Landscape & garden design software, compared
19 tools across professional suites, CAD, consumer planners, photo and AR apps, design services and open source: who each is for, what it runs on and what it costs.
Checked against each vendor’s public pages on . Where a vendor does not publish a price, we say so rather than guess.
Professional landscape suites
Software built for landscape designers and contractors: plans, 3D presentation, quantities and, in some, estimating and proposals.
PRO Landscape+
Landscape contractors, designers, garden centers and schools
Photo imaging on a picture of the site, CAD plans, 3D rendering, lighting design, one-click proposals and AI enhancement of presentation images.
- Price
- Subscription; price not published
- Runs on
- PC (Mac with extra setup); companion app for iPad and Android tablets
DynaSCAPE
Landscape architects, designers and landscape companies
To-scale CAD landscape plans with plant and material takeoffs, a cloud sketching tool, color and 3D add-ons, and separate Manage360 business software for estimates and crews.
- Price
- Design $1,599/yr or $158/mo; Creator $119/mo
- Runs on
- Design on Windows; Creator in the browser
VizTerra (Structure Studios)
Landscape, hardscape and deck designers and builders
2D layouts that become 3D models, fast presentation renders, build-ready plans for permitting and quantity estimates such as concrete and dirt. 30-day free trial.
- Price
- $97/user/mo, or $84/user/mo billed annually, plus $95 setup
- Runs on
- Windows (dedicated graphics card required)
Realtime Landscaping
Homeowners (Plus, Pro) and landscape professionals (Architect)
Plan drawings that generate 3D scenes with walk-throughs, and design over photographs in Architect. No subscription; 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Price
- One-time: Plus $149, Pro $279, Architect $599
- Runs on
- Windows 10 or later
CAD & BIM
General CAD and BIM platforms, and landscape plug-ins for them. The strongest choice for construction documents, grading and irrigation.
SketchUp
Designers, architects and hobbyists
Flexible general-purpose 3D modeling with a large extension ecosystem. Landscape work, such as planting plans, relies on your own modeling or plug-ins.
- Price
- Go $10.75/mo, Pro $33.25/mo, Studio $71.58/mo (billed annually); free web plan for non-commercial use
- Runs on
- Web and iPad (Go); desktop (Pro); Studio Windows only
Vectorworks Landmark
Landscape architects and site design teams
Landscape BIM from concept to construction documents: 3D site modeling from surveys and GIS, cut/fill, slope and drainage analysis, linked schedules and takeoffs, and 20+ file formats.
- Price
- Subscription; US price not published on the product page
- Runs on
- macOS and Windows
Land F/X
Landscape architects and irrigation designers
Planting plans and schedules, irrigation design with pipe sizing and manufacturer data, and construction details, inside a CAD drawing set.
- Price
- Planting F/X $695/yr, Irrigation F/X $995/yr, Detail F/X $295/yr (from 2026)
- Runs on
- Plug-ins for AutoCAD, or F/X CAD ($775) without AutoCAD
Lands Design
Landscape architects and designers
BIM landscape design inside Rhino or AutoCAD, with Grasshopper support in the Rhino versions.
- Price
- Price not published on the product page; 60-day trial
- Runs on
- Plug-in for Rhino 7/8 or AutoCAD/Civil 3D 2021–2026; RhinoLands includes Rhino
Consumer & browser planners
Approachable planners for homeowners and garden designers, from freemium home-design apps to one-time-purchase desktop tools.
Planner 5D
Homeowners and hobbyists
Home and interior design that also covers yards: lawns, paths, terrain, plants and trees in 2D and 3D, plus an AI landscape layout generator.
- Price
- Free; Premium $19.99/mo or $59.99/yr; Professional $49.99/mo or $399.99/yr
- Runs on
- Web, iOS, Android, Windows and macOS
Garden Planner
Home gardeners
Drag-and-drop plants, trees, buildings, paving, paths and fences, a vegetable bed tool, a 3D view and color printouts.
