- Which is easier to use?
- Which is more accurate?
- Which is faster?
And how does BlenRig fit into the comparison?
Anyone?
I have only ever used Rigify & MakeHuman rigs, so cannot comment on the others. I have never had a situation that either rig could not cope with, so I stick to those two. I did once add IK chains to the MakeHuman rig’s fingers so the character could play a piano, no problems doing that either!
Cheers, Clock.
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Going by the comments on YouTube, BlenRig hasn’t been updated yet.
Comparing the two is something I really want to do. My impression is that functionally, Auto Rig Pro and Rigify are not too different. Both are powerful and both can automate rigging. The two seem to allow nice customization.
The advantage of Rigify is that it’s free and already a part of blender.
Auto Rig Pro is probably easier to use. I’ve seen the demo videos and it seems you can rig a human by simply placing a couple of markers. That looks very cool. Also, it seems to be one of the most popular addons on the Blender Market. It’s actively developed and supported whereas the development of Rigify has been sporadic and the documentation is seriously lacking.
The individual rig parts (legs, arms, etc) most likely behave slightly differently. Which one is better may be just a matter of preference.
I really hope someone who has used both would chime in.
EDIT 2025: I made a detailed Auto-Rig Pro VS Rigify comparison. Here it is in video and article form.
Video:
Article:
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That’s what I’m hoping.
Something else I’ve recently found out… BlenRig (apparently) does have a 2.8 version. And so far, the thing that draws me away from Rigify and toward either BlenRig or AutoRig Pro is that Rigify doesn’t have a stretchy knee control. It may not seem like a big deal and might seem counter productive if you’re doing realism (well… as close as we can come using software) but here’s the thing…
I spend months last year trying to get the hand of walk cycles using Rigify-based rigs, and the thing that kept tripping me up is something called knee-pop. Wayne from CG Cookie was coaching me, but with a Rigify rig, the best advice possible is, “fiddle with it until the knee pop is gone.” With a stretchy knee like is available in BlenRig and AutoRig Pro, it’s a matter of stretching the knee in the frames where it pops and boom! You’re done. With Rigify, the only way to control knee placement is by moving the foot control or the hip control. I’d spend literally hours trying to get it right, hand it in to Wayne, and still it would be popping. Worse: I’d be so cross-eyed after staring at it so long I’d no longer be able to tell if it was popping or not.
Anyway, that’s one big reason for using either BlenRig or AutoRig Pro. But, I can’t find any tutorials on how to use BlenRig once it’s built and with AutoRig Pro, there’s no voice-over which means I’m trying to watch what’s going on and read at the same time.
I think I may have to go through the AutoRig Pro tutorials, write down and the text that’s overlaid on the video, then do my own voice over. (sigh)
I’m trying hard not to complain. I mean, it is the cheapest 3D animation system available, even if I buy AutoRig Pro. (double sigh)
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Can you give an example of this knee pop with a blend file or simple video? I am very curios. It sounds like something that you control with the Pole Target … but that’s too simple so I am probably missing something.
As for Blen Rig I have never used it. But I know there is a tutorial on it on the Blender Cloud. https://cloud.blender.org/p/blenrig/ You have to subscribe to the Cloud tho and it’s for 2.7
Can’t wait to check out AutoRig pro. Then I may make some videos myself but it’s not going to be very soon so good luck with your voice-over! 
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Yeah, it sounds simple when it’s explained, but it’s the devil in disguise when you wrestle with it. Here goes…
As the character takes a step, the knee should be constantly travelling in a forward motion. Makes sense, right? But when manipulating the foot/hip/etc., often the knee will either stand still for a few frames or even travel backwards, then suddenly “pop” forward again.
I can’t even see it happening most of the time. It just blurs past. Frankly, I think it’s one of those things that should be ignoring by beginners. But that’s me. What do I know? All I know is that I banged on it for a few months before getting completely discouraged and just walking away from animation.
Then I discovered that BlenRig and AutoRig Pro both have that extra control (not the pole, but a grabby thing) that can used on each frame to make sure the knee is always moving forward. I know it’s a poor artisan who blames his tools, but in this case, fiddling forever with a Rigify rig or simply using that extra knee control to just get the job done and move on… well… there’s a part of me that feels like it’s not all me that’s to blame.
But like I said: What do I know?
I have used rigify and Blenrig frequently. Blenrig has a lot more controls and more finite tweaking.Takes a little longer to set up but gives great shoulder and hip deformations. The down side is that depending who is animating, a little harder to figure out the controls. Rigify legs in IK do have a stretch to control so that should stop knee popping unless your rig is not quite set up correctly on the metarig. Have not used autorig pro. Like Clock I have used MakeHuman rigs and haven’t had any major issues with the ones I use.
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So, there is a controler for placing the knee in an exact spot? It must be hidden by default.
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JP Bouza did also upload those tutorials to Youtube. I’ve used Blenrig and Rigify, but not Auto-rig. Rigify is the easier one to use, but it doesn’t have any skinning tools set up already. Blenrig has a rigged cage, but skinning the face can be tricky as there are so many more bones.
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If you are using the Human (metarig) the knee controller is the big arrows pointing to the knee. Rotates on local Y axis. The stretch to control is located in the panel (N shortcut under item) when you select the IK foot control.
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I am wondering if you’re using 2.79? In 2.82 the knee control is very, very obvious.
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Thanks, guys. I didn’t realize they’d made these changes to Rigify.
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Ah Cool! I was wondering if I was missing something super obvious 
For the leg you also have an option to switch to the classic pole target instead of the arrow widget.
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Just bought Auto Rig Pro after a few weeks of focusing on Rigify. I was at the weight-painting of the face when I went ahead and got ARP. I already love it so much & my rigged character imported into Unity super easily
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I also use Auto rig pro, but in my opinion, rigify is compatible with other addons, such as dynamic bones, etc. I want the fabric between the character’s legs to dangle naturally, especially when walking, but I can’t add dynamic bones, and the simulation works well only with a standard plain, and with the fabric I modeled it works poorly. Also, in the Auto rig pro, I can’t remove the bones. which I added, I press in the disable button and it seems to remove it, but later when I press to Mach to Rig , it breaks all the bones.Maybe you know better how the disease these problems?