Blender is a free, open-source 3D suite for modeling, animation, VFX, rendering, and video editing, backed by the nonprofit Blender Foundation.
Blender is a free, open-source 3D creation suite that handles modeling, sculpting, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, and video editing inside a single application. It is developed and maintained by the Blender Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The software's roots go back to January 1994, when Ton Roosendaal wrote its first source code as an in-house tool at the studio NeoGeo. After the commercial venture built around it, Not a Number Technologies, went bankrupt in 2002, a public crowdfunding campaign bought back the source code and released it under the GNU General Public License, and the Blender Foundation was founded the same year to guide its ongoing development.
Since then, Blender has grown from a niche open-source tool into an industry-recognized application used in film, game, and VFX production, alongside its long-standing base of students, hobbyists, and independent artists who rely on it because it costs nothing to use.
Blender's toolset spans the full 3D pipeline: polygon and sculpt modeling, UV unwrapping and texture painting, rigging with an armature system, keyframe and non-linear animation, and a particle and physics engine for cloth, fluid, smoke, fire, and rigid or soft body simulation.
For output, Blender includes two production render engines, the path-traced Cycles engine for photorealistic rendering and the real-time EEVEE engine for fast previews and stylized looks, plus a node-based compositor for post-processing rendered footage. Geometry Nodes provides a procedural, node-based approach to modeling and scattering objects across a scene.
Beyond 3D, Blender includes camera and object motion tracking, a built-in non-linear video sequence editor for cutting and grading footage, and Grease Pencil, a 2D animation toolset that draws directly inside the 3D viewport. A Python API supports scripting and custom add-ons, extending Blender well past its out-of-the-box feature set.
Blender itself carries no purchase price, subscription fee, or usage limit. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License, so anyone can download, use, modify, and even redistribute the software at no cost, on Windows, macOS, or Linux.
Development is funded through donations, corporate memberships in the Blender Development Fund, and revenue from the Blender Foundation's training platform and store rather than through charging end users for the software itself.
The only costs typically associated with Blender come from optional third-party add-ons sold through the Blender Extensions platform, or from separately purchased hardware and render-farm services some studios use to speed up Cycles rendering; none of this is required to use the core application.
Yes. Blender is free and open-source software licensed under the GNU General Public License, with no purchase price, subscription fee, or feature paywall for the core application.
Blender is used for 3D modeling, sculpting, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, and video editing across industries including film, games, VFX, product visualization, and architecture.
Yes, Blender has a built-in non-linear Video Sequence Editor for cutting, compositing, and grading footage alongside its 3D tools.
Blender ships with two built-in render engines: Cycles, a path-traced engine for photorealistic output, and EEVEE, a real-time engine for fast previews and stylized rendering.
Blender is approachable for beginners thanks to extensive free tutorials and documentation, though its interface has a learning curve, especially for users coming from other 3D software.
Yes, Blender's GNU General Public License permits commercial use, including selling artwork, models, and animations made with the software.
Blender runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Blender is developed and maintained by the Blender Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with support from the Blender Institute team and a large volunteer and corporate contributor community.