Skip to content

UPA-BUA Union Professionnelle d'Architectes
Beroepsunie Van Architecten

Open source software for architects

Essential tools

Architecture being multidisciplinary by definition architects need to master and manage many tools. Yet, in this digital world code is law and ‘technofeudalism’ never far away. Also, creativity always wants to reinvent rules.

Therefore open source (see https://opensource.org/osd/) tools offer accessible free solutions and endless possibilities to adapt to one’s needs (see e.g. https://community.osarch.org).

Hereby you’ll find an overview of open source software for architects. Many of them are of professional level, but open source CAD and BIM solutions are still in development (there’s however an accessible proprietary solution from Belgian origin : Bricsys).

Tell us about your best open tools !

 

OFFICE
7-ZIP 7-zip www.7-zip.org (un)zip files
DIGIUM Asterisk https://www.asterisk.org/ VoIP
FRAMASOFT FramaPad https://framadrop.org/ collaborative editor
GANTTPV GantPV project http://ganttproject.biz/ project management
IRFANVIEW Irfanview www.irfanview.com image viewer (free but not open)
JITSI Jitsi https://jitsi.org/index.php/Main/Download VoIP
LIBREOFFICE LibreOffice www.libreoffice.org office suite
MOZILLA Firefox https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ browser
OKULAR Document Viewer https://okular.kde.org/ PDF reader
PROJECTLIBRE ProjectLibre www.projectlibre.org project management
SUMATRAPDF Sumatra PDF Reader https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org PDF reader
THUNDERBIRD Thunderbird https://www.thunderbird.net email client
WISEMAPPING WiseMapping www.wisemapping.com/c/home.htm mind mapping
XMIND Xmind www.xmind.net mind mapping
CAD
ALICEVISION Meshroom https://alicevision.org photogrammetry
BIMSERVER BIMserver www.bimserver.org BIM server
BLENDER Blender www.blender.org 3D modeling
BLENDER BIM BlenderBIM Add-on https://blenderbim.org blender BIM add-on
CLOUDCOMPARE CloudCompare http://www.danielgm.net/cc/ photogrammetry
FREECAD Free Arch Workbench https://wiki.freecad.org/Arch_Workbench BIM modeler
LUXCORERENDER LuxCoreRender https://luxcorerender.org/ 3D rendering
MESHLAB Meshlab https://www.meshlab.net/ photogrammetry
QGIS Geographic Information system https://www.qgis.org/en/site/ GIS modeler
GRAPHICS
DARKTABLE Darktable www.darktable.org photography workflow
DIGIKAM DigiKam https://www.digikam.org/ photo manager
GIMP Gimp www.gimp.org image editor
INKSCAPE Inkscape www.inkscape.org drawing tool
PDFFORGE PDFarchitect www.pdfforge.org/pdfarchitect PDF editor
PDFSAM PDFsam Basic https://pdfsam.org/ PDF editor
RAWTHERAPEE RawTherapee http://rawtherapee.com RAW photo processor
SCRIBUS Scribus DTP www.scribus.net desktop publishing
VIDEO
AUDACITY Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net sound editor
AVIDEMUX Avidemux http://avidemux.sourceforge.net video editor
NIKSE SubtitleEdit www.nikse.dk/SubtitleEdit
OPENSHOT OpenShot www.openshot.org video editor
SHOTCUT Shotcut https://shotcut.org video editor
VIDEOLAN VLC media player www.videolan.org/vlc video player
ENERGY
ENERGYPLUS EnergyPlus https://energyplus.net/downloads building energy simulation
EPB BXL PEB Bruxelles https://environnement.brussels/pro/outils-et-donnees/sites-web-et-outils/outils-et-documents-utiles-de-la-reglementation-travaux-peb EPB
EPB VL EPB Vlaanderen https://www.vlaanderen.be/epb-pedia/epb-software/epb-software-3g EPB
EPB WAL PEB Wallonie https://energie.wallonie.be/fr/logiciel-peb.html?IDC=9596 EPB
LAWRENCE BERKELEY LAB Therm https://windows.lbl.gov/software/therm building energy simulation
OPENSTUDIO COALITION OpenStudio https://openstudiocoalition.org/ building energy simulation
IT
ALFRESCO Alfresco project groupware www.alfresco.com groupware
BACULA Bacula https://www.bacula.org/ backup
CLAMAV ClamWin www.clamwin.com antivirus
CLONEZILLA Clonezilla http://clonezilla.org/ disk partitioning, cloning
EID BELGIUM EID http://eid.belgium.be eID manager
FILEZILLA Filezilla https://filezilla-project.org/ FTP
GLPI GLPI https://glpi-project.org/ IT management
KEEPASS KeePass http://keepass.info password manager
NEXTCLOUD Nextcloud Groupware www.nextcloud.com groupware
OCS Inventory Inventory & Deployment https://ocsinventory-ng.org/ IT management
OPENVPN OpenVPN https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/downloads.html VPN
OWNCLOUD Owncloud www.owncloud.com groupware
PYDIO Pydio www.pydio.com document sharing
SOGO Scalable OpenGroupware.org www.scalableogo.org groupware
uVNC Ultra VNC www.uvnc.com remote access
SOCIAL NETWORKS
BIGBLUEBUTTON BigBlueButton https://bigbluebutton.org learning platform
FRAMASOFT Mobilizon https://joinmobilizon.org/en event organizer
MANIVERSE Maniverse www.manyver.se social network
MASTODON Mastodon https://joinmastodon.org social network
MOODLE Moodle https://moodle.org learning platform