This paper reports on the results of comparative investigations of Si-C-N films prepared by using both plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and DC magnetron sputtering (MS) at different nitrogen flow rates (F-N2). The films were characterized by an atomic force microscope, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, nanoindentation and photoluminescence spectroscopy. All the deposited films were X-ray amorphous. For the PECVD films, nanohardness (H) and elastic module (E) increase with F-N2, which can be assigned to decreasing the hydrogen content. On the contrary, for the films, deposited by magnetron sputtering, the values of H and E decrease, when F-N2 increases. The latter is supposed to be due to decreasing a number of strong Si-C bonds and to increasing a number of weak Si-N and C-N bonds. The surface roughness of two types of the films is smaller compared to that of silicon substrates. An increase in nitrogen flow rate causes the smoothing of the film surfaces. The PECVD films deposited at high F-N2 exhibit bright photoemission with the main peak at similar to 440 nm. The intensity of this peak increases with increasing nitrogen content. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.