GRN vs Output Portal: Which Granular Plugin to Buy? (2026)

Quick Answer (TL;DR)

Price Comparison: GRN vs Portal

GRN costs $34.99, paid once. Output Portal lists at $149. Plugin Boutique had it at $74.50 at points in 2026, and it is included in Output One, Output's subscription at $14.99 a month or $119.99 a year, alongside Arcade, Co-Producer, Creator, Thermal and Movement.

At list price Portal costs a little over four times as much as GRN. Even on sale it is more than double.

GRN is at version 4.0.0, and a GRN serial carries over to new versions. You can try the full plugin free for 14 days (the trial starts from inside the plugin), there is a 14-day money-back guarantee after that, and [GRN Lite](/products/grn-lite) is free.

Core Granular Engine

Both plugins capture incoming audio into a buffer, cut it into grains and play the grains back with their own pitch, position and timing. Both make shimmering pads, glitchy stutters, pitched clouds and ambient beds.

GRN remembers the last 1.5, 3 or 6 seconds of audio and plays it back with up to 64 grain voices. Six front-panel knobs set the sound: SIZE (10 to 500 ms), DENSITY (up to 200 grains a second), DRIFT (how loosely the grains are timed, which replaced SPRAY in 4.0.0), STEREO, PITCH (two octaves either way) and MIX. Version 4.0.0 rebuilt the engine so the selection drawn on the waveform is exactly what the grains play, and added per-grain filter and drive, a RANDOM card for per-grain jitter, a STEPS rhythm strip, a third LFO and a third envelope.

Portal's grain engine covers density, size, pitch, stretch, delay and pan, with a randomness amount under several of those controls. Its grains run from 0.5 ms to one second, density syncs to tempo from 64th-note triplets to one bar, a humanize control varies the grain envelopes so the result feels less mechanical, and it has a time stretch.

Both produce clean granular output. The differences are in what surrounds the engine.

Features Only GRN Has

These are the reasons GRN fits some workflows better, and none of them is a small extra.

• Randomizer: The dice button in the header rolls a whole new patch from five musical profiles (Ambient, Shimmer, Glitch, Subtle, Deep) seven times in ten and a wildcard the rest, and Undo takes it back. Portal puts randomness under individual controls instead of rolling a whole patch.
• SCALE mode: GRN has FREE, CHROM and SCALE pitch modes. In SCALE mode every grain's pitch shift lands on a note of one of 10 scales, including Major, Minor, Pentatonic, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Harmonic Minor and Whole Tone, so a random sweep still sounds in key.
• HARMONY: Octaves, Fifths or Oct+5th intervals on top of the main pitch, with Scatter and Direction knobs for how the harmony grains are spread. A chordal cloud from a single source.
• Feedback loop: Feeds the output back in through Warm, Tube or Crunch drive, Haas-style stereo width, tape-style wobble and its own high- and low-pass filters.
• FREEZE and the Buffer Library: Hold the buffer so the grains keep replaying one moment, and save frozen buffers to load in any project.
• MIDI Pitch Mode: Hold notes on a keyboard and a frozen sound plays at those pitches, chords included. For a full instrument built around loading samples, FRCTL makes a separate one, GRNi.
• STEPS rhythm strip: A step sequencer with ratchets and divisions from 1/1 to 1/128, for grains that lock to the tempo.
• Trial and free version: A 14-day trial of the full plugin and a free GRN Lite. Portal has no free version.
• Linux and CLAP: GRN runs as VST3, AU and CLAP on Windows, macOS and Linux. Portal is VST, VST3, AU and AAX on Windows and macOS only.

Features Only Portal Has

Portal is ahead in five places. GRN 4 closed some of the older gaps (it now has its own macros on an XY pad, three envelopes and a 10-effect rack), but these remain.

• 250+ factory presets: Against GRN's 140, plus user save and load in both.
• Drawable envelope shapes: Portal's envelopes can be complex, randomly generated or drawn by hand. GRN's three envelopes are ADSR.
• Grain delay: A delay that feeds the output back into the grain engine itself, which is a different thing from GRN's general feedback loop.
• Time stretch: Slows and stretches a sound, with optional tempo sync. GRN has no dedicated stretch control.
• AAX: Portal runs in Pro Tools. GRN has no AAX build.

