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Comparison

Live2D Cubism vs Rive

	Live2D Cubism	Rive
What it says it does	Live2D CubismLive2D Cubism is software that animates original 2D drawings directly so illustrated characters can move for games, apps and VTuber content, with FREE and PRO Editor editions and SDK runtimes.	RiveRive is an interactive animation engine for games, apps and UI. Build game UI, menus, HUDs and animated characters in the Rive Editor or with your coding agent and the Rive CLI, then ship with open-source runtimes.
Pricing	Live2D CubismFREE Editor always free (feature limits; commercial use allowed for general users and small-scale enterprises under ¥10M annual sales); 42-day PRO trial; PRO for indie (under ¥10M sales) from ¥2,288/mo or ¥15,708 for year one annually (¥12,936 year two, ¥11,748 year three+; 3-year plan ¥40,392); PRO for business (¥10M+ sales) from ¥10,582/mo or ¥72,600 year one annually; student/faculty 3-year plan ¥8,078; prices from the official Live2D Store (JPY, tax included as shown) (official)	RiveFree $0 (exports show a Rive splash screen, 3 collaborative files); Cadet $9/seat/mo (no splash screen, up to 3 seats); Voyager $32/seat/mo (Libraries, up to 25 seats, $20/seat agent credits); Enterprise $120/seat/mo (required above $10M annual revenue); runtimes MIT open source, no royalties (official)
Website	Live2D Cubismhttps://www.live2d.com/en/	Rivehttps://rive.app/

Which tool for which job

Live2D Cubism wins when your characters are layered illustrations you want to deform, not mesh-rigged sprites.

Rive wins when you want interactive, lightweight animation that runs in your engine and on the web.

Descriptions in the table come from each vendor's own site. This verdict is a fit call from those official pages as of 6 November 2026, not a shared benchmark or a hands-on score. Prices change, so confirm the pricing row on each tool page. How we review tools.

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