Gaea vs Isadora
Gaea
quadspinner.comIsadora
troikatronix.comSide by side
| Figure | Gaea | Isadora |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $99/mo | $16.58/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 6 |
| Spec score · Visual Effects Software | 8.1 (#10) | 7.5 (#23) |
| Headquarters | Questa, New Mexico, USA | Berlin, Germany |
| Integrations | Gaea provides bridges for Unreal Engine and Houdini; the Gaea2Houdini plugin requires a Professional or Enterprise license. | The maker describes IzzyCast for transmitting video, audio, and data between computers running Isadora, and says Isadora can interface with other performance software and hardware. |
| Purpose | Gaea is a terrain design platform for VFX, games, and virtual production. | Isadora combines a media server video and audio processing engine with a visual programming environment for media playback and interactive work. |
| Support | Support, maintenance, and minor updates are included at no additional cost, and the company says it does not offer a guaranteed support SLA. | The maker provides a support site with ticket submission, license help, technical support articles, and tutorials. |
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
Isadora
- Isadora 7-Day Rental$17.50, paid once
- Isadora 30-Day Rental$30, paid once
- Isadora Yearly Subscription$199 a year
- Isadora 3 to Isadora 4 upgrade$325, paid once
- Isadora 4 Perpetual$725, paid once
- Isadora 4 USB Key$875, paid once
In their own words
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.