Alternatives to Sketchup for all platforms with any license

  • Blender

    Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and...

    Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux BSD PortableApps.com ... Haiku AmigaOS MorphOS

    Compositor 3D Sculpting Keyframe animation 3d sketching ... Motion tracking Real time rendering Rendering with graphics card Texture painting Animations Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Grease Pencil HD-Rendering Intuitive Nodes Lightweight Low memory usage Non linear editor Parametric Modeling Physically-Based Rendering Portable Powerful render engine Procedural Texturing Realistic viewport Scripting Texturing UI customization Video overlay Add a feature

    Blender icon
    • Sketch up is sold on how easy it is to use. Blender is god level complex. Guest • Jul 2017 • 43 agrees and 9 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Good generic 3D modeller, but not as suited for quick space modelling. naught101 • Jul 2017 • 31 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Blender is more geared toward 3D art like for gaming rather than structure modeling. Guest • Jul 2017 • 30 agrees and 8 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • SketchUp is really easy, and Blender is not. Guest • Oct 2017 • 6 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • There is a steep learning curve to blender which can put those who are used to sketchup's simpler interface at a disadvantage. It's functionality is also for animation and 3d modeling, not exactly archeitechtual builds. Guest • Nov 2017 • 4 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • It's not easy enough as sketchup. It can be an alternative for 3dsmax and maya maybe. Guest • Oct 2017 • 5 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Sketchup is ideal for quick and dirty space + structure modeling. Blender is an in-depth 3D modeling software, and it's not easy OR quick to use for that kind of task. Guest • Jan 2018 • 1 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • SketchUp is used for quick, easy, and simple modelling of things like buildings, rooms, or general objects. Blender is used for general modelling for characters, objects, complex environments, and animation use. While Blender supports and trumps SketchUp's featureset, Blender is a completely different beast for untrained individuals due to Blender's dramatically increased flexibility. Guest • Apr 2018 • 1 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree

  • Sweet Home 3D

    Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design Java application that helps you draw the plan of your house, arrange furniture on it and visit the results in 3D.

    Freemium Open Source Mac Windows Linux Web Solaris

    Customizable Extensible by Plugins/Extensions Interior Design Multiple languages ... Export to PDF Add a feature

    Sweet Home 3D icon
    • Sketchup is far more generic and can be used for creating 3D printing models. Sweet Home 3D is a targeted application designed for laying out house designs. Guest • Jun 2016 • 18 agrees and 4 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • If you are looking for something related to home design, SweetHome3D is an excellent solution. But it is not a general purpose cad suite. Guest • Jan 2017 • 14 agrees and 4 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Sketchup is a more generic 3D modeller. Sweet Home 3D is a tool for house and furniture designs. Guest • Mar 2017 • 6 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • one is a modeling software that alows to make anything from scratch the other(sweet home 3d) is specifically to make house and furniture arrangements and while it has some freedom, it is still limited to that idea Guest • Feb 2017 • 3 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Very easy to learn. Has a huge library of "furniture" and other assets developed and shared by users. Has 3D photo's and video virtual tours. May not be that great for detailed framing plans and elevations. Guest • Feb 2018 • 1 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • SH3D is great for home projects but lacks a lot when compared to Sketchup. Simply don't share enough features to be comparable. Guest • Mar 2018 Disagree   Agree

  • LibreCAD

    LibreCAD (originally QCad then CADuntu) is an open source 2D CAD application for Windows, Apple and Linux. It is based on Qt, which is a leading cross-platform...

    Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux PortableApps.com

    Construction layers Portable Add a feature

    LibreCAD icon
    • LibreCAD is a 2D CAD software. Sketchup is a 3D software. Guest • Jun 2017 • 19 agrees and 0 disagrees Disagree   Agree
    • Good 2D drawing, has isometrics as well, reads DXF but isn't an alternative to a 3D CAD software assembling blocks. FreeCAD is better but a difficult to make the parts. Guest • Mar 2017 • 3 agrees and 1 disagrees Disagree   Agree

  • Wings 3D

    Wings 3D is a subdivision modeler inspired by Nendo and Mirai from Izware. It is possible to assign materials, vertex color, UV coordinates and textures, but there...

    Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux

    No features added Add a feature

    Wings 3D icon

  • pCon.planner

    The professional furnishing 2D-/3D-tool for everybody: The pCon.planner is a cost-free application allowing you to comfortably and professionally create complex...

    Free Windows

    No features added Add a feature

    pCon.planner icon
    • Beautifully designed interface, very intuitive, wide gallery of 3D objetcs to use, and free... What's not to like. Guest • May 2018 Disagree   Agree

  • Autodesk 3ds Max

    Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images.

    Commercial $ $ $ Windows

    Bones Splines Add a feature

    Autodesk 3ds Max icon

  • SolidWorks

    Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. develops and markets 3D CAD design software, analysis software, and product data management software. SolidWorks is the leading...

