use Connected Lenses, Sync Framework and multiple preview windows. The Connected Framework SDK adds matchmaking, shared sessions, state synchronization, networked prefab spawning and multiplayer testing in Preview. Finished Lenses can go to Snapchat and Spectacles, or to web and mobile apps through Camera Kit. Minimum hardware includes 8 GB RAM, listed processors, specified graphics hardware and a 1280×768 display. Spectacles (2024) developers are directed to version 5.15.4. Version 5.24 Leaderboard projects and templates require Snapchat Mobile 14.23.