15 Best House Design Software

House design software is a set of computer programs that help architects and prospective homeowners sketch and visualize their visions on a computer.

Any good software for home design allows you to preview design operations in real time and to make the required adjustments before extracting the final design.

It allows you to create a real-life vision of your design, create a floor plan, set the wall colors, place furniture, adjust the lighting, and see for yourself how the house will appear – in real-time – when all the elements have been brought together.

House design software

With so many options available in the marketplace, choosing the right software for home design can be a difficult task, especially for a first-timer.  

To help you make an informed decision, here is a compilation of the 15 best house design software in the market today with the pros and cons of each option.

1. Home Designer Suite

Designed for architects and interior designers, Home Designer Suite is one of the best software for home design especially for well-heeled design professionals.

This software can handle all types of residential house design projects.

It uses powerful construction tools to create project documents complete with site and framing plans, section details, and elevations.

As you draw elements, Home Designer Suite automatically generates 3D models that allow you to view designs from different angles.

The software can create a list of materials that will be required for the project. It can add automatic labels and fill camera callouts with layout data.

Pros:

• Available for both PC and Mac.
• Ability to produce complex designs with little effort.
• Huge set of 3D objects that are downloadable in multiple setups.

Cons:

• Quite expensive.
• Suitable for professionals only.
• Not easy to use.

Pricing: $129.00 (Optional backup: $14.95).

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Professionals and DIY designers.

2. Chief Architect

Billed as one of the best house design software, the Chief Architect generates 3D visualizations that represent exact images of what the final product will look like.

The software comes with a useful material catalogue and adequate 3D assets that allow users to drag and drop their way around a home design project.

Thanks to its ease of use, the Chief Architect is used by many design specialists – architects, landscape designers, interior designers – and DIY home designers.

Pros:

• Plenty of 3D assets.
• Easy to use.

Cons:

• Quite expensive.
• Requires a lot of computer space (5GB of available hard disk space).

Pricing: $3,295 for life or $199/month.

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Professional designers.

3. DreamPlan

DreamPlan is a 3D home design software that enables you to visualize and plan your house with ease – whether it is an apartment, condo, or a regular home.

The software allows you to add furniture, texture, colors, and other décor fixtures to your house to give you a clear depiction of how your home will look.

DreamPlan can also be used for planning the exteriors of a home.

Pros:

• Easy-to-use interface for basic home designs.
• Ability to shift between 2D, 3D rendered, and 2D Blueprint view modes.
• Ability to export designs to JPG, PNG, and many other file options.

Cons:

• Quite expensive

Pricing: $35 (commercial use); $30 (home use).

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Individuals looking for basic design software.

4. Revit

Revit is one of the most popular house design software apps.

Building information modeling (BIM) software can be used across various fields including architecture, engineering, interior design, and landscaping.

Revit is tailored to capture a user’s design vision in 3D and generate model-based house designs and documentation; automatically update floor plans, sections, elevations, and 3D views; and visualize the final structure in 3D.

It allows collaboration across multi-disciplinary project teams.

Pros:

• Allows team members to save and share work.
• Cloud-based integration allows better collaboration among teams.

Cons:

• Quite expensive.
• Incompatible with Mac iOS.

Pricing: $335/month; $2,675/year.

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Multi-disciplinary project teams.

5. Roomstyler

Roomstyler is a revolutionary online 3D software for home design that allows you to customize almost every imaginable item in a home design.

It is one of the first software to offer details such as cookware, utensils, kitchen appliances, etc. – allowing users to plan their kitchens down to the finest detail. 

Pros:

• Allows complete customization of designs.
• Easy to use and acquire furniture and accessories.
• Effortless navigation around the application.

Cons:

• Too many options that can overwhelm users.
• Lengthy design processes.
• Requires Internet connection.

Pricing: $0.00

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Anyone seeking to learn basic 3D renders.

6. Foyr Neo

Foyr Neo is an online home design software with a pre-built collection of over 50,000 pre-modeled products that save users the task of designing from scratch.

The software comes with incredibly easy-to-use rendering controls and AI-assisted features that allow users to design a house within a very short time.

With Foyr Neo, you can get the best lighting for your render and make brilliant photorealistic 3D renders in a jiffy.

Pros:

• Access to a catalogue of 50,000+ pre-modeled products.
• Super-easy to use – drag-drop functionality and seamless navigation.
• Ready-to-use design templates.

Cons:

• Requires Internet connection.

Pricing: $59/month (basic); $140/month (pro).

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Professional interior designers.

7. Virtual Architect Ultimate

This is one of the easiest-to-use software for house design.

Virtual Architect Ultimate is wizard-driven – which means it allows even an amateur to design anything by just making a few clicks of the mouse.

The software comes with a huge collection of 3D graphics to help you visualize and plan each section of your dream home.

Pros:

• Availability of tutorial videos.
• Super-fast wizard-driven interface.
• Allows you to upload photos for design inspiration.

Cons:

• Takes a long to learn.
• No free support.

Pricing: $99.99 for life.

Free trial: Not available.

Suitability: Individuals looking for finer details.

8. Floorplanner

Floorplanner is a great home design software that allows you to create interactive floor plans and blueprints.

