OK, after some serious tutorializing. I’ve come up with a simple checklist.
—Basic Overview—
Maya is a slow, clumsy, yet amazingly detailed and huge program.
VS
Blender is a much faster, yet “smaller” program.
—How Blender beets Maya—
Much “Faster” UI
A sculpting mode (that is actually very good)
ITS FREE
Better at modelling softbody (I:E Characters, plants, etc)
Open source (-ish)
It has a better “Mirroring System” (it has the modifier)
—How Maya Beets Blender—
Much more complex UI and system
Doesn’t have the cluttered “Modifiers”
Better animation tools
Does “Hard Surface” modeling better (I:E everything architecture)
Better (Overall) Rendering system
—Bad things about Blender—
The Render-er is a tad “dirty” looking, and takes a lot of tweeking to look nice.
The UI gets cluttered and takes some serious getting used to
Blender hasn’t added a “great new tool” for a long time
Your “first time” (teehee) with blender will confuse anybody.
The animation pipeline needs work, and it just needs more
—Bad things about Maya—
The UI, is good, but tires to handle too much and be too basic and just ends up being confusing
No “space to search”
Some of the tools make no logical sense (or are just named wrong)
The fact that we pay 4000$ or so dollars and get no sculpting. (or something that tries to be sculpting)
4000$ dollars
I’ve experienced more crashes in Maya then Blender
—Overview—
This is a simple comparison. (I’ve only used Maya for a few months)
It does come down to your opinion.
You can use both (Use Blender for sculpting then use Maya for Rhetopology and animation)
Overall, both of these programs have issues, and both beet others in aspects