G2 Crowd publishes Winter 2015 rankings of seven BIM platforms

Chicago — The first Grid report for building design and building information modeling (BIM) platforms, published by business software review site G2 Crowd, ranks seven products to help purchasers in their selections. The Winter 2015 report is based on more than 180 reviews written by business and engineering professionals.

The Grid, which is created from G2 Crowd’s software review platform, factors in customer satisfaction reported by users and vendor market presence determined from social and public data to rank products.

Building design and BIM software includes computer-aided design (CAD) products used commonly within the architecture and construction industries. Many of these products offer tools and libraries specifically targeted for architectural design and construction, including mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) and BIM.

BIM software offers a model-based process for designing and managing buildings and infrastructures, going beyond construction drawings to generate a digital representation of a facility’s functional properties. Other products in this category may be used for a range of CAD purposes beyond architectural design, but their rankings within this grid focus exclusively on their use as a tool in building design.

To qualify as a Leader, a product must receive a high customer satisfaction score and have substantial market presence. Revit and AutoCAD were named Leaders. High Performers have high customer satisfaction scores with a smaller market presence than Leaders. DataCAD, Vectorworks Architect and ArchiCAD were named High Performers. DataCAD earned the highest overall customer satisfaction score in the report.

Across all building design software and BIM software, reviewers reported the product they use meets their requirements at an average rate of 86%, and on average reviewers said they were 85% likely to recommend the product they use.