Cabinet Design Software: 10 Tools and Who Each One Suits

The best cabinet design software depends on your job. If you are remodeling a kitchen or bath, use a 3D home design program such as ArchiMaster 3D, or a browser planner. If you cut and assemble cabinet boxes, use a shop program with cut lists and job costing, such as Cabinet Solutions, Mozaik, Cabinetvision or Microvellum. Prices run from free retailer designers up to about $9k a year for Microvellum with CNC, according to one forum answer on Google's first page. Below are 10 options compared by kind, platform and what each source shows.

Best cabinet design software for each kind of project

• Remodeling a kitchen or bath: ArchiMaster 3D, a Windows program with 200+ kitchen and bath cabinets and photorealistic renders, or a browser planner such as RoomSketcher or Planner 5D.
• Running a cabinet shop: Cabinet Solutions, whose site lists cutlists, job costing, panel optimization and a CNC module. Cabinetvision and Microvellum are the higher-priced options.
• Starting a small shop on a budget: Mozaik, which a forum answer calls "your best answer for what you get."
• Buying one brand's cabinets: that retailer's designer, such as Menards' UCREATE or IKEA Kitchen Planner.
• Modeling one custom piece in 3D: SketchUp, a general 3D modeling program from Trimble.

First decide whether you are designing a room or building cabinets. Then use the table below to narrow your choice to one or two tools you can test this week.

Cabinet design software compared

The 10 tools fall into four kinds:

• Shop programs are for people who cut and assemble cabinets. They focus on parts, sheet goods and pricing a job.
• Retailer designers lay out one store's cabinets so you can buy them.
• Online planners and general 3D modelers handle many kinds of design, cabinets included.
• Home design programs place cabinets inside a full model of the room and house, and focus on fit, finishes and the finished look.

Check system requirements and current prices with each vendor before you buy.

Are you designing a room or building cabinets?

These are two different jobs, and software built for one is rarely good at the other. A homeowner needs to see the kitchen finished. A cabinetmaker needs a list of parts to cut on Monday morning.

If you are remodeling a kitchen or bath

Your questions are about fit and looks. Will a 36 in range fit between the corner and the window? Does the dishwasher door clear the island? Do white shaker doors look right with a dark countertop?

Pick a tool that models walls, windows and doors around the cabinets, and that includes appliances, countertops and flooring. A floating cabinet drawing tells you little about a real room. If you are weighing a browser planner against a desktop program, our comparison of ArchiMaster 3D vs Planner 5D for a kitchen remodel walks through one in detail.

If you are building cabinets in a shop

Your questions are about boxes, parts and money. You want accurate cut sizes, efficient use of plywood sheets and a price you can quote to the customer.

Cabinet Solutions lists these shop features on its site:

• Program views you can show to customers, plus 3D pictures of the job
• Job costing built into the program
• Panel optimization, which arranges parts on your sheet goods for faster cutting
• Custom job and cabinet standards, so the software builds boxes the way you do
• Door and panel styles that combine into 100+ door types
• CNC Workshop, which adds tool information and tool paths to your parts and exports them as DXF files for CNC nesting and G-code

On a budget, one answer in a forum thread titled "budget friendly Kitchen and cabinet design softwares" puts Mozaik first: "Mozaik is your best answer for what you get, Microvellum or Cabinetvision are a lot more." Treat that as one user's view and ask each vendor for current pricing.

If you are buying from one cabinet brand

If you have already chosen where to buy, start with that retailer's designer. Its library matches the boxes it actually sells. Menards' UCREATE lets you design cabinet, countertop and closet layouts in 3D and then purchase them. IKEA Kitchen Planner does the same job for IKEA cabinets. The trade-off is that you are locked into one catalog.

Run through this checklist before you install anything. It takes under a minute and rules out most of the wrong choices.

Free cabinet design software: what you actually get

"Free" usually means one of two things. Some tools let you start at no cost, such as retailer designers, and it is worth checking whether a free option exists for browser planners like RoomSketcher and Planner 5D before you sign up. Paid programs offer time-limited trials instead, which give you the program for a short time.

