SideFX Houdini
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 7 3D modeling software by recommenders
Recommended for procedural 3D, simulation, compositing and VFX work that handles huge point counts. Caveats: a steep learning curve and a bare-bones real-time viewport.
Recommended for procedural 3D, simulation, compositing and VFX work that handles huge point counts. Caveats: a steep learning curve and a bare-bones real-time viewport.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Excels at 3D, simulation and compositing
“you can do everything from full-body muscle simulation to writing a OpenCL image processing kernel there”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “Show HN: I made a 3D pose maker for artists” “fantastic for most kinds of 3D work, compositing, and post-processing tasks”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” “Houdini is software that excels at manipulating vast numbers of points”
Comment from 18 Jan 2026 in “Gaussian Splatting – A$AP Rocky Helicopter Music Video” Widely admired, enthusiastically praised
“one of my favourite micro-UX features of high-end graphics software”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Tixl: Open-source realtime motion graphics” “Houdini is goated in the space”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Autodesk burns the village to feed AI and the Cloud – cuts 7% of workforce” “Houdini's getting really close”
Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “Blender 5.0” - Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “Blender 5.2 LTS”
Other 3D modeling software people recommend
The four most recommended other 3D modeling software, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blender | 298 | 81 | 79% | 12 | 15 yrs10 owners | Approved |
| Autodesk Maya | 18 | 8 | 69% | 7 | — | Approved |
| SketchUp | 16 | 6 | 73% | 8 | — | Approved |
| SideFX HoudiniThis page | 14 | 3 | 82% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Microsoft 3D Movie Maker | 6 | 1 | 86% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I built Houdini to help make deleting yourself from the data brokers without having to give details to another company.”
“It unexpectedly opens up ways to partly solve problems that come up with ordinary synthetic data generation.”
“are showstopping enough for people who rely on Houdini”
“lots of other software I use professionally works amazingly on Linux, better than Windows in fact, like Houdini”
“virtually unchallenged in some of its domains, it's basically visual programming”
“open up a workflow from 2008 and it still works the same”
“it doesn't make a lot of business sense for SideFX to care about users like me”
“Houdini's real time viewport is bare bone.”
“With that said, learning Houdini is an unrelenting gauntlet.”
“Damn that's a cool program.”
“who learned 3D with Blender and Houdini Apprentice”
“you can do everything from full-body muscle simulation to writing a OpenCL image processing kernel there”
“Many professional software like Maya, Houdini, Unreal, etc. that used to run great on Linux/X11, now sucks on wayland”
“fantastic for most kinds of 3D work, compositing, and post-processing tasks”
“Houdini is goated in the space”
“Houdini is software that excels at manipulating vast numbers of points”
“one of my favourite micro-UX features of high-end graphics software”
“Houdini's getting really close”
“the window freezes when resuming”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.