Archicad vs BIMserver

Archicad is building information modeling software for architects, designers, engineers, and other AEC professionals working on building projects. Its tools cover mass modeling, sketches, optioneering, quantity take-offs, building elements, and custom components. The software turns 3D models into coordinated drawings with real-time and automated annotation updates, and supports openBIM workflows through IFC, BCF, and IDS. BIMcloud can host a centralized model with live updates and notifications. Studio includes local teamworking with BIMcloud Basic; Collaborate adds MEP modeling and Graphisoft-hosted BIMcloud for global Teamwork. Visualization options include photorealistic visuals, fly-throughs, animations, and a cloud-powered AI Visualizer. Archicad runs on macOS and Windows, with compatible file formats and Teamwork between versions. Studio costs $201 a month, billed with an upfront $2,414 + tax for a one-year subscription per seat. Collaborate costs $237 a month, with $2,840 + tax upfront for a one-year term per seat. Eligible students and educators can use a free educational license for non-commercial work; EDU files carry an irremovable watermark.

BIMserver stores and manages building-project information as IFC data, using structured model objects rather than treating the project as a collection of files. Users can check, version, merge, query, and filter models, arrange project structures, and generate IFC output on demand. Multi-user support lets people work on separate parts of a dataset, with notifications when a model or section changes. BIMserver is intended to serve as an IFC backend for other software, and developers can add plugins, services, and clients or embed it in their products. The listed service interfaces are SOAP, JSON, and Protocol Buffers. It is open-source and self-managed, with a free plan under the AGPL-3.0 license; some plugins and libraries use different licenses. It supports Linux, macOS, Windows, web, API, and self-hosted use. The project wiki points to GitHub Releases for downloads and includes an Ubuntu installation guide. For help, maintainers point users to the wiki, FAQ, issue tracker, and contributors, and list an email contact. The project says its open-source community has been active since 2013.