    Commercial $ $ $ Windows

    Parametric Modeling Add a feature

    SolidWorks icon

  • BRL-CAD

    BRL-CAD is a powerful cross-platform open source solid modeling system that includes interactive geometry editing, high-performance ray-tracing for rendering and...

    Free Open Source Mac Windows Linux

    No features added Add a feature

    BRL-CAD icon

  • Sketcher 3D

    Sketcher3D is a 3D modeling, design, and fun physics sandbox. Create and manipulate 3D objects, plan out a space, or just build things up and smash them down! ...

    Commercial Android

    No features added Add a feature

    Sketcher 3D icon
    • Discontinued No longer available on the Google Play Store, and the official site has not updated since 2012.

  • Sculptris

    Sculptris is an elegant, powerful and yet easy to use 3D sculpting software, allowing the artist in you to simply focus on creating amazing 3D artwork. Gone are the...

    Free Mac Windows

    3D Sculpting Texture painting Add a feature

    Sculptris icon
    • Sculptris is Zbrush lite its a sculpting tool where SketchUp is structurally focused. In sculpting tools they excel at organic 'soft' shapes and suffer where exacting geometry is required, Sketchup on the other hand excells as rigid shapes where exact is the name of the game such as used in architecture visualizaiton. Guest • Jul 2018 Disagree   Agree

  • BricsCAD

    A powerful CAD platform, with features familiar to you from native .dwg applications. BricsCAD unifies advanced 2D design with the intelligence of 3D direct modeling....

    Commercial Mac Windows Linux

    No features added Add a feature

    BricsCAD icon

    • Do you think these apps are alternatives?

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License

Sketchup Comments

i tried downloading it...

Comment by jubjub99
about Sketchup · Sep 2012 · Helpful Not helpful 1 Helpful Report as spam

The downloads successfull but It did not work on my tablet. I'm using android galaxy tab7", 4.0 ice cream sandwich.

[Edited by jubjub99, September 27]

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Sketchup output formats

Comment by hugmyster
about Sketchup · Nov 2011 · Helpful Not helpful 1 Helpful Report as spam

Sketchup is very easy to use once you get the hang of it. Sometimes it's just a question of thinking outside the box! One problem is that I need to generate an ASE file and it only does SKP and KML formats. Is there either a converter or a similar program which will give ASE format?
Even better, one which will take SKP or KML input and save me redesigning my project!

Many thanks,
Huggy

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Comment by joshuapetersen
about Sketchup and Blender · Aug 2017 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

I'm in a weird position on the alternatives here.

Initially, I agree with a lot of the comments on Blender that it and sketchup are in two VERY different categories of 3d development suite. Blender is the massive powerhouse for pros, sketchup is the 3d design equivilent of microsoft paint.

Comparing the two is like suggesting Photoshop as an alternative to MS Paint, the former just being too much of a skill level jump to be considered a viable alternative.

That said, there IS an addon (that includes instructions on how to install it) located here: https://blendermarket.com/products/snap-utilities .

It basically includes the core simple tools like those of sketchup into Blender, making Blender COMPLETELY capable of "stupid simple" 3d design like sketchup (and at a much lower pricetag... the addon is only about 20 bucks to extend an open source program as opposed to the $700-$900 price-tag necessary to do anything with sketchup commercially.)

WITH the addon, I'd say blender moves from not being an alternative to sketchup to being THE alternative to sketchup (and superior to sketchup at that, as you do still have access to all the more complex tools once you eventually need them.) In fact, I'd go so far to say that I prefer Blender with the addon over both sketchup AND over 3DstudioMax (with a few more addons), moving Blender to the top of the ease/capability charts for a 3D editor.

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phillipsalf · Sep 2017

"moving Blender to the top of the ease/capability charts for a 3D editor."

Sorry, Blender's interface does not allow it to move to the top of any "ease of use" charts. It works great for some and is a botch-job for others.

dimitril · Nov 2017

They are indeed VERY different categories of 3D development tools. But not for the reason you mention. They are different because they address a different set of problems, not because one is simpler than the other. Of course, Blender allows you to define complex shadings, model smooth shapes, and render ultra-realistic scenes, which Sketchup can't.
But you don't need that at all when you are an architect, or when you need to design a technical part/assembly. What you need in this case is to efficently and accurately place the elements against each other, usually with some geometric constraints. For example, you must ensure that this specific point of this part is located exactly at the cross of this plane and this imaginary line, itself defined by those two points, etc... And you will also need to measure things all the time, eventually look things through a section cut, etc... And I know of no other tool that does it more efficiently than Sketchup.
I whish there was an open-source equivalent os Sketchup, but there actually isn't. Because, although I know Blender, I wouldn't use it to design a technical assembly.


Comment by SarvesvaraDasa
about Sketchup · Nov 2013 · Helpful Not helpful Report as spam

It is no more 'google'...

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