AgroForest Designer vs Garden Sketchbook

AgroForest Designer is web software for planning food forests and other layered planting systems. It lets users map site boundaries over map, satellite, combined, or orthomap views, then add features, planting zones, and paths. Its public plant database can be filtered by growing conditions and includes reusable recipes, cultivars, and personal plant records. The generator creates an editable proposal from a recipe, planting area, density, objectives, and a 1-, 5-, 10-, or 20-year horizon. Other planning tools show sun paths and indicative shade, elevation contours, distances and areas, and harvest periods. Professional plans include technical drawings, plan sharing, QGIS workflows, and selected GeoJSON, project-data, and 3D model exports. The shade model omits terrain and objects beyond the plan, so critical conditions need on-site verification. The Free plan is free; paid plans start at €14.99 a month. Free and Starter omit professional delivery tools.

Garden Sketchbook is a browser-based tool for designing gardens to scale and previewing them in 3D across the seasons. Its 2D drag-and-drop editor lets users arrange plants, while the seasonal view shows how the garden and its colors change through the year. Filters cover hardiness zone, sun, soil, bloom season, color, deer resistance, and drought resistance. Plants are sized automatically, and users can trace a floor plan or aerial photo while drawing beds, paths, and structures. The library contains hundreds of plants with growing information and specific varieties; custom varieties can be made by changing size, color, and bloom time. The software runs in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge without installation. The 2D planner works on any device, but the 3D seasonal view requires WebGL. The free demo needs no account, though gardens expire after 24 hours. Gardener costs $39 a year after a 14-day free trial and saves up to 10 gardens. A one-time $9 add-on provides PDF export in the free demo.