Maya versus other Applications

Hi, everybody.
i have a some what difficult choice to make and since life is all about making the right decisions,
I decided to ask your group for advise.
I hope my question wouldn't offend anyone or spark up any indignation.
I come from a 2D world and film editing, but have taken one semester with Maya and I really liked the software. I've recently found a free for use software on the internet called BLENDER. Having considered that one is free and the other one is a couple of thousand dollars and both take time to master,I needed to decide what would be more important to invest time in learning on the long run.
Here's my question,

How do Maya and Blander compare or differ in features, productivity and etc?

if someone have worked with both softwares and have anything to add, I thank you kindly.