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CAD · head to head

CloudCompare vs RealityScan

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
RealityScan logo

RealityScan

CAD

The photogrammetry engine formerly called RealityCapture, free below a one million dollar revenue line

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; RealityScan the free tier is bounded by company revenue rather than by usage, so a business crossing one million US dollars of turnover acquires a per-seat cost overnight for software its workflow now depends on
  • They diverge on capability: CloudCompare covers Cloud to cloud distance, RealityScan covers Photogrammetric reconstruction.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CloudCompare and RealityScan actually diverge.

Attributes where CloudCompare and RealityScan differ
AttributeCloudCompareRealityScan
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeFree below a revenue threshold, then per seat per year
PlatformsWindows, macOS, LinuxWindows

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

  • Photogrammetric reconstruction
  • Laser scan fusion
  • Ground control points
  • Texturing and unwrapping
  • Command line interface
  • Unreal Engine path
  • Component alignment control

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 RealityScan
  • A heritage team registering dozens of terrestrial scans of a building into a single cloud before meshingnot RealityScan
  • A geomorphologist measuring erosion between two drone-derived surfaces of a river banknot RealityScan
  • A survey technician cleaning and subsampling a scan before delivering it to a client whose software cannot handle the full densitynot RealityScan

RealityScan

  • A two-person heritage survey practice under the revenue threshold that can now run professional photogrammetry at no licence costnot CloudCompare
  • A film or games asset team scanning props and environments at very high image counts where processing speed decides the schedulenot CloudCompare
  • A survey firm combining terrestrial laser scans with drone photography and needing both aligned in a single reconstructionnot CloudCompare
  • A construction reality-capture operator producing meshes for Unreal-based client visualisation from the same source imagerynot 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

RealityScan

  • The free tier is bounded by company revenue rather than by usage, so a business crossing one million US dollars of turnover acquires a per-seat cost overnight for software its workflow now depends on
  • New perpetual licences are no longer sold, so an organisation that deliberately avoided subscription software has no route in; existing perpetual holders keep their version but stop receiving updates unless they accept the current terms
  • It is Windows only and needs an NVIDIA CUDA capable GPU, which excludes macOS studios and makes the real cost of adoption a workstation purchase rather than a licence
  • The rename from RealityCapture to RealityScan in 2025 means tutorials, forum answers and third party pipeline documentation are split across two names and several licensing regimes, and much of it is now wrong about price
  • The interface assumes photogrammetry knowledge; alignment failures, control point placement and reconstruction region setup are not guided, so a team without an experienced operator produces poor models quickly rather than good ones slowly

Pricing, plan by plan

CloudCompare

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

RealityScan

Free
  • Free tierFree
    • For individuals and companies with annual revenue under 1,000,000 USD
    • Full application, no metered input charges
    • Epic account required
  • RealityScan seat$1250/year
    • Required once annual revenue exceeds 1,000,000 USD
    • Per seat, per year
    • Commercial use without output restrictions
  • Unreal Engine subscription$1850/year
    • Per seat per year
    • Includes RealityScan and Twinmotion
    • For teams that also need Unreal Engine for non-game commercial use

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 RealityScan if

  • You need photogrammetric reconstruction.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Windows.
  • You also want laser scan fusion.
RealityScan review

Questions people ask

Is CloudCompare or RealityScan better?
Neither clearly leads. CloudCompare starts at Free and RealityScan at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CloudCompare or RealityScan?
CloudCompare starts at Free and RealityScan at Free.
Does CloudCompare or RealityScan run on more platforms?
CloudCompare runs on Windows, macOS, Linux. RealityScan runs on Windows.
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 RealityScan is typically brought in for.
What can CloudCompare do that RealityScan cannot?
CloudCompare covers Cloud to cloud distance, Cloud to mesh distance, Registration, Segmentation and cleaning. RealityScan covers Photogrammetric reconstruction, Laser scan fusion, Ground control points, Texturing and unwrapping.

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.

RealityScan: Is RealityCapture still called that?

No. Epic rebranded it to RealityScan with version 2.0 in 2025. It is the same engine and the same team.

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.

RealityScan: Who gets it free?

Individuals and companies with annual revenue under one million US dollars. Above that, a seat is 1,250 US dollars per year.

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.

RealityScan: Can I still buy a perpetual licence?

Not for new purchases. Existing perpetual licences remain valid for the version owned, with updates only under the current terms.

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.

RealityScan: Does the free version restrict output?

No output metering or watermarking; the restriction is on who qualifies, based on company revenue, not on what you export.

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