Quixel Mixervs
Substance 3D Painter


Substance 3D Painter: Industry-standard 3D texturing software with more customization options and built-in baker functionality that Mixer lacks.

Free 3D texturing and material creation
As of 30 August 2026, Quixel Mixer is free to use. Quixel Mixer is a free 3D texturing application that works seamlessly with Megascans. Softwr lists it under Game Development. Quixel Mixer is made by Epic Games (Quixel), launched in 2011, available on Windows, macOS.
Overview
Quixel Mixer is a free 3D texturing application that works seamlessly with Megascans. It provides powerful material creation and blending tools for game and film artists.
The honest half
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 Quixel Mixer.
Cross-shopped
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.


Substance 3D Painter: Industry-standard 3D texturing software with more customization options and built-in baker functionality that Mixer lacks.


Mudbox: 3D sculpting and texturing tool that competes in the digital sculpting and texture authoring space.
Pricing
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
Capabilities
Material blending
Megascans integration
Smart materials
Procedural tools
3D painting
UDIM support
Real-time preview
Export presets
Unreal Engine
Integration with Unreal Engine
Unity
Integration with Unity
Blender
Integration with Blender
Maya
Integration with Maya
Answered, with sources
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Quixel Mixer was discontinued on February 19, 2026. The final version 2023.1 is available for free download from the Epic Games launcher. It runs offline indefinitely but will receive no future updates or support.
SourceYes, version 2023.1 enables Quixel Mixer to run completely offline. Users can download and use the software offline indefinitely, though without future updates.
SourceQuixel Megascans is no longer free for Unreal Engine users. Starting in 2025, Megascans assets are sold individually or included in Fab subscription tiers. The free-for-Unreal era ended at the close of 2024.
SourceQuixel Mixer excels for simplicity, photorealism, and Unreal Engine integration, but lacks a built-in baker unlike Substance 3D Painter. Substance Painter offers more customization and is an industry standard, while Mixer focused on streamlined PBR material creation.
SourceBehind it
Timeline
Quixel Mixer officially discontinued with version 2023.1 as final release
SourceAcquired by Epic Games
Source$3 million investment from GP Bullhound and Back in Black Capital
SourceQuixel founded by Teddy Bergsman and Waqar Azim to speed up digital environment creation
SourceKeep looking
Build worlds, break limits. Professional game development engine.
Create beautiful interactive content with the world's leading real-time engine
Centralised version control for multi-terabyte binary game projects
Fast, free, and fun open source framework for Canvas and WebGL
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Quixel Mixer, 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.
What people switch to, and what they give up
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Hosted multiplayer networking billed by concurrent users, not by seat or by player
Per month by peak concurrent usersFree 2D and 3D engine with no royalties, dominant in Chinese mini-game platforms
Open source, no licence fee