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CAD · head to head

CloudCompare vs Mari

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
Mari logo

Mari

CAD

3D painting for film and games

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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; Mari the full annual licence is $1,289 paid annually, and a short term quarterly rental is $949 per quarter
  • They diverge on capability: CloudCompare covers Cloud to cloud distance, Mari covers High-resolution painting.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CloudCompare and Mari actually diverge.

Attributes where CloudCompare and Mari differ
AttributeCloudCompareMari
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feesubscription
FoundedUnknown1996

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 CloudCompare

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

Only in Mari

  • High-resolution painting
  • UDIM support
  • Procedural layers
  • Baking
  • Node graph
  • Color management
  • Maya
  • Nuke

What people use each for

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

CloudCompare

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

Mari

  • Painting textures directly onto high complexity 3D assets for film and gamesnot CloudCompare
  • Handling very large multi-UDIM texture sets in a look development pipelinenot CloudCompare

Where each one falls short

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

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

Mari

  • The full annual licence is $1,289 paid annually, and a short term quarterly rental is $949 per quarter
  • The cheap $299 per year or $35 per month subscription is restricted to a single licence for people working alone or in small companies
  • Node-locked and floating are separate licence types you must choose between
  • All listed prices are before applicable taxes
  • A separate non-commercial licence exists, so commercial use requires a paid tier

Pricing, plan by plan

CloudCompare

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

Mari

Free
  • Individual Subscription$86/month
    • Solo artists or small companies
    • $689 per year alternative billing
  • Team Subscription$null/year
    • Node-locked or floating licenses
    • Annual payment
  • Team Rental$949/quarter
    • Short-term access
    • Node-locked or floating licenses

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Mari if

  • You need high-resolution painting.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Windows, MacOS, Linux.
  • You also want udim support.
Mari review

Questions people ask

Is CloudCompare or Mari better?
Neither clearly leads. CloudCompare starts at Free and Mari at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CloudCompare or Mari?
CloudCompare starts at Free and Mari at Free.
Does CloudCompare or Mari run on more platforms?
CloudCompare runs on Windows, macOS, Linux. Mari runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux.
Can I use CloudCompare for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is CloudCompare best used for?
CloudCompare is most often used for a monitoring engineer comparing quarterly laser scans of a retaining wall to quantify movement without buying a proprietary deformation package, a heritage team registering dozens of terrestrial scans of a building into a single cloud before meshing, a geomorphologist measuring erosion between two drone-derived surfaces of a river bank, a survey technician cleaning and subsampling a scan before delivering it to a client whose software cannot handle the full density. Of those, a monitoring engineer comparing quarterly laser scans of a retaining wall to quantify movement without buying a proprietary deformation package and a heritage team registering dozens of terrestrial scans of a building into a single cloud before meshing are not what Mari is typically brought in for.
What can CloudCompare do that Mari cannot?
CloudCompare covers Cloud to cloud distance, Cloud to mesh distance, Registration, Segmentation and cleaning. Mari covers High-resolution painting, UDIM support, Procedural layers, Baking.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Mari: What is Mari's pricing?

Individual Subscription costs $689 per year or $86 per month. Team Subscription costs $1,289 per year. Team Rental costs $949 per quarter for short-term access. Both subscriptions support node-locked or floating licenses.

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.

Mari: Does Mari offer a free trial?

Mari offers a free 30-day trial with unrestricted access to help users evaluate the software before purchasing.

Source
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.

Mari: Does Mari offer student pricing?

Yes, Mari offers free or discounted access to all Foundry products for students, as well as free non-commercial licenses for learning and exploration.

Source
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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