Potreevs
WhiteboxTools
WhiteboxTools: If you need to analyse the point cloud rather than publish it
Potree
Open source WebGL viewer for publishing very large point clouds in a browser
As of 1 September 2026, Potree is free to use. The renderer behind a large share of the public point cloud viewers on the web, including WebODM. Softwr lists it under Maps. Potree is made by Potree (TU Wien, Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms), available on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux.
Overview
What Potree does
Potree is a browser-based point cloud renderer. A companion tool, PotreeConverter, restructures a LAS, LAZ or PLY file into a multi-resolution octree that streams to the browser, so a viewer can pan and zoom through hundreds of millions of points on ordinary hardware without downloading the whole dataset. The viewer supports measurement, clipping volumes, profiles, annotations and elevation colouring, and can be embedded in any web page. It came out of the Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms at TU Wien and remains a research-origin open source project maintained principally by Markus Schütz. Its commercial significance is indirect: many drone mapping and survey firms deliver a Potree viewer to their clients as the point cloud handover, and several commercial products ship it inside their own interface. If you have clicked a link to inspect a survey point cloud in a browser, it was quite possibly Potree. Adopters are survey and drone service providers, heritage documentation projects, universities and anyone who needs to publish a large point cloud without buying a hosting subscription charged by the gigabyte. The support position needs stating clearly: there is no vendor and no support contract. A separate WebGPU rewrite, Potree-Next, is underway to shed thirteen years of accumulated code, and it is not a drop-in replacement, so an organisation embedding Potree today should assume it is either staying on the current version indefinitely or planning a migration.
What people use it for
- 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 file
- A heritage or archaeology project publishing a scanned site for public access without paying per-gigabyte hosting to a commercial platform
- An engineering consultancy embedding a point cloud viewer inside its own client portal without licensing a commercial web viewer
- A university or research group that needs measurement and profiling in a shareable viewer for a dataset too large to email
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Potree
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- PotreevsQQGIS
QGIS: For desktop point cloud viewing and analysis inside a full GIS
- PotreevsPix4D
Pix4D: If you want a commercial hosted platform with support rather than a self-hosted viewer
Pricing
What Potree costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Potree
Free
- BSD-style open source licence
- Unlimited datasets and viewers
- Self-hosted on any static web server
- Community support via GitHub only
- No commercial support contract and no hosted service
Capabilities
Features
Octree streaming
PotreeConverter builds a multi-resolution structure so only visible detail is downloaded
Large dataset rendering
Display hundreds of millions of points in a browser on commodity hardware
Measurement tools
Distance, area, volume, angle and height measurement directly in the viewer
Clipping and profiles
Cut sections and extract profiles from the cloud without desktop software
Annotations
Attach labelled notes to positions for client review
Attribute colouring
Colour by RGB, intensity, classification, elevation or return number
PotreeDesktop
A desktop wrapper for drag-and-drop local viewing without publishing
Self-hosting
Serve the converted dataset from any static web host with no back end
Embeddable
Drop the viewer into an existing web page or client portal
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does Potree cost anything?
No. It is open source and free. You supply the hosting, which for a static viewer is inexpensive.
Is there commercial support?
No. There is no vendor and no support contract. Support is GitHub issues and the community.
Who maintains it?
It originated at TU Wien and is maintained principally by Markus Schütz, with community contributions.
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.
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.
Keep looking
Where to go from Potree
- Potree alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Potree pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Potree badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Maps softwareThe full category
- Best Maps softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Maps software for
Compare Potree with
- WhiteboxTools
- QGIS
- Global Mapper
- Agisoft Metashape
- Lonboard
- SAGA GIS
- GRASS GIS
- Leica Infinity
- deck.gl
- Felt
- Ride with GPS
- Kepler.gl
- Trailforks
- AllTrails
- Bing Maps
- Cesium ion
- Citymapper
- Kepler.gl
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9 researched notesHosted 3D geospatial tiling and streaming, metered by storage, streaming and gigapixels
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5 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Potree, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Potree
Potree alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Potree pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Potree
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Potree badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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