V-Ray vs Cycles?

As far as I understood to render blender files you need a free export to .vrscene blender plugin and then the actual render V Ray Standalone for Maya, which costs EU 350, right?
Now the questions:

  1. Does the export plugin export the scenes w/o any faults (stuff missing/distorted etc)?
  2. Is the V Ray render much faster then Cycles? Under much faster I don’t mean 5% (for example). Does it has some other advantages - no fireflies, better colors etc. If you look at a scene rendered by both renders will you right away see a difference?
  1. You only need VRay Standalone license (250€ + dongle), unless you already own any other plugged-in version which comes with Standalone (max, maya, modo, SU, c4d…).

  2. You render directly in VFB. Try demo. (Or register at Chaos Group and ask support to access nightlies)

  3. Best is to experience it yourself, because it mostly depends on your goals, preferences & how good is your knowledge of computer science along with rendering skills (it doesn’t matter if it’s Cycles, Vray, prman, arnold, POVray, mitsuba, appleseed, redshift, octane…) you’ll hit the same or very similar hurdles along the way. Also ask on V-Ray for Blender Forums.