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Maps · head to head

Felt vs Potree

Felt logo

Felt

Maps

Collaborative browser mapping with a free non-commercial tier and annual-only paid contracts

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Potree logo

Potree

Maps

Open source WebGL viewer for publishing very large point clouds in a browser

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Felt felt publishes no prices for Professional or Enterprise, so buyers cannot compare against ArcGIS Online or QGIS with hosting without entering a sales process; Potree there is no vendor, no support contract and no service level, so anything you build on Potree is your organisation’s responsibility to maintain when a browser update breaks rendering.
  • They diverge on capability: Felt covers Real-time collaboration, Potree covers Octree streaming.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Felt and Potree actually diverge.

Attributes where Felt and Potree differ
AttributeFeltPotree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, Windows, macOS, Linux

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Maps).

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 Felt

  • Real-time collaboration
  • Drag and drop data
  • Unlimited viewers
  • Field app with offline support
  • Dashboards
  • Live cloud sources
  • API and SDK

Only in Potree

  • Octree streaming
  • Large dataset rendering
  • Measurement tools
  • Clipping and profiles
  • Annotations
  • Attribute colouring
  • PotreeDesktop
  • Self-hosting

What people use each for

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

Felt

  • An environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing GIS softwarenot Potree
  • A utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking atnot Potree
  • A planning department sharing a proposal map with the public where the viewer count is unpredictable and viewer seats would be uncostednot Potree
  • A team of analysts who each hold data in different formats and want one map assembled in an afternoon rather than a weeknot Potree

Potree

  • A drone survey firm delivering a point cloud to a client who has no desktop software, by publishing a browser viewer link instead of a 40 GB LAZ filenot Felt
  • A heritage or archaeology project publishing a scanned site for public access without paying per-gigabyte hosting to a commercial platformnot Felt
  • An engineering consultancy embedding a point cloud viewer inside its own client portal without licensing a commercial web viewernot Felt
  • A university or research group that needs measurement and profiling in a shareable viewer for a dataset too large to emailnot Felt

Where each one falls short

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

Felt

  • Felt publishes no prices for Professional or Enterprise, so buyers cannot compare against ArcGIS Online or QGIS with hosting without entering a sales process
  • Paid tiers are annual contract only with no monthly option, which excludes consultancies that need a tool for a single short engagement and forces them to the free non-commercial tier they are not licensed to use for client work
  • The API, JavaScript SDK and live warehouse connections are enterprise-only, so a mid-sized team that wants programmatic access has to buy the top tier rather than pay for one capability
  • Analytical depth is limited: there is no meaningful geoprocessing, topology checking or model building, so Felt sits beside a real GIS rather than replacing one
  • The Professional tier caps data processing at 25 GB a month and map views at 100,000 a month, which are easy to exceed with raster imagery or a public-facing map, and the overage terms are not published either

Potree

  • There is no vendor, no support contract and no service level, so anything you build on Potree is your organisation’s responsibility to maintain when a browser update breaks rendering.
  • Conversion is a separate manual step with PotreeConverter, and building an automated publishing pipeline around it is engineering work the project does not provide.
  • Rendering quality and performance depend on the client machine and WebGL support, so a client on a locked-down corporate laptop with poor graphics may see a viewer that stutters or fails outright.
  • A WebGPU rewrite, Potree-Next, is in progress and is not a drop-in upgrade, so current integrations face an eventual migration with no vendor to manage it.
  • There is no access control, user management or audit layer; anyone with the URL sees the data unless you build authentication around the static files yourself, which is a real problem for confidential sites.

Pricing, plan by plan

Felt

Free
  • PersonalFree
    • Free forever for non-commercial mapping
    • Map creation, upload and sharing
    • Not licensed for commercial use
  • Professional$undefined/year
    • 10 full-access seats with unlimited viewers
    • 25 GB of data processing per month
    • 100,000 map views per month
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Live cloud sources including Postgres, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and S3
    • REST API and JavaScript SDK
    • AI features

Potree

Free
  • PotreeFree
    • BSD-style open source licence
    • Unlimited datasets and viewers
    • Self-hosted on any static web server

Which should you pick?

Choose Felt if

  • You need real-time collaboration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want drag and drop data.
Felt review

Choose Potree if

  • You need octree streaming.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux.
  • You also want large dataset rendering.
Potree review

Questions people ask

Is Felt or Potree better?
Neither clearly leads. Felt starts at Free and Potree at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Felt or Potree?
Felt starts at Free and Potree at Free.
Does Felt or Potree run on more platforms?
Felt runs on Web, iOS, Android. Potree runs on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux.
Can I use Felt for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Felt best used for?
Felt is most often used for an environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing gis software, a utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking at, a planning department sharing a proposal map with the public where the viewer count is unpredictable and viewer seats would be uncosted, a team of analysts who each hold data in different formats and want one map assembled in an afternoon rather than a week. Of those, an environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing gis software and a utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking at are not what Potree is typically brought in for.
What can Felt do that Potree cannot?
Felt covers Real-time collaboration, Drag and drop data, Unlimited viewers, Field app with offline support. Potree covers Octree streaming, Large dataset rendering, Measurement tools, Clipping and profiles.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Felt: What does Felt cost?

Felt does not publish prices for Professional or Enterprise. Personal is free but licensed for non-commercial use only.

Potree: Does Potree cost anything?

No. It is open source and free. You supply the hosting, which for a static viewer is inexpensive.

Felt: Can I pay monthly?

No. Paid plans are annual contracts. There is a 7 day trial of Professional.

Potree: Is there commercial support?

No. There is no vendor and no support contract. Support is GitHub issues and the community.

Felt: Do viewers cost anything?

No. Viewer access is unlimited on the paid plans, which is the main reason organisations with large map audiences choose it.

Potree: Who maintains it?

It originated at TU Wien and is maintained principally by Markus Schütz, with community contributions.

Felt: Is there a nonprofit discount?

Yes, 30 per cent for verified United States nonprofits, and free access for verified students and classrooms.

Potree: Can it handle very large clouds?

Yes, hundreds of millions of points, because PotreeConverter builds a multi-resolution octree that streams only what is visible.

Potree: Is my data private?

Only if you make it so. Potree serves static files with no built-in authentication, so access control is entirely your responsibility.

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