The history of Carrara started in 1989 when a group of individuals founded Ray Dream, Inc. with the idea of creating graphic software for the new Mac computers with color displays. Two years later the first version of their new 3D graphics program which they named Ray Dream Studio was released.

In the years that followed Ray Dream Studio became a successful product having at one time over 200,000 users. In 1996 Ray Dream Inc. was sold to Fractal Design Corporation (developer of Painter, Poser). Fractal Design Corporation was in turn acquired by MetaTools (developer of Bryce, KPT) shortly thereafter. The combination of the two companies was given the new name MetaCreations. Around the same time another 3D graphics program named Infini-D was acquired from Specular International. Now owning two 3D graphics programs, MetaCreations decided to merge Ray Dream and Infini-D into one application giving it the new name Carrara.

Around the year 2000 Metacreations divested itself of most of its products including Carrara, which was sold to a new company named Eovia founded by former MetaCreations employee Antoine Clappier. Eovia developed Carrara for several versions culminating with version 5 released in 2005. Eovia also developed a new 3D modeling application named Hexagon which shipped in 2005.

In 2006 DAZ 3D (developers of DAZ Studio and a line of articulated 3D figures) acquired Eovia along with Carrara and Hexagon. Several programmers formerly employed by Eovia now work for DAZ and continue development on Carrara.

May 2010 DAZ 3D launched the current version of Carrara 8.0 to the public. DAZ 3D works in an "Open Development" environment, releasing early and turning to the users for input and feature input. The last 2 releases of Carrara have been done using this development cycle.