GRASS vs SkyeBrowse (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
GRASS is our pick, scoring 6.5/10 against 6.3/10 for SkyeBrowse on our Industrial & Infrastructure Software criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Analytics score (9/10 vs 5/10). For 10 users, GRASS and SkyeBrowse are both free; both GRASS and SkyeBrowse have a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
GRASS
6.5/10
Free, open-source geospatial processing engine for raster, vector, imagery, lidar and time-series analysis, used by researchers, governments and engineering teams.
SkyeBrowse
6.3/10
SkyeBrowse turns drone video into measurable 3D models. It is used mostly by public safety agencies, with commercial plans for mapping and site documentation.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.5/10 | 6.3/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Security | 4/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 4/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 10/10 | 7/10 |
| Analytics | 9/10 | 5/10 |
| Ease of Use | 3/10 | 8/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 5/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | $24.99/mo Commercial |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Open source | Free Freemium |
| Features | ||
| Drone Inspection | ||
| GIS and Mapping | ||
| Inspection Automation | Not listed | |
| LiDAR Processing | Not listed | |
| Spare Parts Inventory | Not listed | |
| Work Orders | Not listed | |
GRASS vs SkyeBrowse cost by team size
GRASS costs less up to 5 users; GRASS and SkyeBrowse cost the same from 10 users.
| Team size | GRASS | SkyeBrowse |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeOpen source | $25/moCommercial |
| 5 users | FreeOpen source | $25/moCommercial |
| 10 users | FreeOpen source | FreeFreemium |
| 25 users | FreeOpen source | FreeFreemium |
| 50 users | FreeOpen source | FreeFreemium |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who GRASS and SkyeBrowse suit
| Audience | GRASS | SkyeBrowse |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering Firms | 6/10It offers strong hydrology, terrain, and lidar analysis, but has no design or asset features, and staff must learn command-line workflows. | 5/10CAD and point cloud exports help, but the accuracy and analytics are lighter than survey-grade tools. |
| Government | 8/10It came from US Army land management work and is used for environmental and terrain modeling, at no licence cost. | 9/10Built mainly for police, fire and public safety agencies, with CJIS compliance and chain of custody. |
| Construction | Not rated | 6/10Volume, topographic and site plan tools support site documentation, though it is not a construction-specific platform. |
| Consultancies | 7/10Environmental and geospatial consultancies can run reproducible analyses without paying licence fees. | Not rated |
| Developers | 8/10Python, C, and R APIs, JSON output, and the new grass.tools package make it easy to embed in pipelines. | Not rated |
| Drone Service Providers | Not rated | 7/10Fast video-based capture and white labeling on Pro suit operators who deliver models to clients. |
| Education | 9/10Universities such as NC State help develop it, and it is free with extensive tutorials and Jupyter support. | Not rated |
| Small Business | Not rated | 7/10Per-model pricing from $24.99 and a free tier keep the entry cost low. |
| Utilities | 4/10It is useful for terrain and network analysis, but has no utility asset registry, field apps, or maintenance workflows. | Not rated |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose GRASS
- Higher Analytics score (9/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 5/10)
Why choose SkyeBrowse
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 3/10)
- Higher Security score (7/10 vs 4/10)
Pros & Cons
GRASS
Pros
- Free under the GPL with no user or seat limits, so it can be installed across a whole organisation at no cost.
- Very deep analysis toolset, with more than 500 core tools for hydrology, terrain, 3D voxel, imagery classification, and spatio-temporal analysis.
- Highly scriptable through Python (including the new grass.tools API in 8.5), Jupyter, R via rgrass, and JSON output, which suits automated pipelines.
- Runs inside QGIS through the Processing toolbox, so QGIS users can call GRASS tools without switching applications.
- Version 8.5 parallelized r.mapcalc and added OpenMP to more tools, which speeds up large raster jobs on multi-core machines.
- Over four decades of continuous development, with an active release schedule and NumFOCUS fiscal sponsorship.
Cons
- Reviewers on Capterra and GISGeography report a steep learning curve and a clunky interface with awkward toolbar placement.
- Cartographic layout is weak. GISGeography calls it unsuitable for producing finished maps.
- Its project and location structure ties each project to a single coordinate system, unlike the on-the-fly reprojection in QGIS or ArcGIS.
- No vendor service-level agreement. Support comes from community forums or from third-party firms whose prices are not published.
- It has no asset registry, work orders, mobile field app, or maintenance features for infrastructure operations.
SkyeBrowse
Pros
- Videogrammetry builds a 3D model from a few minutes of drone video, which is faster to capture than photo grid missions.
- Per-model pricing starts at $24.99 and there is a free tier, so occasional users avoid seat licenses.
- The public safety tier has features that are rare in this category, such as CJIS compliance, chain of custody and Axon Evidence.com integration.
- Pro exports LAZ, GLB, GeoTIFF and CAD files that open in CloudCompare, Esri, Trimble, Leica and FARO tools.
- Drone support is broad and keeps growing, recently adding the DJI Matrice 4 series, Matrice 400 and Mini 4 Pro.
Cons
- It is mainly a reality capture and visualization tool, with no asset registry, work orders or maintenance workflows.
- Exports require Pro or higher, and the pricing page contradicts itself about exports on the Commercial plan.
- Commercial and Pro allow only up to 5 users and limit storage to 3 months or 1 year.
- Pilot Institute called the paid subscription steep, and most published coverage is vendor-sourced.
Not sold on either?
Air Inspection Automation (AiA)Our product
Plans DJI drone inspection missions for power line towers from LiDAR scans: it finds the towers, places photo stops, checks clearance, and splits the route into battery flights.
Made by the team behind b stack radar. Shown here because it fits this topic. It is not part of our rankings. How we rank tools
Frequently Asked Questions
GRASS scores higher on our Industrial & Infrastructure Software criteria: 6.5/10 against 6.3/10 for SkyeBrowse. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 3/10 for GRASS and 8/10 for SkyeBrowse.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both GRASS and SkyeBrowse have a free plan.