The software comes with a huge collection of objects – cabinetry, furniture, and home accessories that bring a house to life within a very short time.

Floorplanner allows the placement of walls, doors, windows, and other text features to show the dimensions of the proposed house.

Pros:

• Allows unlimited edits for the free plan.
• Ability to create interactive floor plans and blueprints.
• Ability to decorate rooms with just a click of the mouse.

Cons:

• Limited to layouts and blueprints.
• Unsuitable for those looking for elaborate 3D renderings.

Pricing: $.0.00 (basic); $5/month (Plus); $29/month (Pro); $59/month (Team); $179/month (business); $599/month (Enterprise).

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Homeowners.

9. 3Ds Max

This software for home design delivers outstanding graphics for 3D animations and models as well as images and games.

3Ds Max allows you to define unusual environments and items, and to create spectacular visualizations, charming worlds, and exciting virtual experiences.

Pros:

• Automated processes that allow users more time to be creative.
• Its renderer allows users to view detailed previews in real-time.

Cons:

• Only compatible with Windows OS.

Pricing: $225/month; $1,785/year.

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Intermediate professionals.

10. SketchUp

SketchUp home design software allows you to create your plans from scratch.

The software comes with a 3D warehouse that is full of kitchen designs – made by fellow users – which can be edited to create customized designs.  

Pros:

• Peer support is available.
• The software has been improved over decades.
• A generous trial period (30 days).

Cons:

• Costly to upgrade for full features.
• Long learning curve.
• Only works on web browsers.

Pricing: $0.00 (SketchUp Free); $119/year (Basic); $299/year (Pro Work); $699/year (Advanced Workflows).

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Persons working as a team.

11. SmartDraw

SmartDraw is one of the best software for home design with the ability to create more than 70 types of visuals, graphs, flowcharts, and schematics.

The software offers customizable design templates with a wide range of products – countertops, cabinetry, fixtures, and décor – to allow customization of plans.

RELATED: 9 Best Free and Paid Apps for Professionals Designing Homes

SmartDraw has an import image tool that allows the importation of images for use in the course of design work. 

Pros:

• Clean interface that is not cluttered with adverts.
• Availability of free demo.

Cons:

• Quite expensive.

Pricing: $9.95/month (Individual); $5.95/month (Team – at least five users); $2,995/year (Site). All plans are billed annually.

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Specialists with a need for graphs, flowcharts, etc.

12. Homestyler

Homestyler is a free online 3D software for house design with a very low learning curve that makes it very popular among DIY home designers.

The software is quite easy to use as all you need to do is drag and drop the available spaces and add more spaces to expand the design of the house.

Although it can be used for general home design work, Homestyler is more suitable for designing bathrooms and kitchens as it has specific features for that.

Pros:

• A mobile version that allows real-time access to work.
• Designs can be shared with friends and family for review.

Cons:

• Long learning curve.
• Lack of enough features to design the entire house.

Pricing: $0.00 (Basic); from $4.90/month (Pro); from $9.90/month (Master). A team license can also be obtained from the developer.

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Professionals and beginners.

13. TurboFloorPlan Home

TurboFloorplan is a home design software app meant for skilled 2D and 3D CAD users.

The software terms itself ‘a powerful alternative’ to AutoCAD LT – offering seamless changeover from one to the other.

TurboFloorplan includes parametric architectural objects, sections, and elevations, with increased functionality in both the architectural and mechanical areas.

Pros:

• Material-specific tools.
• Photorealistic surface modeling and lighting.
• File-sharing capabilities.

Cons:

• Quite expensive.

Pricing: $299.99

Free trial: Not available.

Suitability: People in need of material-specific tools.

14. Sweet Home 3D

Sweet Home 3D is an easy-to-use home design software that enables users to create straight, round or sloping walls with just their keyboard and mouse.

The software allows you to add doors and windows into walls by simply dragging and dropping them into the plan.

With Sweet Home 3D, you can also add furniture to your plan from a searchable library that is ordered by categories such as bathroom, kitchen, living room, etc.

Each of the added items can be customized to your liking in terms of location, orientation, color, texture, thickness, and size.

Pros:

• Ability to create photorealistic images and videos.
• Ability to annotate the plan with room areas, dimension lines, texts and arrows.
• Ability to import existing home blueprints to add upon them.

Cons:

• Sweet Home 3D runs only on Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, and Linux.
• The upgraded version can only be enhanced using plug-ins.

Pricing: $0.00 (Free version); $14.99 (Paid version)

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Beginners and pros looking for basic designs.

15. Planner 5D

This is an incredibly easy-to-use home design software that allows you to create 3D floor plans without requiring any professional skills.

Planner 5D is quite interesting in that it merges a basic interface with powerful innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), and Augmented Reality (AR) to create fabulous designs.

This software helps users to redesign homes, move items, change the interiors, select new furniture and even purchase a new home.

Pros:

• Includes ideas catalogue with pre-designed templates.
• Ability to customize your floor plans.
• It has a snapshot function with realistic lighting, textures, and shadows.

Cons:

• Premium features and extras require some payment.
• The software lacks depth of functionalities.

Pricing: $0.00

Free trial: Available.

Suitability: Beginners.

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