alt Hacker NewsAt one of last Blender conferences, the founder (and at that time CEO) gave some insights about funding and compared it to Thunderbird. https://youtu.be/VZ5022VaMmA?si=m1hD9wEQ16s8Zu3b&t=1297 ;
Fore More recent numbers: In 2024[1] (last info I found), Blender had 3.1m € in donations (600k more than the year before) and Thunderbird had around 9m € [2].
I kind of get it, Blender is way more niche than Thunderbird, but imagine what they could do with even more money.
[1] https://download.blender.org/foundation/Blender-Foundation-A... on page 76 [2] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-... I did the money conversion based on today's exchange rates
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Mozilla invests more time in being a foundation than software so makes sense their donations are higher.
> but imagine what they could do with even more money.
Quite potentially some really great stuff, but I’m skeptical that this is actually a great way to kill a good thing. Ideally money isn’t an issue and everyone is paid well, and somehow the organization managers know how to feel out and draw a line on scale/ambitions.
wow thunderbird gets so much and achieves so little? amazing in a terrible way
> Blender is way more niche than Thunderbird
Is that true though? I mean sure, more people use email - but I would guess there are more Blender users than Thunderbird users in the world.
There's plenty of competition for an excellent free email experience. Very little for 3D modeling software.
Update: Looks like I guessed wrong. I found some approximate user numbers:
Thunderbird has analytics that show around 10 million active daily installations: https://stats.thunderbird.net/
Blender stats are harder to find. They reported 23 million total downloads in 2024, which suggests daily actives significantly lower than 10 million: https://download.blender.org/foundation/Blender-Foundation-A...