Sound Quality: GRN vs Output Portal

Both use overlapping, windowed grains, and both pitch-shift cleanly over a wide range.

GRN's output stage runs gain compensation and optional auto gain, then a soft clipper, so the level stays even as you push density and feedback, without harsh digital clipping. Portal's humanize control adds small envelope variations that make its output feel less repetitive. In GRN, DRIFT and the RANDOM card's per-grain jitter do a similar job.

The raw granular sound of the two is close. Portal's built-in effects chain lets you shape the sound further without leaving the plugin. GRN's feedback loop, driven into saturation, makes a kind of texture that Portal's grain delay does not reproduce easily.

Listeners will not hear one as better than the other. The gap is in the tools around the engine.

User Interface and Workflow

GRN is built for speed. The six main knobs sit in the middle of the window, with the pitch card, the filters, the OUT card and the STEPS strip around them, and the MOD row holds the LFOs, envelopes and macros. The dice randomizer, preset browser, A/B compare and undo sit in the header. The window scales from 75% to 150% and shows the buffer and grain positions live.

Portal's main page centres on its XY macro pad, the grain controls and a modulation section, and an advanced mode reveals the full parameter set. It has built-in tooltips and preset favourites, and its effects chain adds another layer of controls.

If speed matters most, GRN's layout gets to a usable sound faster. If you want every parameter exposed and complex modulation, Portal's depth supports that.

CPU Performance

GRN runs at zero samples of latency with up to 64 grain voices.

Portal is generally reported to use more CPU when several of its effects are active at high grain density, which is expected given its extra processing stages, and some users report CPU spikes on complex patches.

On a modern computer neither should cause problems. If you run many instances, use GRN's 14-day trial to check it in your own session before you buy.

Platform and DAW Compatibility

GRN runs as VST3, AU and CLAP on Windows 10 and later, macOS 10.13 and later (Intel and Apple Silicon native) and Linux with glibc 2.35 or newer (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 and up), in Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, Bitwig and other hosts. A licence covers three computers.

Portal runs as VST, VST3, AU and AAX on Windows and macOS, with no Linux and no CLAP. For Pro Tools, Portal's AAX settles it. For Linux or CLAP, GRN is the only one of the two.

Who Should Buy GRN?

GRN fits producers who want granular textures quickly and want them to stay musical, for $34.99.

It suits ambient, lo-fi, experimental and electronic work. The dice randomizer finds a starting point in seconds, SCALE mode keeps it in key, and the feedback loop adds depth beyond plain granulation.

It is also the pick on Linux or for CLAP. To try granular for free first, [GRN Lite](/products/grn-lite) runs the same engine. To play samples as an instrument rather than process a track, see [GRNi](/products/grni).

Who Should Buy Output Portal?

Portal fits sound designers who want the deepest control around the grains: drawable envelope shapes, time stretch and an integrated grain delay.

It also makes sense for Pro Tools users, for anyone who wants a 250-plus preset library to browse, and for Output One subscribers, who already have it.

For a studio billing clients for sound design, $149 is easy to justify, and on sale it is closer to half that.

GRN vs Portal: Full Feature Comparison

Conclusion

GRN and Output Portal are both capable granular effects, made for different producers. Portal is ahead on presets, drawable envelopes, time stretch, its grain delay and Pro Tools support, and it is the obvious choice if you already pay for Output One.

For most producers GRN is the better value. At $34.99 against $149 it adds what Portal lacks: SCALE mode across 10 scales, HARMONY, the dice randomizer, FREEZE with a Buffer Library, MIDI Pitch Mode and a STEPS rhythm strip, and since 4.0.0 it has its own three LFOs, three envelopes, four macros on an XY pad and a 10-effect rack. It runs on Linux, supports CLAP, and you can try the full plugin free for 14 days.

The core sound is close. The real question is workflow. Fast, musical textures from a few knobs point to GRN. A granular workstation with every parameter exposed points to Portal.

Not sure yet? Start with [GRN Lite](/products/grn-lite) for free. For more cheaper options, see [Output Portal alternatives](/blog/output-portal-alternatives-cheaper-options), and for a head-to-head in movement plugins, the [SWRL vs Output Movement comparison](/blog/swrl-vs-output-movement).

Frequently Asked Questions