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TerraBrains vs. the stack

One platform vs. a drawerfull of single-purpose tools.

A typical firm licenses one tool for logs, another for settlement, another for piles, another for slopes, another for FE — each a separate per-seat subscription on its own data island, each needing a re-key to talk to the next. TerraBrains runs that whole daily workflow — field, lab, 213 code-checked analyses, 47 lab tests, a 3-D model and a signed report — on one dataset, at one price.

The stack you’re replacing

Every job below is a tool firms buy separately.

All real, globally-sold packages. Prices are the vendors’ own per-seat figures where public — your mileage varies by region and contract. TerraBrains covers each on the same dataset, with the standard cited and an advisory verdict on every result.

Borehole logs & data management
Bentley gINT / OpenGround / HoleBASE · Per-seat licence + a migration IT project
✓Offline field capture → live logs, AGS 4.x / DIGGS 2.x native
Consolidation settlement
Rocscience Settle3 · ~$2,000 / yr per seat
✓IS 8009 · elastic + 1-D consolidation, multilayer & time-rate
Laterally-loaded piles
Ensoft LPILE / GROUP / APILE · ~$1,200–2,000 each
✓11-family p-y (Matlock/Reese/API/Rollins/rock) FDM · axial P-Δ beam-column amplification · pushover & M-φ cracked-EI · lateral groups (Brown/AASHTO p-multipliers) · axial t-z/q-z · drilled shaft · rock socket · IS/EC7/AASHTO
Slope stability
Rocscience Slide2 / GeoStudio SLOPE/W · ~$2,000–4,000 / yr per seat
✓Bishop · Spencer · Morgenstern-Price + a 3-D extension
Seismic site response & liquefaction
SHAKE / DeepSoil · Separate package (often academic-licensed)
✓Automated equivalent-linear (SHAKE-type) strain iteration + G/Gmax–damping curve library (Vucetic-Dobry / Seed-Idriss / Darendeli) · SH transfer function · nonlinear Masing time-domain · RVT stochastic (Vs Monte-Carlo) · PM4Sand cyclic · design spectrum · 3 liquefaction methods + LPI
2-D finite-element (seepage / consolidation / deformation)
Rocscience RS2 / RS3 · $4,649–17,199 / yr per seat
✓Advanced FE Suite (Store add-on) — a 3-D elasto-plastic continuum footing bearing BVP (square/circular/rectangular, 20-node hex, viscoplastic Mohr-Coulomb, load–settlement + q_ult with a 3-D settlement-bowl viewer, Skempton/Vesić cross-check) AND the 2-D Hardening-Soil/Mohr-Coulomb footing BVP, transient unsaturated (Richards + van Genuchten) seepage, slab-FE, FE confined + unconfined seepage, strength-reduction slope, FE bearing
Deep-excavation & embedded walls
DeepEX / FREW / WALLAP · ~$3,000–10,000 / yr per seat
✓Deep Excavation Suite (Store add-on) — staged subgrade-reaction wall SSI with locked-in props, EC7 DA1-C2, non-uniform Boussinesq (NAVFAC) surcharges + passive berm, ground-settlement damage (Clough-O’Rourke) + FE staged excavation
Pavement design
AASHTOWare Pavement-ME + standalone tools · Enterprise per-seat licensing
✓Pavement Suite (Store add-on) — IRC 37/58, AASHTO-93, Pavement-ME, FAARFIELD, full axle-load spectra (NALS) + traffic wander
Reporting & deliverables
Word / Excel by hand — no audit trail · Hours per report, no tamper-evidence
✓AI-drafted, every claim cited, SHA-256 audit-chained & signed
The real cost

It’s not one licence — it’s five, plus the tax of moving data between them.

4–6 tools

A mid-size geotechnical team typically runs four to six of the packages above, each from a different vendor, each on its own seat count.

$8k–25k

Per seat, per year, once a couple of FE / pile / wall modules are in the mix — before the hours lost re-keying data from one island to the next.

$99–799

Per month, per organisation — for the field log, the lab, every analysis, the 3-D model, the AI and the signed report, on one dataset. Premium FE / pile / wall packs are optional add-ons in the Store.

Where we’re honest

What TerraBrains does not replace.

A comparison you can’t trust is worthless. So here’s the candid edge — the jobs where a specialist package still earns its seat.

—General free-form 3-D nonlinear FEM for arbitrary geometry + staged construction (PLAXIS 3D, RS3) — we DO ship a 3-D elasto-plastic continuum FE for foundation bearing-capacity BVPs (square/circular/rectangular footings; 20-node hex, viscoplastic Mohr-Coulomb, with a 3-D settlement-bowl viewer) plus a 2-D plane-strain elasto-plastic continuum, but not a general-purpose 3-D staged-construction modeller. Keep your specialist seat for arbitrary 3-D geometry and excavation sequencing.
—Coupled DYNAMIC effective-stress liquefaction inside a full 2-D/3-D continuum (PM4Sand-in-FEM) for flow-failure case studies — we ship single-element PM4Sand cyclic response, a nonlinear 1-D Masing site-response solver and RVT stochastic response, but not liquefaction coupled into a 2-D/3-D dynamic mesh.
—Bespoke numerical work your reviewers specifically mandate in a named package — TerraBrains covers the daily 95%, not every research edge case.

Stop paying five vendors to not talk to each other.

Start free, import an AGS export, and run a settlement, a pile and a slope on the same borehole — then sign the report. One month free, card on file, cancel anytime.

Start freeMigrating off gINT? →