Full 2D drafting, 3D BIM, AI design assistance, and IFC4 export — all in your browser. No £5,000 licence fee. No annual lock-in. Just architecture.
Walls, doors, windows, roofs, slabs with snap, trim, and parametric constraints. Works exactly like your old CAD tool — except it's in Chrome.
Describe a brief in natural language — "3-bedroom house, open plan kitchen, south-facing garden" — and get a complete floor plan with materials and building-code checks in seconds.
Export building models as IFC4 with full property sets, spatial hierarchy, and material assignments. Passes buildingSMART certification checks.
CRDT-backed multiplayer — every cursor, every change, live across your practice. No more emailing IFC files back and forth.
Multi-sheet layouts, title blocks, dimensions, annotations. Export as PDF or DWG for consultants and contractors.
Extend OpenCAD with community plugins — from structural calculations to energy analysis. Build your own with the open SDK.
| Feature | OpenCAD | Revit | ArchiCAD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | £0–£99/mo | ~£2,500/yr | ~£3,000/yr |
| Browser-native | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| AI design generation | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ⚬ Plugin |
| IFC4 import/export | ✓ Full round-trip | ⚬ Partial | ✓ Yes |
| Real-time collaboration | ✓ CRDT-based | ⚬ BIM 360 | ⚬ BIMcloud |
| Offline mode | ✓ IndexedDB | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Open source | ✓ MIT licence | ✗ Proprietary | ✗ Proprietary |
For most small practices (1–20 people) doing residential and small commercial work, yes. OpenCAD covers 2D drafting, 3D BIM, IFC4 export, sheet layouts, and collaborative editing. Large parametric families and MEP systems in Revit are more advanced — those are on our roadmap.
Yes. OpenCAD imports .rvt (Revit 2024), .pln (ArchiCAD 27), .dwg (AutoCAD 2018+), and IFC 2x3/4 files. 3D geometry renders immediately; property sets and layer mappings are preserved.
IFC4, IFC 2x3, DWG, DXF, PDF (vector), and OpenCAD's native .opencad format. Sheet sets export as multi-page PDF.
Every new account gets a 14-day free trial with full access to all features — no credit card required. After the trial, the Starter plan (up to 3 projects) stays free. The Pro plan (£29/user/month) adds unlimited projects, AI generation, and real-time collaboration.