By: Mitch | Last updated December 29, 2021 
Because of the Covid19 pandemic, we have to spend most of our time inside our home. We also suddenly have so much free time because of it. So what to do with all of that unused time? Well, why not try remodeling your house? We don't know how long we would have to stay inside, so why not try and improve it while at it.
These days, you can turn your vision of a perfect remodeling project into a computer and then into real life. All with simple clicks of a button. There is countless home design software that would allow you to tweak all kinds of details to your liking. And these are the top three home design software selections for you.
DreamPlan is a home design software that was developed and published by an Australian tech company called NCH Software. NCH Software has been in the software development business for almost three decades. Their products cover a wide range of fields such as video editing, audio recording, home design, finance-related software, and lots of others.
And not only that, the list of customers that used NCH Software's products is also equally impressive. Some of the most notable ones are the National Museum of New Zealand, Embassy of Mexico Chile, UK House of Commons, and US Air Force. With government agencies and national institutions as regular customers, you can be sure that NCH Software truly makes great products.
DreamPlan itself is more than capable of bringing your vision of home projects to life. You can design every little detail with DreamPlan. From the blueprints to the type of material for the walls to the furniture and even to the little garden that you plan to put in front of your house. The number of options and possible combinations is endless.
One of the most unique features of DreamPlan is something called Trace Mode. With this feature, you can turn a basic floor plan into a 3D model. All you have to do is import the image of your floorplan, follow the quick wizards, tweak some settings, and there you have it. A 3D model of your floor plan ready to be customized in a matter of minutes.
DreamPlan, and all of NCH Software's products for that matter, could be downloaded for free. You can quickly download it from their homepage, install it, and use all of its functions for a month. That way, you can have a better understanding of what DreamPlan could do before you make that purchase decision.
If you like what you see, then you can go ahead and purchase the full license. There are two kinds of licenses that you could choose from. A license for personal use and another license for commercial use. All of it is a one-time payment. The first one cost $35 while the second one cost $40. But always look out for discounts because they would usually sell it for less than half the price during certain periods.
Home Designer Suite is a home design software developed and published by a company called Chief Architect, Inc. They were a pioneer in an object-based 3D CAD system with the release of Chief Architect Professional Home Design Software back in 1992. They utilize smart object design principles, also known as Building Information Modeling (BIM) that was quite a cutting edge technology at the time.
With all of those accumulated knowledge and experience, they have now become one of the leading names in the home design industry. And with Home Designer Suite as their flagship product, they manage to deliver a sophisticated and yet still very intuitive and easy-to-use piece of home design software to their customers.
Home Designer Suite is fully capable of creating any kind of home project that you have in mind. No matter how big or unique the design is, Home Designer Suite has the technology to bring your dream project into reality. Home Designer Suite works by utilizing smart objects, which means that a design element could adapt and remain functional no matter what changes you implement to it.
One of the most stand out features that put Home Designer Suite miles ahead of its competition is the automatic technology. Almost every design element here has automatic functions that follow the real-life industry standard. You could draw the blueprint and it would automatically generate the foundation for you. Create the floorplan, and it would generate the framing according to your choice. Even the floors, the ceilings, and the roofs are fully automated and remain highly customizable.
Another impressive thing that deserves to be mentioned is customer support. Chief Architect, Inc. goes above and beyond to provide the best customer experience possible. From hundreds of FAQs articles, to free customer support via phone, chat, or email to around 9 hours of video tutorials and even webinars classes with live support. No matter what obstacle you might encounter, their support team would be there to help you out.
But all of those capabilities and support doesn't come cheap. For the basic version of Home Designer Suite, you have to pay $129 which includes a backup through USB. The more functionality that you want, the higher the price would be. But do keep in mind that it is a one-time payment and not a monthly subscription.
Sweet Home 3D is home design software that was developed by a French Developer named Emmanuel Puybaret and published under his company called eTeks. Unlike the previous two brands, you can use Sweet Home 3D for free both for personal and for commercial use, under the GNU General Public License.
But just because it's free doesn't mean it is cheaply made. On the contrary, Sweet Home 3D is quite a powerful tool that could handle your home design project no matter how complex it is. Being a software that is mostly developed by one person, there is quite a steep learning curve to be had. But once you get used to it, every project would be a breeze.
The thing that you need to keep in mind is the fact that Sweet Home 3D is actually a 2D home design software that could show you the result in 3D. So you work on your design in a 2-dimensional plane and then you can get the preview of it in 3D. This makes the software lighter and somewhat easier to use than its fully 3D competitors.
Other than basic home design features like drawing the floorplan, adding furniture, and customizing colors and textures, etc, the most stand-out feature is the ability to print and export the projects into various formats like PDF, vector graphics, etc. There is also a feature that allows the users to extend the ability of Sweet Home 3D with various plug-ins.
And just like mentioned in the beginning, Sweet Home 3D is free. You can easily download it from its official website. You can also donate however much you want to the creator or buy it through Windows and Mac's official app store for a small price.
These top three home design software would cater to all kinds of needs by various types of users. If you want something free that still could do its job properly, then you should get Sweet Home 3D. If you want something premium with lots of exciting features and support, there's the Home Designer Suite. And if you want something balanced that offers the best bang for your buck, DreamPlan is the one for you.
