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OptiCutter is a quick, capable web optimizer. Here is the measured record between it and Cutlist Evolution, and the differences that matter as jobs grow.
By Cutlist Evolution ·
OptiCutter is a web-based cutting diagram generator, and a good one. It runs in the cloud with nothing to install, covers sheet, linear and roll material, and was the fastest of the third-party web tools in our nine-job benchmark, at roughly 3 to 29 seconds per job. Its published free tier is genuinely usable too: 5 different stocks, 20 part sizes and 500 parts in total, with no card required. For a fast sheet diagram in a single material, it is the right shape of tool.
The differences show up as jobs grow, and we published the numbers rather than the adjectives. On a 2,786-part construction project with identical parts, stock and kerf, OptiCutter's plan needed 1,176 sheets and Cutlist Evolution's needed 1,125. That is 51 fewer sheets on one job, at 85% yield against 78%. On a hard 39-shape packing test that fits on a single sheet, OptiCutter needed a second sheet, doubling the material order, where Cutlist Evolution fit the job at 98.2% yield. Every job is published with its parts count, stock, yield and sheet count in the full benchmark, so you can hold it against your own work rather than take the summary on trust.
Both free tiers cost nothing to test. The decisive comparison is always the same: run one real cutting list from your own shop through each and count the sheets.
Free to use
From opticutter.com and its published help, read in July 2026: CSV and Excel import, kerf and per-edge trim, grain direction, per-edge banding calculation, part labels, and PDF, XLS, CSV and DXF export. Two limits in their own words: it is specialized for cutting rectangular material, so there is no shaped-part nesting, and offcut handling is a minimal remnant length setting rather than reuse or inventory.
Cutlist Evolution tracks offcuts as stock you can use on the next job, nests shaped parts as well as rectangles, and exports up to SVG and PTX with beam saw settings on the paid tiers. The engine behind it is benchmarked against a library of real production jobs before any change ships, and the same engine is available to build into your own software as the SmartCut API.
The OptiCutter benchmark carries the tables behind every number above. Where both tools sit among the whole field is in the best cut list optimizers in 2026, and if the question is what a free optimizer includes at all, start at the free cut list optimizer page.