LightWave 3D vs Tripo AI
LightWave 3D
lightwave3d.com
Tripo AI
tripo3d.aiSide by side
| Figure | LightWave 3D | Tripo AI |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | £450/mo | $4.58/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 11 |
| Spec score · 3D modeling software | 8.6 (#29) | 9.3 (#4) |
| Spec score · Game 3D Modeling Software | 8.7 (#8) | 8.7 (#10) |
| Company profile | LinkedIn lists LightWave 3D as privately held software development with headquarters in Macclesfield, 51–200 employees and a 1985 founding date for the brand. | LinkedIn lists Tripo AI as privately held, founded in 2023, headquartered in San Francisco and employing 51–200 people. |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Headquarters | England, UK | Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong |
| Integrations | The Unreal Engine Bridge transfers objects, instances, textures, animations, camera moves, and lights in real time. | Official bridges and plugins cover Blender, 3ds Max, Unity, Unreal Engine, Maya, Godot, Cocos Creator, ZBrush, MetaTailor, Roblox and ComfyUI. |
| Praise: ease and speed | G2 reviewers repeatedly describe LightWave as easy to learn, flexible and fast to render without high-end hardware. | Independent reviewers repeatedly describe fast image or text conversion and an approachable interface for beginners. |
| Rating on G2 | 3.9 out of 5 from 29 reviews | 4.7 out of 5 from 218 reviews. |
| Support | The documentation directs users to support, bug-report and feature-request email addresses and community forums. | The help center has dedicated sections for billing, accounts, credits, features, privacy, enterprise and API/plugins. |
| What it does | LightWave 3D is desktop graphics software for 3D modelling, animation and visual effects used in film, television, games, print and visualisation. | Tripo Studio is a cloud workspace that generates and edits 3D assets from text, images and sketches, then supports processing and export. |
Plans
LightWave 3D
- New LightWave 2025 Licence£795 a month
- LightWave 2025 Upgrade - LightWave 2024 users£450 a month
- LightWave 2025 Upgrade - LightWave 2023 or earlier users£550 a month
- 30-day trialFree
- LightWave 2025 Upgrade — LightWave 2024 users£450, paid once
- LightWave 2026 upgrade from 2025£450, paid once
- LightWave 2025 Upgrade — LightWave 2023 or earlier users£550, paid once
- LightWave 2026 upgrade from 2024 or earlier£550, paid once
- LightWave 2025 licence£795, paid once
- New LightWave 2026 licence£795, paid once
Tripo AI
- FreeFree
- Pro$20 a month
- Max$90 a month
- Team$55 a month
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- API pay-as-you-go$0.01, paid once
- Team$55 a year
- Pro$240 a year
- Credits$1,000, paid once
In their own words
LightWave 3D
LightWave 3D has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Tripo AI
Tripo AI is a 3D creation platform that generates models from text, images, sketches, and multiple views. Its High Detail Model feature can create models with up to 2 million polygons for rendering, visual effects, 3D printing, e-commerce visuals, and game workflows. Smart Mesh produces quad meshes from 500 to 25,000 quads for games, animation, and VR/AR/XR. Editing tools include AI texturing, segmentation, retopology, rigging, animation, and Smart UV unwrapping. Exports include GLB, GLTF, FBX, OBJ, USDZ, STL, and 3MF. The DCC Bridge lists Blender, 3ds Max, Unity, Unreal, Maya, Cocos, Godot, and ZBrush. Developers can integrate generation through an API using API-key authentication; most generation tasks run asynchronously, with clients polling for results. Tripo is available on the web and through its API. The Free plan costs nothing and includes 200 monthly credits, one concurrent task, 15 exports, and 10 stored models. It is limited to non-commercial use, and its models are public. Tripo AI was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong.