Compare the Top CAD Software as of April 2025

What is CAD Software?

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software is software used by engineers, architects, and designers to create precise 2D and 3D models. It enables users to design, visualize, and simulate their projects with high accuracy, facilitating efficient prototyping and problem-solving. CAD software supports a variety of industries, including manufacturing, construction, and product design, by offering features like parametric modeling, rendering, and automated drafting. Its intuitive interfaces and integration with other engineering tools make it a cornerstone of modern design workflows. By streamlining the design process, CAD software helps reduce development time, improve collaboration, and bring innovative ideas to life. Compare and read user reviews of the best CAD software currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

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    ActCAD Software

    ActCAD Software

    Jytra Technology Solutions

    ActCAD is a native dwg/dxf cad software suitable for professional 2D drafting and 3D modeling projects. ActCAD is trusted by over 30000 users in over 103 countries for more than 10 years. The interface, commands, icons, dialogs, shortcuts etc. are very much similar to other popular cad software tools available in market. Flexible license types available even for single license. There is no learning for existing cad users while saving 80% of the costs. ActCAD offers free email technical support without any limitations. ActCAD can be fully customized and programs can be developed using our free API toolkit. It supports popular programming languages like , lisp dcl, .net, C++ etc. Apart from all regular commands, ActCAD offers many productive tools like pdf to cad converter, Block libraries, Image to Cad converter, handling point sets between Cad and Excel and many more. ActCAD is suitable for any high end professional projects in the domains of Architecture, Civil, Mechanical,Automotive
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    Starting Price: $249.00/one-time/user
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    CMS IntelliCAD

    CMS IntelliCAD

    CAD-MANUFACTURING SOLUTIONS INC

    CMS IntelliCAD® is the intelligent, powerful and affordable full-featured CAD Software and is fully programmable with hundreds of third party solutions. CMS IntelliCAD also offers a full suite of 2D and 3D AutoCAD® compatible drawing tools! It is the smartest choice for engineers, architects and consultants, or anyone who communicates using CAD drawings. It is designed to give you the best unrivaled compatibility and a true CAD Software alternative to Autodesk® AutoCAD® software and is fully programmable with hundreds of third party solutions. CMS IntelliCAD also offers DWG file extension native support! And now also with Microstation DGN file support.
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    Starting Price: $149.95/one-time/user
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    SkyCiv Structural 3D

    SkyCiv Structural 3D

    SkyCiv Engineering

    SkyCiv Structural 3D is a cloud-based Structural Analysis software that allows users to model, analyze and design complex 3D structures. It is completely online; requiring no installation to use. SkyCiv Structural 3D offers the very best in online structural analysis. It includes the following: - Powerful Analysis: Linear, P-Delta, Cables, Buckling, Plates, Frequency, RS - Integrated Design checks for steel, wood, connections, foundations, wind (AISC, NSD, AISI, EN, AS, CSA, BS plus more...)
    Starting Price: $79/month/user
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    AutoCAD

    AutoCAD

    Autodesk

    CAD software to design anything—with time-saving toolsets, web, and mobile apps. AutoCAD® is computer-aided design (CAD) software that architects, engineers, and construction professionals rely on to create precise 2D and 3D drawings. Draft, annotate, and design 2D geometry and 3D models with solids, surfaces, and mesh objects. Automate tasks such as comparing drawings, adding blocks, creating schedules, and more. Customize with add-on apps and APIs. AutoCAD includes industry-specific features and intelligent objects for architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical design, and more. Automate floor plans, sections, and elevations. Draw piping, ducting, and circuiting quickly with parts libraries. Auto-generate annotations, layers, schedules, lists, and tables. Use a rules-driven workflow to accurately enforce industry standards.
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    Starting Price: $1,268 per user per year
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    ARES Commander
    2D & 3D CAD software to create & modify technical drawings in DWG format with choice between Perpetual, Network or Annual licenses. Experience the agility of the n°1 alternative to AutoCAD. Cost-effective, ARES Commander offers a full replacement and an easy switch, at a fraction of the cost. With Graebert's ARES CAD software you will enjoy a 3-in-1 license, including ARES Commander (for Windows, macOS and Linux computers) + ARES Kudo (Cloud) + ARES Touch (iOS + Android). These 3 products work in synergy to synchronize the work across users and devices. Create and modify DWG drawings locally, with files stored on your computer, or in sync with Google Drive, Box, OneDrive, Dropbox, Onshape, Trimble Connect. Alternatively, you can also store files in a private Cloud server (via WebDAV). Some our advanced CAD features include the support for Dynamic blocks, PDF to DWG conversion, Drawing comparison, IFC & Revit import, 3D solid modeling, satellite images and street maps.
    Starting Price: $350.00/year
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    ARCHLine.XP
    We deliver design software solutions for architects, interior designers and furniture makers. ARCHLine.XP LT - Solid 3D CAD/BIM product at affordable price ARCHLine.XP Professional - Large-scale 3D BIM software for architecture ARCHLine.XP Live - Easy-to-use archviz animation software
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    MicroStation

    MicroStation

    Bentley Systems

    You need CAD software that can handle the scale of data demanded by infrastructure projects. Use MicroStation to generate efficient 2D and 3D drawings for any size data set. Global transportation agencies, AEC firms, and other owner-operators require DGN for their infrastructure projects. Eliminate time wasted and errors created when converting your designs from DWG. Infrastructure project lifecycles are long. You can rely on MicroStation to natively utilize data needed to deliver your projects, no matter when it was created, even if it was in the 90s. MicroStation is easy to use and master through a configurable environment with in-app learning, video tutorials, and extensive support that allows you to become an expert in no time. MicroStation is used by engineers, architects, GIS professionals, constructors, and owner-operators to design, model, visualize, document, map, and sustain infrastructure projects.
    Starting Price: $250 per month
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    progeCAD

    progeCAD

    progeSOFT

    progeCAD is an AutoCAD® compatible 2D/3D CAD application that works with AutoCAD® DWG files from AutoCAD® 2.5 through AutoCAD® 2021 and imports Autodesk Revit® and IFC files! The best solution for AEC, MCAD and all generic CAD usages. progeCAD sells with perpetual licensing and offers more CAD functions than AutoCAD® LT at a fraction of the cost of AutoCAD®, ArchiCAD® or Microstation®. DWG is progeCAD's native file format. It is the same AutoCAD’s file format, so when you open an existing DWG file with progeCAD, there's no file conversion and no data loss. We provide industry standard compatibility with AutoCAD®, that means you can get to work immediately using DWG files, commands, fonts, blocks, hatches and Linetypes. Furthermore, progeCAD imports Autodesk Revit® and IFC BIM objects.
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    CADMATE

    CADMATE

    Spice Technologies

    Make your design more smooth and efficient. With the best-ever performance, seamless compatiblity and the full functionalities, CADMATE Drafting 2020 becames the most desirable CAD Software in the industry. CADMATE Drafting 2020 adapts the 4K screen resolution from interface to dialog boxes. You can get a clear visulal in CADMATE Drafting 2020 with 4K monitor. With most commands, tools, toolbars, menus, palettes, etc. being the same or similar, AutoCAD users start mastering CADMATE in minutes. Low cost alternative, CADMATE comes to you at a fraction of the cost of some of the major CAD platforms available today. Architecture, engineering and construction professionals rely on CADMATE software to create precise 2D and 3D drawings. Utilising negligible system resources, CADMATE is fast in opening, editing and saving several drawings simultaneously. Fast, strong and robust with the latest CAD tools, features and functionalities. 100% compatible with main stream CAD platforms.
    Starting Price: $875.00 one-time fee
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    VisualARQ
    VisualARQ is a Flexible BIM solution powered by McNeel’s Rhinoceros 3D. VisualARQ enhances Rhino by adding powerful associative object styling and dynamic documentation tools which adapt to fit the professional’s workflow. VisualARQ allows you to with parametric architectural objects, produce 2D drawings from the 3D model, generate dynamic BIM objects driven by Grasshopper, automate many modeling tasks through the VisualARQ components built for Grasshopper, add custom data to geometry and list in schedules and finally deliver BIM models and collaborate with other tools through the IFC import/export capabilities.
    Starting Price: $95-795 one-time payment
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    ClearCalcs

    ClearCalcs

    ClearCalcs

    ClearCalcs is a cloud structural engineering software that enables engineers and designers to streamline their repetitive calculations with easy-to-use calculators for beams, columns, foundations, and more. With calculators available for the US standards, Eurocode, Australian standards, New Zealand standards, and Canadian standards, ClearCalcs is a one-stop shop for improving your productivity and design capability. Calculations can be linked together with one click, saving on time and errors, copy-pasting loads, and reports print to a simple, one-page PDF for easy checking.
    Starting Price: $79.00 USD / month
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    ArCADia-ARCHITECTURE
    Intended for architects and all who shape and create building forms. ArCADia-ARCHITECTURE contains specialized architectural functions and options to accelerate the creation of documentation, including: automatic cross-sections, automatic dimensioning or lists creation. Thanks to the BIM technology used, the designer creating the architectural design automatically receives a digital model of the building. Because to that, the design process can be controlled on the interactive 3D preview at all times. This module expands the capabilities of the ArCADia BIM program with advanced functions, which means that part of the building modelling options are available in the ArCADia BIM program.
    Starting Price: $540.00/one-time
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    Altair SimSolid
    By performing structural analyses on fully featured CAD assemblies within minutes, SimSolid is the game-changing simulation technology for designers, engineers, and analysts. It eliminates geometry preparation and meshing: the two most time-consuming, expertise-extensive and error-prone tasks performed in a conventional structural simulation. Multiple design scenarios can be simulated quickly under real-life conditions. Early CAD models, in any common format, can be used. SimSolid tolerance of imprecise geometry means that, unlike CAD-embedded simulation tools, there is no need to simplify complex geometries before analyzing designs. SimSolid supports all typical connections (bolt/nut, bonded, welds, rivets, sliding) and analysis of linear static, modal, thermal properties, along with more complex coupled, nonlinear, transient dynamic effects.
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    ElectricalDesign
    TiSoft ElectricalDesign helps you design any building's electrical installation, make all the necessary calculations ensuring code compliance, and produce a variety of drawings, floorplans, schematics and reports. It will also provide a wealth of information that will assist you in making design decisions early on, avoid oversizing materials and equipment and visualize the installation prior to construction. For the acceleration of distribution modeling, default values ​​have been given by the program to all the new elements that the user can then change. The electrical distribution is depicted in the form of a hierarchical tree and the electrical panels are placed as nodes of the tree. You can easily add distribution boards to the delivery tables. In each table add its loads and for each load enter its power in kW, length and type of cable. For each point on the network, the program calculates in detail and shows you the short-circuit level in kA.
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    Domus.Cad

    Domus.Cad

    Interstudio

    Domus.Cad is a BIM program for architectural 3D design which allows you to face 3D design with the same simplicity as a traditional 2D design, and with the same simplicity allows you not only to design but to plan an entire project directly on your computer. It is a program with exclusive characteristics that has nothing to fear from any other 3D architectural design program on the market. Domus.Cad is the right CAD for architects and civil engineers. You can immediately begin to create three-dimensional elements without needing to start from a two-dimensional plan. Elements such as walls, floors, roofs, and stairs are created from the onset in their full three-dimensional form. Watch the 3D model change in real time as you design in plan. Domus.Cad’s strong 3D capabilities are matched by its equally impressive array of 2D CAD tools. This makes it just as easy to produce a full set of presentation and construction documents as it is to create the architectural model itself.
    Starting Price: $169.00/user
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    Caddie

    Caddie

    Caddie Limited

    2D draughting and 3D modelling software for the construction and engineering industries. Caddie combines accurate drawing with GIS information (SG Diagrams, Satellite Imagery, ArcGIS content, Open Streetmap information etc.) in many different projections allowing users to create working drawings, 3D models and photo-realistic renders of their schemes. Caddie uses the industry standard .DWG format for storing drawings and can be licenced for single user, multiple user or cloud licenced. Caddie includes vertical applications for Architecture (2D and 3D), Civils, Digital Terrain Modelling, GIS, Landscape Architecture, Mechanical Engineering, Photo-realistic rendering, Steelwork, Surveying, and Town Planning. Caddie outputs to printers and plotters, PDF, 3D printers and many other formats. In addition to normal image formats Caddie also supports MrSID and ECW formats for imagery. A 14 Day trial version with full functionality allows potential users to evaluate the software at no cost.
    Starting Price: $30 per month per licence
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    CADopia

    CADopia

    CADopia

    CADopia is a powerful Computer-Aided-Design software for engineers, architects, designers and drafters — virtually anyone who creates, edits, or views professional drawings. CADopia 19 is available in 12 languages – Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. CADopia Professional Services can help you maximize the returns on your investment in CAD technology. CADopia provides upfront consulting services, custom application development, staff training,technical support, and project outsourcing solutions. Productivity enhancing drafting tools such as custom construction plane, entity snaps, grids, entity and polar tracking allowsyou to complete your drawings precisely and efficiently.
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    Dv TDM

    Dv TDM

    Practical Programs

    Total Document Management (Dv TDM) is a robust globally recognized solution for managing everything from day-to-day business documents to technical documents and drawings throughout their entire lifecycle. Dv TDM Dv TDM supports Microsoft Office documents (i.e., Word, Excel, Outlook) along with engineering documents/drawings such as AutoCAD, Microstation, PDF, and many more. Share documents and drawings on the web, control versions, view and markup documents without the need for the native file application and more. It is designed with an extensive set of configurable features that serve to address a wide spectrum of lifecycle business processes for almost any type of electronic file. Dv TDM provides document viewing capabilities for over 200 common file formats without the need for the native application to be installed on the accessing user's machine. Dv TDM is packed with Workflow, Knowledge Group, Transmittals modules and much more to make managing documents and drawing files easy.
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    AutoDCR

    AutoDCR

    SoftTech Engineers

    AutoDCR® is an innovative online building plan scrutiny and approval system for construction permits. It reads the CAD drawings and check them for compliance with the relevant regulations to facilitate approval by competent authorities. It is being used in 500+ local government bodies in India. Seamlessly integrated to online approval workflow to track the proposals with associated documents verification and site visits, it can also be accessed through mobile devices. Reads CAD drawings and produces scrutiny reports in a few minutes. Maps all development control rules of the Authority to the drawing entities. Automates the cumbersome manual process of checking the development regulations. Offers single window for acquiring building permits, NOCs and clearances from multiple agencies. Architects submit the plan online along with the application form to all relevant departments through a single-window system.
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    MiTek Structure
    Built exclusively for component manufacturers. Built for power. Built exclusively for component manufacturers, MiTek® Structure delivers the most powerful structural modeling, editing, and estimating functionality available anywhere. Formula builder feature enables designers to create or store customized formulas, group formulas into sets, scheme and apply to jobs or individual objects. Create estimates by applying formulas to modeled objects. Create and customize plan options directly from within a job file. You can include all member types in your options, from accessories to walls, and utilize option customization, such as special junction considerations for site-specific creation. Users can model a unit once and place it multiple times. Placed units maintain a link back to original units, so you can make changes in one model and selectively update the references to units.
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    SmartDraw

    SmartDraw

    SmartDraw

    Make network diagrams, data flow diagrams, entity relationship diagrams and more. SmartDraw is the easiest and most powerful diagram maker on the market. To start, choose from one of the many included diagram templates (there are literally thousands) and SmartDraw will walk you through the rest with intuitive tools and lots of included symbols at your fingertips. In many cases, diagrams will feel like they make themselves as Smartdraw automatically aligns shapes and objects in just a few clicks. Hundreds of professionally designed diagram templates and examples make you instantly productive. Simply choose the template that is most similar to your project, and customize it to suit your needs. Drag and drop symbols from the thousands included. With many diagram types like flowcharts and org charts, SmartDraw comes with powerful automation that builds your diagram for you, automatically.
    Starting Price: $9.95 per user per month
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    Draft it

    Draft it

    CADlogic

    Cadlogic are specialist developers of low cost CAD Software & CAD programs. Draft it is a powerful 2D CAD system with four different version options listed below. All of these allow you to create, save and print your own drawings, whether you are an occasional user at home or you need CAD software in the workplace there is a Draft it version for you. Download Draft it today, you can use the Free version forever and you can trial the three other paid for versions for a full 15 days after installation. Or if you need a little extra design functionality or something tailored to suit your particular design requirements then why not consider contacting us about a bespoke design solution.
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