Garden Sketchbook vs World Machine
Garden Sketchbook
gardensketchbook.com
World Machine
world-machine.comSide by side
| Figure | Garden Sketchbook | World Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $3.25/mo | $119/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 9 |
| Spec score · 3D Landscape Design Software | 8.8 (#5) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Audience | The maker describes the product as suitable for beginners and experienced gardeners. | The maker describes the product as focused on digital terrain tools for artists and highlights game, film and visualization pipelines. |
| Maker | The site identifies the maker as Fablehenge Software, Inc. | World Machine Software LLC is an independent small software company based in Seattle, Washington, founded in 2008 by Stephen Schmitt. |
| Support | The maker directs users to contact it for questions, feedback, refunds and account deletion. | Paid licenses include one year of support and free updates, and the maker offers a help center, helpdesk and community forum. |
| What it does | Garden Sketchbook is a browser garden-design app combining a 2D planting canvas with 3D seasonal visualization. | World Machine is desktop procedural terrain software that generates landscapes and exports heightmaps, masks, meshes and PBR textures for creative pipelines. |
Plans
Garden Sketchbook
- DemoFree
- FreeFree
- Demo export add-on$9, paid once
- Gardener$39 a year
- StudioPriced on request
World Machine
- Indie$119 a month
- Professional$299 a month
- Studio Site$1,999 a month
- BasicFree
- BasicFree
- Indie$119, paid once
- Indie to Professional upgrade$180, paid once
- Professional$299, paid once
- Studio Site$1,999, paid once
In their own words
Garden Sketchbook
Garden Sketchbook is a browser-based tool for designing gardens to scale and previewing them in 3D across the seasons. Its 2D drag-and-drop editor lets users arrange plants, while the seasonal view shows how the garden and its colors change through the year. Filters cover hardiness zone, sun, soil, bloom season, color, deer resistance, and drought resistance. Plants are sized automatically, and users can trace a floor plan or aerial photo while drawing beds, paths, and structures. The library contains hundreds of plants with growing information and specific varieties; custom varieties can be made by changing size, color, and bloom time. The software runs in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge without installation. The 2D planner works on any device, but the 3D seasonal view requires WebGL. The free demo needs no account, though gardens expire after 24 hours. Gardener costs $39 a year after a 14-day free trial and saves up to 10 gardens. A one-time $9 add-on provides PDF export in the free demo.
World Machine
World Machine is procedural 3D terrain-generation software for artists creating realistic or stylized landscapes, including game, film, and visualization work. Its node graph offers more than 100 devices for terrain, erosion, rivers, masks, materials, and outputs. Simulations cover flow-based and thermal erosion, snow accumulation, river channels, lakes, and coastal erosion; Dragontail Peak adds terrain with overhangs, cliff faces, and caves. Exports include heightfields, meshes, masks, and PBR textures in standard formats, with listed file types including RAW, EXR, TIFF, PNG, TER, OBJ, glTF, and GLB. Compatible tools named by the maker include Unreal Engine, Unity, Godot, Blender, Maya, and Cinema 4D. Professional and higher editions support tiled builds for worlds larger than memory and can resume builds after interruption. The free Basic edition has the Indie toolset but caps each output asset at 1025×1025 pixels and is limited to non-commercial use. Paid plans are Indie at $119 a month, Professional at $299 a month, and Studio Site at $1,999 a month. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.