6 Professional and Best Revit Alternatives you need to know

Are you looking for the best Revit Alternatives? Are you willing to take your designing skills to next level? Feeling Revit is not much suitable for you to showcase your design skills? Then, you should have to go for the best Revit Alternatives. If you are also thinking the same, then this article is the right choice for you.

In this article, we have provided complete information regarding the best Revit alternatives after making a lot of research. Go through the article to know the complete details like features, prices and much more.

What is Revit?

Revit is a BIM(Building Information Modelling) software from the popular company “AutoDesk”. This software is mainly used in designing buildings, Architecture, elevations, and etc. If you are thinking as Revit and AutoCAD are the same, then you are wrong. AutoCAD is designing software that focuses on both Mechanical and civil designs, whereas Revit focuses only on Architectural designing. You can turn conceptual designs, visualization, and analysis into Fabrication and construction. Revit allows you to maintain accuracy in the designs. Revit uses the BIM Collaboration Pro to access the Revit designs from anywhere. This is all because of its advanced cloud-based collaboration and data management solutions.

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Why Revit Alternatives?

Autodesk Revit is the best and most used design software by engineers and architects. It has a very complicated user interface and is difficult to use for designing interiors. Having the isometric view as the default is the biggest drawback of the Revit and this makes designing very difficult compared to other designing software.

Revit BIM software mainly focuses on providing the best accuracy to its designs. While concentrating on the accuracy, it lacks in providing the other features. Whereas other designing software provides all the required tools to make the designs effective.

Best Revit Alternatives

Video Tutorial

We Provided this article in the form of a Video Tutorial for our reader’s convenience. If you are interested in reading, skip the video for now and watch it after the completion of reading this article.

1. SketchUp

SketchUp is one of the 3D design software that enables you to design any kind of architecture, interior designs with ease. This software was presented by the company named “Trimble. Inc”. It has a fully-featured workspace to create the designs joyfully and became the best Revit alternative. It works super smart in providing the 3D designs according to your visualization. You can also view changes that occur in the design with respect to time. Presenting the designs in a better way is possible with this software.

SketchUp is used in various industries like

• Architecture
• Commercial Interiors
• Construction
• Kitchen, Bath, and Interior Design
• Landscape Architecture
• Residential construction
• Urban Planning
• Woodworking and
• 3D printing

Features of SketchUp

• Supports both 2D and 3D models
• Handy Layer Management
• Lot of lighting effects
• Textures
• Animations
• Best suites for all type of business like Small, Medium, and Enterprise
• Provides Trimble and SimLab as in-built

Pricing of SketchUp

SketchUp provides its products in four different plans as Personal, Professional, Higher Education, and Primary & Secondary. The prices of all the plans are listed below.

For Personal

• SketchUp Free – Free
• SketchUp shop – $119/Yr
• SkecthUp Pro – $299/Yr

For Professional

• SketchUp Shop – $119/Yr
• SketchUp Pro – $299/Yr
• SkecthUp Studio – $699/Yr

Higher Education

• SketchUp Studio(For students) – $55/Yr
• SketchUp Studio(For Educators) – $55/Yr
• SketchUp Studio(For Universities) – Available at tiered prices

Primary & Secondary

• SketchUp (For schools) – Free with a G-Suite or Microsoft education Account.
• SketchUp Pro – Available in state wide license, free with a state grant.

Why SketchUp is an alternative to Revit

Consideration	SketchUp	Revit
Ease to use	✔	❌
Quality of Support	✔	Less compared to SketchUp
Visualization	Best	Good
Rendering	Fast & Accurate	Has to improve
Library	More materials/Objects	contains less
Construction	Suits best	Difficult
Drawing/Editing	Handy Tools	Fewer Tools

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2. Archicad

Archicad is a Building Information Management software from Graphisoft that aims to provide users best design experience. It has a simple user interface and workspace to access and handle any type of complicated design with ease. The company delivers advanced and fully featured architect tools for excellent architecture designs and gives tough competition to Revit to become the best Revit Alternative. It always connects the design team with the clients or the company to express the designs. Archicad handles designs of any size and collaborates the designs in real-time regardless of the location of the office, or the speed of the internet.

Because of its performance, Archicad is preferred and used by many architects across the world in 108 countries. It supports and is available in 27 languages. This company always tends to be along with the latest updates and technologies to provide the best features to their users.

Features of Archicad

• User-Friendly User Interface
• Handles designs of any size
• Professional Architectural visualization tools
• 30-days free trial version

Pricing of Archicad

To purchase the Archicad, you have to contact the local dealer near you. Click here to know the details of purchasing.

3. Microstation

Microstation is a 3D CAD software from the company named “Bentley”. This is best in handling the huge data of 2D and 3D designs efficiently. It transforms the 2D design data into 3D without using any other CAD software. In Revit, it is difficult to convert design data when compared to Microstation and this is one of the reasons to choose Microstation as the best Revit alternative. DGN, which is the common file format of Infrastructure is supported in this software. Mainly, the Global transportation agencies, AEC firms, and other design companies recommend having their designs in DGN format only.

