Autograph vs Gaea
Autograph
maxon.net
Gaea
quadspinner.comSide by side
| Figure | Autograph | Gaea |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $99/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 7 |
| Spec score · Visual Effects Software | 8.0 (#14) | 8.1 (#10) |
| Commercial use | Maxon says Autograph is free for commercial use by teams and individuals, with no output limitations or time restrictions. | The Community Edition is for non-commercial use; the Indie edition is listed for individuals or businesses under US $100,000 in annual gross revenue or capital. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Headquarters | Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany | Questa, New Mexico, USA |
| Integrations | Autograph supports Universe and Red Giant OFX tools with a license, plus third-party OpenFX plugins from RE:Vision Effects, BorisFX, and Digital Anarchy. | Gaea provides bridges for Unreal Engine and Houdini; the Gaea2Houdini plugin requires a Professional or Enterprise license. |
| Support | Maxon provides a support center with a knowledge base, user guides, and support requests. | Support, maintenance, and minor updates are included at no additional cost, and the company says it does not offer a guaranteed support SLA. |
Plans
Gaea
- Indie$99 a month
- Professional$199 a month
- Enterprise$299 a month
- Community EditionFree
- Indie$99, paid once
- Professional$199, paid once
- Enterprise$299, paid once
In their own words
Autograph
Autograph is a free Windows and macOS application combining motion graphics, visual effects and compositing, and 2D and 3D projects. Motion tools include a shape engine, motion paths, animated text, and animation for SVG and PSD files. A relative definition system lets one composition render in multiple formats. Compositing supports GPU-optimized effects, OpenFX plugins, Shadertoy, multi-channel EXR, Photoshop layers, and ProRes, with ACES and OCIO color workflows. The application includes rotoscoping plus 2D and planar tracking. Its 3D environment uses Pixar OpenUSD and Filament for real-time physically based rendering. Integrations include Universe and Red Giant OFX tools with a license, and OpenFX plugins from RE:Vision Effects, BorisFX, and Digital Anarchy. Maxon states that individuals and commercial teams can use Autograph free, without output limits or time restrictions. Some features from previous versions are temporarily unavailable while development continues. Cineversity training and a support center are available.
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.