Google Earth Studio Review and verdict 2026

Map and satellite view animation for videos and narrative cartography.

Free.

Our take

Understanding Google Earth Studio.

Web-based animation tool built on Google Earth's 3D and satellite imagery: creates cinematic keyframe camera animations (flyovers, zooms) directly in the browser.

Practical uses

Create an animated city flyover for a video.
Illustrate a reportA geographic shot.
Produce a cinematic real-location intro.

Pros and cons

What Google Earth Studio does especially well — and the limits to anticipate.

Pros

Impressive cinematic flyover rendering.
Free access to global imagery.
Familiar keyframe controls.
Runs in the browser, no install.

Cons

Limited to Google Earth imagery.
Imposed usage terms and attribution.
No custom 3D beyond the globe.

Google Earth Studio: when it makes sense.

Earth Studio fits animating globe flyovers from Google imagery; for custom 3D, a dedicated animation tool fits better.

Keep if

You want cinematic aerial shots of real locations.. You produce geographic or journalistic videos.

Challenge if

You need custom 3D control beyond Earth imagery.. Your use falls outside Google's allowed terms.

Our verdict on Google Earth Studio.

Why this verdict

Decent

Google Earth Studio is fairly easy to replace with an alternative, a free tier to test before paying, clearly documented use cases.