So this software escapes you from the situations of getting errors while converting the regular drawing format DWG to DGN. Microstation allows you to modify the designs irrespective of the time they are created. Microstation helps the users with its in-app learning, video tutorials that turns beginners into experts in no time.

Features of Microstation

• 3D Parametric Modeling
• Works with Huge data sets
• In-built learning
• Layout and Annotate drawings
• Collaborative work on design
• Animations and rendering can be produced
• 14 days free trial version

Pricing of Microstation

The prices of Microstation range from $432.78 to $1624.65 with 12 months subscription license. It also provides the free version for 14 days.

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4. Blender: Free and open source Revit alternative

Blender is a free open-source 3D creation suite and the best Revit alternative. This software enables you to design the entirety of 3D pipeline modeling, rigging, simulation, animation, rendering, and compositing. Blender is employed in motion tracking, video editing, and 2D animation pipelines. It provides all of its services free of cost and won’t ask you for a single penny. You can use this software for both commercial and educational purposes. By considering the price factor and the features Blender is the best Revit alternative. You can also create games using this blender software.

As this is a free open source software, designers prefer to use this and it won’t disappoint them in providing the best output. Some others use Blender’s API for Python scripting to modify the application. This software best suits those who can’t afford in purchasing costly designing software like individuals, and small studios.

Features of Blender

• Modeling
• Digital Sculpting Tools
• Animation & Rigging
• Grease Pencil
• VFX
• Video Editing
• Scripting
• Pipeline

5. Vectorworks Architect

Vectorworks Architect is one of the popular Building Information Modeling(BIM) software which is to be considered as a best Revit Alternative. This software allows you to work in a fully integrated BIM workflow. You can easily work in all the phases of design with this single software. It provides you to access all the features and allows you to design without any limitations. This software is available with a flexible 3D modeling engine powered by SIEMENS Parasolid to add precision to your designs and documentation. Vectorworks Architect mainly concentrates on the Information of the design. Through that information, it makes to quantify and analyze the information as early as possible which helps you make smarter decisions.

Vectorworks Architect supports importing and accessing the design files of any format. So that you can easily collaborate with your colleagues, consultants, and clients. It supports the files from openBIM and IFC. Moreover, it has direct links with Rivet, SketchUp, Rhino, Photoshop, and Cinema4D. This software always tends to be advanced and they are taking their software one step ahead by introducing the latest technologies like AR/VR, Print Cloud, Photogrammetry, Cloud Services.

Features

• Friendly User Interface
• Solibri Direct
• Smart Options Display
• Quick Search
• Materials
• Project sharing server
• 3D Modeling Enhancements
• IFC Referencing
• Live Data Visualization

Pricing

Vectorworks Architect is available in free trial and paid versions. Its price plans are Perpetual and Subscription. The prices of both plans are listed below.

• Perpetual
  • Without Maintenance – $3,045
  • With Maintenance – $3,715
• Subscription
  • Monthly Subscription – $153/Month
  • Yearly Subscription – $128/Month($1530 billed Annually, you save $306)

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6. Lumion

Lumion is software that allows you to render 3D designs with great precision and detail. In the workflow of an Architecture, rendering is the most difficult and time taking step. But this software makes it an easy task with its tools and features. By using the Lumion rendering software, a natural atmosphere will be added to your designs. In the evolving fields of Architecture, visualization plays a major role in presenting your ideas and designs attractive and easily understandable to your clients, colleagues, and others.

Lumion renders the design files created using any designing software. With the live sync feature, Lumion connects with the CAD program. If your CAD program, doesn’t support the live sync feature, you can import the file into Luman and render the design. Lumion provides a live sync plugin for many popular designing software like Revit, SketchUp, Rhinoceros, Vectorworks Architect, AutoCAD, Archicad, and BricsCAD.

Features

• Animated Phasing
• Orthographic Views
• Volumetric Fire
• Rain Streaks
• Open Street Maps
• Full Content Library
• Fine-detail nature
• Live Sync
• Real Skies

Pricing

If you are a full-time student, then you can use this software for free by applying for a student license. This offer is also available for educational institutions. Or else, you have to purchase the product. Purchase can be done online and also from the local retailer. The latest version of Lumion is 11.5 and it is available in two versions. Such as

• Lumion – €1499
• Lumion PRO – €2999

If you are already using the software and want to upgrade it? then, you can do it right from the website’s buy section itself.

Conclusion

As every designer wants to complete their work in time and at great precision. So, choosing the best design software containing all the required tools to make his/her designs effective. This article is for those who are trying to use an alternative software for Revit. The evolutionary usage of design software leads to a number of new software and updating themselves with the latest technologies. According to your need and requirement, choose the best Revit alternative from the above-stated list.

I hope this tutorial helped you to know about the Best Revit Alternatives. If you want to say anything, let us know through the comment sections. If you like this article, please share it and follow WhatVwant on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for more Technical tips.

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Best Revit Alternatives – FAQs