Blender

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite developed under the Blender Foundation, an independent public benefit organisation (Stichting) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The foundation was established in 2002, and the software is released under the GNU General Public License. The Blender Institute in Amsterdam houses developers, a render farm and the Blender Studio, which produces open films.

Features

• Modelling and sculpting of meshes, with procedural tools such as geometry nodes.
• Animation and rigging, including 2D drawing in 3D space with Grease Pencil.
• Rendering with the path tracer Cycles and the real-time engine EEVEE.
• Simulation of smoke, fluids, cloth and rigid bodies, plus a video sequence editor and compositing.
• Add-ons written in Python and versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Model and limits

Blender costs nothing and has no feature tiers, because development is funded by donations, grants and corporate sponsors through the Blender Development Fund. It is a tool for 3D art and animation, not for precise mechanical drawings, where parametric CAD systems are the better fit.