Apple Motion vs Gaea
Apple Motion
apple.com
Gaea
quadspinner.comSide by side
| Figure | Apple Motion | Gaea |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $12.99/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 4 | 7 |
| Spec score · Visual Effects Software | 8.0 (#13) | 8.1 (#10) |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Purpose | Motion is a motion graphics tool for creating and animating images, cinematic titles, transitions, and effects in real time. | Gaea is a terrain design platform for VFX, games, and virtual production. |
| Support | Apple provides a Motion User Guide, troubleshooting resources, information about supported media formats and plug-ins, and access to Apple Communities. | Support, maintenance, and minor updates are included at no additional cost, and the company says it does not offer a guaranteed support SLA. |
| System requirements | Motion requires macOS 15.6 or later, 8 GB memory (16 GB recommended), a Metal-capable graphics card on Intel-based Macs, and 5.2 GB available disk space. | Gaea requires Windows, a CPU supporting AVX2, and at least 16 GB RAM; GPU compute requires CUDA 12.5 or higher or HIP 6.0 or higher, though CPU-only use is supported. |
Plans
Apple Motion
- Motion$49.99 a month
- Motion$49.99, paid once
- Apple Creator Studio$12.99 a month
- Motion$49.99, paid once
Gaea
- Indie$99, paid once
- Professional$199, paid once
- Enterprise$299, paid once
- Community EditionFree
- Indie$99, paid once
- Professional$199, paid once
- Enterprise$299, paid once
In their own words
Apple Motion
Apple Motion has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Gaea
Gaea is a Windows terrain design application for VFX, games, and virtual production. It builds terrain from procedural forms, imported data, or hand-drawn elements, then applies simulations for erosion, debris, glaciers, rivers, snow, and vegetation. It can produce terrain-aware color, textures, masks, material zones, vegetation data, and flow maps. Exports include heightfields, meshes, point clouds, textures, masks, and other terrain data. Bridges connect Gaea with Unreal Engine and Houdini; the Gaea2Houdini plugin requires a Professional or Enterprise license. Gaea also offers node-based compositing and a hybrid render engine.
The Community Edition is free for non-commercial use. The listed perpetual-license prices are $99 a month for Indie, $199 a month for Professional, and $299 a month for Enterprise; each is described as a one-time price. Gaea requires Windows, an AVX2-capable CPU, and at least 16 GB of RAM. CPU-only operation is supported; GPU compute needs CUDA 12.5 or higher or HIP 6.0 or higher.