Polycrystalline cadmium sulfide (CdS) thin films were deposited on glass substrates by chemical bath deposition (CBD) and close-spaced sublimation (CSS) techniques. The typical deposition temperatures between these techniques are quite different. The US thin films deposited by CBD were prepared using two methods of bath agitation: magnetic and ultrasonic agitation. We found that films deposited with ultrasonic agitation presented a cleaner surface with minor presence of contaminants, similar to the obtained for CSS films, as demonstrated by Auger analysis. Properties of the US films such as morphology, optical transmission, crystallinity and band gap energy, are discussed in order to compare them in both techniques. We obtain that crystallinity of Us films depends strongly on the temperature used for deposition. In agreement with several works, films prepared by CBD technique presented a cubic structure, while films grown by CSS technique exhibited an hexagonal symmetry. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.