Aluminium-Chromium-Nitride (Al-Cr-N) is a rather modern coating with increased oxidation resistance and high hardness. Economic considerations established arc-evaporation as the most common industrial synthesis route, due to its high degree of ionization and high deposition rates. But a main disadvantage of arc evaporation is the high droplet formation. Magnetron Sputtering in turn is droplet free but suffers from a much lower degree of ionization and lower deposition rates. This work gives a detailed comparison of these deposition techniques (under industrial conditions) by means of Al-Cr-N hard coatings. For the deposition of Al-Cr-N thin films different target compositions were used to investigate the metastable phase formation and transition. The investigations include the determination of various deposition parameters for comparable studies. The coating morphology was investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and roughness measurements (profilometry). X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements with subsequent Rietveld refinement provided data on micro-structural changes such as phase fraction, crystallite size and lattice parameter. Mechanical properties such as hardness, E-moduli and residual stresses were determined by means of nanoindentation and biaxial-stress-temperature measurements (BSTM). Plasma measurements by planar probes were carried out to investigate the influence of ion bombardment on film growth and structure.