Either way, check what the free option includes before you spend hours on a layout. ArchiMaster 3D has a 10-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and it has no free version. Our guide to free kitchen cabinet design software goes deeper on homeowner options.

Free cabinet design software with a cut list

A cut list is a shop feature, so look for it in shop programs, not room planners. Room planners are built to show a room, not to size panels.

Cabinet Solutions lists cutlists and panel optimization on its site. One list of cabinet building software on Google's first page describes the category as tools for "3D design, cutlists, pricing, and CNC manufacturing." These are paid programs, so the practical free route is a trial. Check what the trial lets you print or export before you rely on it for a job.

Home design programs, ours included, are for planning and visualizing the room. If you need a cut list for the shop, pair a room planner for the layout with a shop program for the parts.

Plan the cabinet layout before you pick the program

Every cabinet tool asks for the same inputs: wall lengths, ceiling height, and the positions of windows, doors and plumbing. Measure your room first. You will finish faster in whichever program you choose, and the numbers help you judge whether a tool's library fits your space.

Standard cabinet sizes to enter

Most US cabinet libraries are built around these common sizes. Check them against the cabinets you plan to buy.

A sample 10 by 12 ft L-shaped layout

Here is a layout you can rebuild in any program to test it. The room is 12 ft wide and 10 ft deep. Picture it from above: the window sits on the 12 ft back wall, the cabinets run along that wall and turn down the left wall, and the entry door is on the front wall facing the window.

The 42 in walkway is the commonly recommended work aisle for one cook. Whatever software you pick, test the same three things:

1. 1Walkway width. Measure from the cabinet faces, not the walls, and keep at least 42 in clear.
2. 2Door and drawer swing. Open the dishwasher, oven and refrigerator doors in the model and check that they do not hit a handle or each other.
3. 3The corner. Decide between a blind corner cabinet and a lazy Susan, and make sure the drawers on either side can still open.

For the full rules, see how to design a kitchen layout in 3D. If you plan an island, check our kitchen island size and clearance rules.

Free download vs online: which kind should you install?

Online tools need no installation. They run in a browser, which makes them the right choice on a Mac, a Chromebook or a borrowed computer.

Desktop programs run on your own PC. The downside is that you are tied to that machine. The upside is that the project lives on your own drive and the program works offline, which matters if your internet is slow or you are on a job site.

ArchiMaster 3D is desktop only, for 64-bit Windows 11, 10, 8 or 7. There is no Mac, iPad, browser or mobile version, so Mac users should pick a browser planner.

Designing kitchen and bath cabinets in ArchiMaster 3D

ArchiMaster 3D is home design software built for homes, so cabinets are designed inside the room rather than on their own. Here is how a kitchen or bath job typically comes together.

Start from what you have. Import a scanned or sketched floor plan as an image and use it as the starting point for your walls. The kitchen and bathroom wizards then help you set up the room.

Next, place cabinets from the library of 200+ kitchen and bath cabinets. Add kitchen appliances, granite or marble countertops, and hardwood, slate or ceramic flooring. Objects and materials are true to scale, so the 42 in walkway from the sample plan measures 42 in in the model. If you found a specific cabinet or hood as an OBJ or SketchUp file, you can import it. Our guide shows how to import a SketchUp model and fix its textures and scale.

Then look at it. Photorealistic renders are made locally on your PC, and walkthrough tours let you move through the room. That is where you judge door finishes, countertop colors and lighting from the hundreds of lighting fixtures before you order. The Expert, Ultimate Home Design and Landscape & Deck editions also support VR with Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

If you are torn between ArchiMaster 3D and SketchUp, our ArchiMaster vs SketchUp for kitchen cabinets comparison covers the differences. You can also browse all features.

The Kitchen & Bath edition is the focused choice for this job. It is a one-time licence with no subscription; see current pricing for today's price. Here is where it fits and where a shop tool fits better.

Try it on your own kitchen

Measure your room, then download the 10-day free trial of ArchiMaster 3D on your Windows PC. Lay out your cabinet runs with the kitchen wizard, test the walkway and appliance doors, and render the finished room before you order a single box. If it is not a fit, the 30-day money-back guarantee covers you.