Here’s a comparison of Blender 5.1 and 5.0.
🆚 Blender 5.1 vs. 5.0: A Tale of Two Updates
While Blender 5.0 was a landmark release packed with major new features, Blender 5.1 focuses on refinement, performance, and stability. Think of 5.0 as introducing a new set of powerful tools, and 5.1 as making them work faster and more reliably.
The table below breaks down the key differences:
| Feature Area | Blender 5.0 (Nov 2025) | Blender 5.1 (Mar 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Theme | Major Feature Release | Performance & Refinement Update |
| Rendering Performance | Introduced major features like full ACES pipeline support. | Significant speed boosts: Cycles GPU rendering is 5-10% faster, and CPU rendering is 5-20% faster (on Windows). EEVEE shader compilation is 25-50% faster. |
| Key New Features | – Full ACES color pipeline & HDR support – Volumes and SDF nodes in Geometry Nodes – New Storyboarding template – Reworked UV Sync | – New Raycast Node for NPR effects and decals – Mask to SDF Node in the Compositor – Improved Grease Pencil fill workflow (holes support) – AVIF image format support |
| Animation & Rigging | Numerous improvements and fixes. | Drastically faster evaluation: Shape Keys evaluate up to 300% faster; complex armatures see 2x+ speed improvements. New Gaussian Smooth modifier for F-Curves. |
| Geometry Nodes | Introduced new Volumes and SDF nodes. | Expanded toolkit with new nodes for volumes (dilate, erode) and strings. New Bone Info node for procedural rigging. |
| Compatibility | Major breaking changes: – Dropped Intel Mac support – Increased min. GPU requirements (NVIDIA 900 series / AMD RX 400 series) – Blendfile compression on by default – Removed Collada I/O | Refined compatibility: – Builds on the foundation set by 5.0. – Updated to Python 3.13 and OCIO 2.5 for VFX Platform 2026 compliance. |
| Stability | Fixed 588 bugs. | Focused heavily on polish with a “Winter of Quality” drive, fixing over 350 additional bugs. |
💡 How to Choose Between Them
- Choose Blender 5.0 if: You need absolute stability for a long-term project and want to avoid potential bugs that can come with a new release. It’s also your only option if you are on an older computer (pre-2015 GPU) or an Intel-based Mac, as Blender 5.0 is the last version to support them.
- Choose Blender 5.1 if: You want the absolute best performance, especially in rendering and animation playback. If you’re a 2D animator using Grease Pencil, a technical artist excited about the new Raycast node, or someone who just wants the most up-to-date and polished experience, this is the version for you.
Both versions represent the incredible progress of the Blender project. Your choice simply depends on whether your priority is a long-term stable platform or the latest performance enhancements and features.
