For companies looking to incorporate augmented reality (AR) into their operations, choosing the right solution can be stressful. As a newer technology, augmented reality app maturity is all over the map. Many AR companies focus on games or mobile, making it hard to know if the companies’ claims of superiority make sense in your environment. For industrial companies, the benefits of AR focus on faster training, less expensive field service and repair operations, and reducing rework and scrap due to production errors. To help you make sense of some of the augmented reality apps on the market, we compare Vuforia vs Wikitude to see how each supports these critical needs.

Vuforia vs Wikitude Breakdown

Company Stability

Wikitude, with its location-based approach to AR, has been around since 2008. Its headquarters are in Austria and it has offices in Salzburg and Vienna, along with partners around the world. Wikitude introduced its SLAM 3D tracking technology in 2017.

Vuforia is part of PTC, the leader in industrial platforms and solutions. It has more than 30 years of experience solving business challenges for companies in a variety of industrial disciplines. PTC applications, including Windchill, Creo, and ThingWorx, focus on improving efficiency, maximizing revenue growth, and reducing operational costs.

If you’re in the industrial or manufacturing space, choosing a PTC solution is sure to provide you with the ongoing technological advancements needed to stay ahead of the competition.

Industries

Wikitude has an impressive customer list, although most of its customers are retail, consumer, or media companies. You will see several industrial logos on its website, but investigating the use cases employed shows that, for the most part, they do not fall into the critical areas of fast training, improved field service and repair operations, and reduced production errors.

PTC has always been focused on industrial organizations, and its customer list is a Who’s Who of the industries it covers (aerospace and defense, automotive, electronics and high-tech, industrial machinery, life sciences, oil and gas, and retail and consumer products). If you operate in any of these industries, PTC knows your industry and the issues you face in deploying AR.

PTC’s industrial focus reigns true with the Vuforia platform – making it the better choice for manufacturing organizations.

Support and Education

Wikitude offers 18 different product versions for download, each optimized for a specific platform or use case. The company provides separate online documentation for each of the platforms, devices, and extensions it supports. It also has an online user forum that includes how-to guides as well as user-to-user discussions.

Vuforia is available in three versions ranging from a basic license to its Pro license. PTC even offers a 30-day free trial. Prospective customers can easily download the trial for access to all Vuforia’s capabilities. It also includes open access to the developer portal, which includes information about upcoming releases as well as a library of documentation, technical info about its APIs, best practices, FAQs, and more.

When it comes to education and support options in the Vuforia vs Wikitude battle – this one is a draw.

Pricing

Wikitude offers four tiers of pricing. Its Pro 3D is a one-time license that does not include product updates—meaning you must buy a new license or pay an upgrade fee to obtain access to new features. It sells for €2,490 ($2,934 USD). The same product is available in a subscription model for €2,990 ($3,525) per year, which includes SDK upgrades. The next tier, Cloud, is €4,490 ($5,292) per year and also includes cloud hosting and recognition. Their highest Enterprise tier includes an “expert” edition of the SDK. Pricing for the Enterprise Edition is available by custom quote only.

Vuforia has three license tiers. The basic license is $42 per month, billed annually. It is an ideal solution for beginners, small businesses, and students. The license includes support and free version updates. The second tier, Basic + Cloud, is $99 per month and adds access to a cloud image database plus additional target types. It’s ideal for small businesses and companies just starting to venture into AR. The Pro tier is available via custom quote and includes additional target types, area types, a custom cloud database, advanced camera APIs, and more. It is an ideal solution for larger businesses that need robust AR applications.

Vuforia vs Wikitude: Which is the Best Choice?

If you’re looking at Vuforia vs Wikitude, you already know that both products are good. Initially, Wikitude suffered from a perception that its location-based AR, similar to what’s used in games such as Pokemon Go, is not true AR, which is frequently defined as adding sensory information such as sight, smell, or sound to a digitized version of the real world. However, with the 2017 introduction of its ‘SLAM’ feature to its SDK, Wikitude now includes 2D recognition, markerless 3D AR, and object recognition AR in addition to its geolocation AR. It is an ideal solution for creating games and marketing applications.

However, Vuforia has had the full range of AR features since its inception, making it the more seasoned choice to bet your business on. As a proven, fully-featured AR development tool, Vuforia also has the advantage of being part of PTC, a $1.26 Billion, publicly traded corporation with its full resources focused on manufacturing and industrial companies. PTC has always been at the forefront of understanding the areas where industrial companies will be looking to improve operations next. PTC offers a complete array of industrial-based applications, including PLM, PDM, 3D CAD, IIoT, VR, and AR solutions robust enough to support even very large corporations.

We may be biased—and as one of PTC’s largest distributors, let’s face it, we are—but we try to keep an open mind in our product comparisons. When it comes to AR and other components of Industry 4.0, no other company comes close to PTC’s offering. There’s no contest when it comes to Vuforia vs Wikitude for industrial applications.

If you’d like to learn more about Vuforia and AR, contact us today.