- Price
- $44.99 one-time on the Mac App Store; trial available
- Runs on
- Windows and Mac
Shoot
Garden designers and keen gardeners (UK-based)
A large plant database with a 2D planting-plan tool, plant quantities as CSV, and ShootPlantPlanner for 3D planting plans in SketchUp.
- Price
- 2D planner in Ultimate toolkit, from £25/mo billed annually; 7-day trial
- Runs on
- Web (planner not for tablet or mobile); optional SketchUp plug-in
Photo & AR apps
Design on top of a photo of the yard, or place a design in the real space with augmented reality.
iScape
Homeowners and landscape professionals
Design on a photo of the yard or in AR with thousands of plants and hardscape items; Pro adds a materials list and PDF proposals with pricing.
- Price
- Free (limited); Pro $29.99/mo or $299.99/yr per user
- Runs on
- iOS and Android (3D design on iOS only)
YARD (Structure Studios)
Pool and landscape designers presenting to clients
Shows a design from Structure Studios desktop software at full scale in the client’s real yard, with on-site sketching.
- Price
- $30/mo add-on to a VizTerra, Pool Studio or Vip3D license
- Runs on
- iPad Pro with LiDAR
Design services
You pay people to design the garden; software is how they deliver it.
Yardzen
Homeowners who want a professional design
Designers work remotely from your photos and video; packages add revisions, renders and, at the top tier, 2D CAD plans and a curated plant list. Contractor network in select markets.
- Price
- Backyard packages $995, $1,395, $1,995 and $3,495
- Runs on
- Online service
Home Outside
Garden centers and their customers
Shoppers answer a few questions and get a layered, multi-season bed plan with a 3D view, built from plants the store carries. Signing founding partners for fall 2026.
- Price
- Free to shoppers; garden-center pricing not published
- Runs on
- In-store sign or kiosk, on the shopper’s phone
Open source
Free and inspectable. Maturity and landscape focus vary widely.
Open Garden Planner
Gardeners who want precise plans
CAD-like metric garden planning on calibrated satellite images, plant metadata from online databases, task reminders, and PDF, SVG, DXF and CSV export.
- Price
- Free (GPL-3.0)
- Runs on
- Windows desktop
Garden Party
New gardeners; self-hosters
A web app to help gardening newcomers map and manage a garden, with layout drawing and task planning.
- Price
- Free (MIT)
- Runs on
- Self-hosted web app (Ruby on Rails)
Sweet Home 3D
Homeowners and hobbyists
Mature 2D plan and 3D home design. Interior-focused; it has no garden-specific tools.
- Price
- Free (GPL)
- Runs on
- Windows, macOS, Linux and the browser; paid mobile apps
OpenPlan3D
Anyone drawing a floor plan
Browser 2D and 3D floor plans from the same publisher. Not a garden tool; OpenLandscape3D opens and exports its plans so the garden fits the house.
- Price
- Free (MIT)
- Runs on
- Web browser
Where OpenLandscape3D fits
OpenLandscape3D is a free, MIT-licensed planner for the planting side of landscape design: a scaled site plan in 2D and 3D, a regional plant catalog of 250 plants for three U.S. pilot regions (sourced data, still marked draft), ten explainable design checks, month, year and hour previews with shadows, plant and task schedules, and print/PDF and HD/4K renders. It has no account and keeps your work in the browser.
It does not do grading or cut-and-fill, irrigation, CAD/DXF export, photoreal renders, AI design or collaboration, and has no plant photos or Android app. The iPhone, iPad and Mac app is not yet on the App Store. For those needs, the tools above are the better fit today.
Information comes from public vendor and project pages as of October 9, 2026 and may have changed; check each vendor for current features and pricing. Product names are trademarks of their owners; no affiliation is implied.
Start designing in your browser
OpenLandscape3D is free and open source. Draw the site, place regional plants, and scrub through seasons and years before anything goes in the ground.