Premation vs Blender
Blender is the free, open-source 3D creation suite: modelling, sculpting, rigging, simulation, rendering with Eevee and Cycles, plus Grease Pencil 2D animation, a video sequencer and a node compositor.
Across the 9 areas below, Blender is ahead on 4, the two are level on 2, and Premation is ahead on 3. The 4 are listed first: a comparison you can trust is one that says where it loses.
Pick Blender if
- The work is genuinely 3D: modelled objects, physically based rendering, simulation, character animation in three dimensions. Premation's 3D is After Effects' Classic 3D plus imported glTF meshes, not a modeller or a path tracer.
- You want Grease Pencil's hand-drawn 2D animation, or a node-based compositor.
- You need Linux today. Premation's Linux build is on a waitlist.
Pick Premation if
- The work is motion design: layers on a timeline, text animators, shape operators, lower thirds, logo stings, social video. Blender can do it, but nothing in it is shaped for it.
- You come from After Effects and want the same model and shortcuts, a graph editor for value and speed, and Lottie / SVG / MOGRT outputs.
- You want to be productive in an afternoon rather than a month.
Feature by feature
- True 3D
- BlenderModelling, sculpting, physically based rendering, simulation
- PremationClassic 3D layers, cameras, lights, shadow maps, glTF import, curved primitives, DOF
- Blender
- Blender is a 3D suite; Premation stages flat layers and imported meshes in 3D.
- 2D drawn animation
- BlenderGrease Pencil
- PremationShape layers, pen and brush tools; no frame-by-frame drawing workflow
- Blender
- Platforms
- BlenderWindows, macOS, Linux
- PremationmacOS and Windows; Linux on the waitlist
- Blender
- Motion design workflow
- BlenderGeneral-purpose; no layer-and-keyframe timeline in the After Effects sense
- PremationCompositions, layers, text animators, shape operators, templates, AE shortcuts
- Premation
- Learning curve
- BlenderNotoriously steep
- PremationOne editor, After Effects' concepts, an interactive tour, docs for every panel
- Premation
- Video editing and effects
- BlenderVideo Sequence Editor and node compositor
- PremationSource monitor, edit tools, transitions, captions, 183 GPU effects on a layer stack
- Even
- Vector and web formats
- BlenderSVG import via add-ons; no Lottie
- PremationSVG and Lottie in and out, MOGRT for Premiere
- Premation
- Rigging
- BlenderArmatures, constraints, a full character pipeline
- PremationBones, IK / FK, puppet mesh, auto-rig presets for 2D characters
- Blender
- Price and licence
- BlenderFree, GPL
- PremationFree, AGPL-3.0
- Even
The Premation column is checked against the editor’s source at v0.7.0. The Blender column describes the product as its own site and documentation presented it on 2026-09-06; if something there has changed, tell us and this page changes.