In the marketplace of file formats for 3D content, X3D has a tremendous advantage over all other formats by nature of its ISO Standardization, openness, and compatibility over 20 years. There are other formats that meet one or more of these features, including OBJ and FBX; however, X3D has not been a dominant or even significant player in the marketplace.

Recently there has been discussion about the suitability of various 3D formats as an archive format, especially for models. There are formats that have been around a long time (OBJ, FBX, X3D), those that are optimized for delivery (glTF), those that are widely used in existing tool chains (OBJ and FBX), plus a number of other criteria and formats including tool-specific (Blender, Maya, etc.). The most widely used format is FBX and any format that seeks to supplant it needs to offer at least as much capability as that one.