Softwr

CAD · head to head

Mudbox vs CloudCompare

Mudbox logo

Mudbox

CAD

Digital painting and sculpting software

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
CloudCompare logo

CloudCompare

CAD

Open source point cloud comparison and processing maintained largely by one person in their spare time

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only CloudCompare has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Mudbox mudbox subscriptions ending August 7, 2026 - end of sale for 3-year subscriptions, November 7, 2026 for monthly/yearly subscriptions; CloudCompare the project is administered by its creator in his spare time while he holds a full-time job elsewhere, so an organisation building a monitoring programme on it depends on one person with no obligation to continue
  • They diverge on capability: Mudbox covers Digital sculpting, CloudCompare covers Cloud to cloud distance.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Mudbox and CloudCompare actually diverge.

Attributes where Mudbox and CloudCompare differ
AttributeMudboxCloudCompare
Starting price$29/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
Founded1982Unknown

Identical on both: platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux), user rating (Not yet rated), category (CAD).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Mudbox

  • Digital sculpting
  • Texture painting
  • Retopology
  • PTEX support
  • Layer system
  • Stencils
  • Stamps
  • GPU tessellation

Only in CloudCompare

  • Cloud to cloud distance
  • Cloud to mesh distance
  • Registration
  • Segmentation and cleaning
  • Plugin architecture
  • Format support
  • Command line mode

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Mudbox

  • Character sculptingnot CloudCompare
  • Texture creationnot CloudCompare
  • Asset detailingnot CloudCompare

CloudCompare

  • A monitoring engineer comparing quarterly laser scans of a retaining wall to quantify movement without buying a proprietary deformation packagenot Mudbox
  • A heritage team registering dozens of terrestrial scans of a building into a single cloud before meshingnot Mudbox
  • A geomorphologist measuring erosion between two drone-derived surfaces of a river banknot Mudbox
  • A survey technician cleaning and subsampling a scan before delivering it to a client whose software cannot handle the full densitynot Mudbox

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Mudbox

  • Mudbox subscriptions ending August 7, 2026 - end of sale for 3-year subscriptions, November 7, 2026 for monthly/yearly subscriptions
  • Product is being discontinued, making it unavailable for new purchases after specified dates

CloudCompare

  • The project is administered by its creator in his spare time while he holds a full-time job elsewhere, so an organisation building a monitoring programme on it depends on one person with no obligation to continue
  • There is no commercial support contract from anyone, so a defect that blocks a deliverable is resolved by a GitHub issue and community goodwill rather than by an agreement
  • Processing is single machine and memory bound, so very large aerial lidar collections must be tiled manually and large jobs are limited by the workstation rather than scaled out
  • The interface is unforgiving and organised around the underlying data structures rather than around tasks, so competent surveyors routinely take weeks to become productive
  • Plugins vary widely in maintenance, and several useful ones originated in research projects that have since ended, so a workflow built around a specific plugin can break at the next release

Pricing, plan by plan

Mudbox

$29/month
  • Mudbox$85/month
    • Full sculpting
    • Texture painting
  • M&E Collection$2390/month
    • Mudbox + Maya + 3ds Max + more

CloudCompare

Free
  • CloudCompareFree
    • GNU General Public Licence
    • No licence fee and no usage limits
    • No commercial support contract exists

Which should you pick?

Choose Mudbox if

  • You need digital sculpting.
  • You work on Windows, MacOS, Linux.
  • You also want texture painting.
Mudbox review

Choose CloudCompare if

  • You need cloud to cloud distance.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Windows, macOS, Linux.
  • You also want cloud to mesh distance.
CloudCompare review

Questions people ask

Is Mudbox or CloudCompare better?
Neither clearly leads. Mudbox starts at $29/month and CloudCompare at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Mudbox or CloudCompare?
CloudCompare has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $29/month for Mudbox and Free for CloudCompare.
Does Mudbox or CloudCompare run on more platforms?
Mudbox runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux. CloudCompare runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
Can I use CloudCompare for free?
Yes. CloudCompare has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Mudbox starts at $29/month.
What is Mudbox best used for?
Mudbox is most often used for character sculpting, texture creation, asset detailing. Of those, character sculpting and texture creation are not what CloudCompare is typically brought in for.
What can Mudbox do that CloudCompare cannot?
Mudbox covers Digital sculpting, Texture painting, Retopology, PTEX support. CloudCompare covers Cloud to cloud distance, Cloud to mesh distance, Registration, Segmentation and cleaning.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Mudbox: How much does Autodesk Mudbox cost?

Autodesk Mudbox pricing is not shown on the product page. Annual and monthly subscription options are available, but the product is being discontinued with end of sale on November 7, 2026 for monthly subscriptions.

Source
CloudCompare: Who maintains CloudCompare?

Daniel Girardeau-Montaut, its creator, administers it in his own time alongside a full-time engineering job, with contributions from a community of users and research groups.

Mudbox: Is Autodesk Mudbox being discontinued?

Yes, starting August 7, 2026, Autodesk is discontinuing the sale of new and renewal Mudbox subscriptions. The 3-year subscription offering discontinues August 7, 2026, followed by end of sale for 1-year and monthly subscriptions on November 7, 2026.

Source
CloudCompare: Can I buy support?

No. There is no vendor and no commercial support offering. Some geospatial consultancies know it well and can be hired, but they are not contracted to support the software itself.

CloudCompare: Is it suitable for commercial deliverables?

It is widely used for them. The licence permits it and the algorithms are well regarded. The risk is operational, not legal: no support and no roadmap commitment.

CloudCompare: Can it handle a full aerial lidar survey?

Not in one piece. It is memory bound on a single machine, so large collections need tiling or a dedicated lidar pipeline such as PDAL.

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