Pick the kind of planner
Floor plan programs fall into three groups. A room planner is quick for trying furniture layouts, a home design program works offline on your computer, and CAD gives exact drawings to scale:
| Kind | Examples | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Room planner in the browser | Floorplanner, Planner 5D, Homestyler, SketchUp Free | Drawing walls, placing furniture and looking at the room in 3D without installing anything |
| Home design program | Sweet Home 3D, DreamPlan | Working offline on Windows or macOS, with a 3D view next to the plan |
| Computer and tablet app | RoomSketcher | Drawing on a computer or tablet, with projects managed in a web portal |
| CAD | LibreCAD (2D), FreeCAD (3D with a BIM workbench) | Exact drawings for a builder or a permit, DXF files, building models |
Sweet Home 3D is the only one that sits in two groups: the same program runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and as an online version in any WebGL browser.
Free limits compared
The free plans differ most in how many projects you keep and what you can export. From the official pages on the date in the table:
| Program | Projects | Exports and renders | Left out of the free version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floorplanner | 5, each with 3 floors and 3 designs | SD images at 960x540 with a watermark | Higher resolution and 3D tours, paid with credits |
| Planner 5D | Unlimited | Renders not listed for Free | Half the furniture catalog, AI floor plan recognition |
| Homestyler | Unlimited | Unlimited 1K renders; 2K and 4K for coins | Watermark removal (Pro+) |
| RoomSketcher | Archive of 10 | 2 starter credits; 3D snapshots with a watermark | Measurements, total area, printing to scale, 360 views |
| SketchUp Free | 10 GB cloud storage | Export SKP, PNG and STL | Not stated on the product page |
| Sweet Home 3D | No cap | 3D photos and videos | Free downloads carry 100 (Windows) or 929 (macOS) furniture pieces; the paid store versions carry more than 10,000 |
| DreamPlan | Not stated | 3D, 2D rendered and 2D blueprint views | The free version is for non-commercial use |
| LibreCAD, FreeCAD | No cap | DXF, PDF, SVG; FreeCAD also IFC, STEP, STL | Nothing, no license fees |
Sources: Floorplanner pricing, Planner 5D pricing, Homestyler pricing, RoomSketcher pricing, SketchUp Free and the Sweet Home 3D download page.
Measure the room before you draw
A plan is only as good as the numbers you type in. Our guide on how to measure a room covers floors, walls, L-shaped rooms and sloped ceilings, and what to subtract for doors and windows.
Some free plans leave out the numbers you need for shopping: RoomSketcher's Free plan does not include measurements or total area calculation. Our tools fill that gap in the browser, with nothing uploaded:
- The square footage calculator adds up rooms of any shape, and the area calculator covers circles, triangles and other shapes.
- The flooring calculator and the tile calculator turn the floor area into boxes and tiles with waste.
- The paint calculator works out gallons or liters for the walls and ceiling, minus doors and windows.
Planning a living room or bedroom layout around a ceiling fan? The guide on ceiling fan size and direction helps you pick a fan by room size and ceiling height.
Commercial use and who owns your plans
If you draw plans for clients, read what the free version allows. Only a few of the pages we checked say it directly:
- Sweet Home 3D's FAQ says you can use it for personal or commercial purpose under the GNU General Public License.
- NCH says the free version of DreamPlan is available for non-commercial use.
- Floorplanner calls itself free for personal use, and its terms say free users grant Floorplanner a license to publish, change and use the floor plans they create.
The pricing pages of Planner 5D, Homestyler, RoomSketcher and SketchUp Free state nothing about commercial use on the free plan, so check their terms before you hand a plan to a paying client. The open source programs are the clearest case: LibreCAD is GPLv2, FreeCAD is LGPL-2.1, and your files stay on your computer.
Open source CAD for exact drawings
Room planners are drawn by eye; CAD is drawn by number. LibreCAD is a 2D CAD program for Windows, macOS and Linux with no trials or subscriptions. Its README says it reads and writes DXF and writes PDF and SVG; DWG needs a build with DWG support. That makes it a fit for a clean 2D plan you send to a contractor.
FreeCAD is a parametric 3D modeler with a dedicated BIM workbench. Among the open file formats it reads and writes are IFC, STEP, STL, DXF and SVG, and it can turn 2D sketches into 3D objects and back. It is built for real-life objects of any size, so it suits a building model more than a quick furniture layout.
Frequently asked questions
Which floor plan software is completely free?
Sweet Home 3D, LibreCAD and FreeCAD have no paid tier for the program itself. Sweet Home 3D is distributed under the GNU General Public License, LibreCAD says there are no trials, subscriptions or license fees, and FreeCAD says there is no sign-up and no paywall. Sweet Home 3D also sells paid store versions with a larger furniture library.
Can I make a floor plan online without installing anything?
Yes. Floorplanner, Planner 5D, Homestyler and SketchUp Free run in the browser, and Sweet Home 3D has an online version for any WebGL browser. Floorplanner keeps 5 projects on the free account, while Planner 5D and Homestyler state unlimited projects.
Which free floor plan software shows the room in 3D?
All the room planners in the list show a 3D view: Floorplanner, Planner 5D, Homestyler, RoomSketcher, SketchUp Free, Sweet Home 3D and DreamPlan. FreeCAD is a 3D modeler too. LibreCAD is the only 2D-only program in the list.
Can I use free floor plan software for paid work?
Sweet Home 3D's FAQ allows personal or commercial use under the GPL. The free version of DreamPlan is for non-commercial use only, and Floorplanner describes its free account as free for personal use. The other free plans we checked do not state it on their pricing pages, so read their terms first.
Do free room planners add a watermark?
Some do. Floorplanner's free exports are 960x540 pixel images with a Floorplanner watermark, and RoomSketcher's free 3D snapshots are watermarked. Homestyler lists watermark removal as a Pro+ feature.