Cycles Renderer Alternatives

Cycles Renderer is described as 'Cycles is Blender’s ray-trace based production render engine and in development since 2011. It was originally developed by Brecht van Lommel, and is maintained by an active team of developers today. Since its release as Apache 2' and is an app. There are more than 10 alternatives to Cycles Renderer for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Blender and Autodesk 3ds Max apps. The best Cycles Renderer alternative is MoonRay, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Cycles Renderer are Adobe Dimension, LuxCoreRender, Malt and Radeon ProRender.

Cycles Renderer

Free • Open Source

Cycles is Blender’s ray-trace based production render engine and in development since 2011. It was originally developed by...

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Cycles Renderer alternatives page was last updated Mar 27, 2023

MoonRay
MoonRay is DreamWorks Animation’s in-house 3D renderer, used to render all DreamWorks movies since How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
46 MoonRay alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Windows
- Linux
MoonRay Features
Rendering
3D Renderer
Show all NaN MoonRay features ▾
MoonRay VS Cycles Renderer
Is MoonRay a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?
- MoonRay is the most popular Windows & Linux alternative to Cycles Renderer.
- MoonRay is the most popular Open Source & free alternative to Cycles Renderer.
- MoonRay is Free and Open SourceCycles Renderer is also Free and Open Source

Adobe Dimension
Adobe Dimension (formerly Project Felix and then Adobe Dimension CC) is the 3D design tool made for graphic designers. With extensive integration with Adobe Stock, you can easily composite 2D and 3D assets to build product shots, scene visualizations, and abstract art.
64 Adobe Dimension alternatives
License model
- Paid • Proprietary
Application types
- 3D Modeler
- Graphic Design Tool
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Dimension Features
Grid layout
HD-Rendering
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Adobe Dimension VS Cycles Renderer
Is Adobe Dimension a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?
- Adobe Dimension is the most popular Mac alternative to Cycles Renderer.
- Adobe Dimension is the most popular commercial alternative to Cycles Renderer.
- Adobe Dimension is Paid and ProprietaryCycles Renderer is Free and Open Source

LuxCoreRender
LuxCoreRender is a physically based and unbiased rendering engine. Based on state of the art algorithms, LuxCoreRender simulates the flow of light according to physical equations, thus producing realistic images of photographic quality.
50 LuxCoreRender alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
LuxCoreRender Features
Rendering
Ray Tracing
Show all NaN LuxCoreRender features ▾
LuxCoreRender VS Cycles Renderer
Is LuxCoreRender a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

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Adobe Dimension
Adobe Dimension (formerly Project Felix and then Adobe Dimension CC) is the 3D design tool made for graphic designers. With extensive integration with Adobe Stock, you can easily composite 2D and 3D assets to build product shots,...

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Malt
Malt is a fully customizable real-time rendering framework for animation and illustration. Designed as a community effort to expand the possibility space of 3d rendering, it provides graphics programmers and technical artist an enjoyable “shadertoy-like” workflow inside Blender...
46 Malt alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Windows
- Linux
Malt Features
Rendering
3D Renderer
Show all NaN Malt features ▾
+1
Malt VS Cycles Renderer
Is Malt a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

Radeon ProRender
AMD Radeon™ ProRender is a powerful physically-based path traced rendering engine that enables creative professionals to produce stunningly photorealistic images.
21 Radeon ProRender alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Radeon ProRender Features
Physically-Based Rendering
3D Renderer
Rendering
GPU Acceleration
Show all NaN Radeon ProRender features ▾
Radeon ProRender VS Cycles Renderer
Is Radeon ProRender a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

appleseed
appleseed is a modern, open source, physically-based rendering engine designed to produce photorealistic images, animations and visual effects.
52 appleseed alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
appleseed Features
Portable
Rendering
Ray Tracing
Show all NaN appleseed features ▾
+9
appleseed VS Cycles Renderer
Is appleseed a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

Sunflow Rendering System
Sunflow is an open source rendering system for photo-realistic image synthesis. It is written in Java and built around a flexible ray tracing core and an extensible object-oriented design. It was created as a framework for experimenting with global illumination algorithms and...
50 Sunflow Rendering System alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Sunflow Rendering System Features
Rendering
Ray Tracing
Show all NaN Sunflow Rendering System features ▾
Sunflow Rendering System VS Cycles Renderer
Is this a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

Mitsuba
Mitsuba is a research-oriented rendering system for forward and inverse light transport simulation. It consists of a core library and a set of plugins that implement functionality ranging from materials and light sources to complete rendering algorithms.
52 Mitsuba alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Mitsuba Features
Rendering
Show all NaN Mitsuba features ▾
Mitsuba VS Cycles Renderer
Is Mitsuba a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

YafaRay
YafaRay is a free open-source montecarlo raytracing engine released under the LGPL 2.1 license. Raytracing is a rendering technique for generating realistic images by tracing the path of light through a 3D scene.
53 YafaRay alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Blender
YafaRay Features
Ray Tracing
Rendering
Show all NaN YafaRay features ▾
Discontinued
The GitHub repository was archived in July 2020.

YafaRay VS Cycles Renderer
Is YafaRay a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

Pixie Renderer
Pixie is an open source RenderMan renderer for generating photorealistic images. You can compile Pixie on Windows (using Visual Studio 2005), Linux and on OSX (using XCode or unix style configure script).
49 Pixie Renderer alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Pixie Renderer Features
Ray Tracing
Rendering
Show all NaN Pixie Renderer features ▾
Pixie Renderer VS Cycles Renderer
Is Pixie Renderer a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

NOX Renderer
NOX Renderer is a rendering software based on unbiased methods.

The renderer is available as a standalone Windows executable with a plug-in to link it to 3ds Max.

A linking script is also available for Blender users.

As with other similar applications, such as Maxwell Render a.
51 NOX Renderer alternatives
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Windows
NOX Renderer Features
Rendering
3ds Max Integration
Show all NaN NOX Renderer features ▾
+1
NOX Renderer VS Cycles Renderer
Is NOX Renderer a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?

RenderMan
PhotoRealistic RenderMan, or PRMan for short, is a proprietary photorealistic RenderMan-compliant renderer.
50 RenderMan alternatives
License model
- Free Personal • Proprietary
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
RenderMan Features
Rendering
3D Renderer
High-resolution images
Show all NaN RenderMan features ▾
RenderMan VS Cycles Renderer
Is RenderMan a good alternative to Cycles Renderer?