If you’re wondering whether you should be using Revit or AutoCAD in your projects, there’s another key question you should ask yourself: what am I trying to achieve? You should understand where you are coming from and where you are heading to.

AutoCAD has been around for ages and the first version was available in 1982. Provided by Autodesk, this software has developed many versions and upgraded over the years, making AutoCAD the lead software among architectural, engineering and construction companies.

Revit, however, was developed in 2000s, provided by Revit Technology Corporation at first and later bought by Autodesk because of its potential impact on the construction industry.

Both software’s are now market leaders but there are significant differences that makes new generation specialists wonder, whether AutoCAD will remain relevant in the future. AutoCAD is a digital drafting tool where the model is represented geometrically. It means that these geometrical forms don’t hold any additional information about the figure and its properties, making it difficult to adjust interacting components or updating views –each view needs to be modified separately. Therefore, AutoCAD is efficient only for line work and 2D drafting, especially when dealing with renovation projects where the previous plans has been drafted in AutoCAD (DWG format) as well. Revit, however, is a 3D modelling tool, where each building component holds information about the associated technical specifications, functions, and properties. Revit makes a significant improvement when designing, planning, constructing, operating, and maintaining a building. When using Revit, all the stakeholders can work simultaneously on the most recent model and the changes are immediately reflected on all the existing views. Therefore, it is easy to avoid issues, for instance, overlapping HVAC or MEP installations. Another benefit is cost estimation - elements holding technical information can be used for automatically generating precise cost schedules.

In conclusion, Revit should be considered a new software rather than an opponent to AutoCAD. History shows that AutoCAD is still a key component in many architectural and engineering companies, because of its flexibility of 2D drafting and ability of working with old DWG files. However, Revit is a more powerful tool, that is crucial when dealing with interactions between complex building systems.