Can anyone compare Chief Architect with REVIT LT

[Fun2Learn]

Hi again everyone. I'm the original poster. I'm happy to have gotten so many replies. It has been very interesting to read. Just to clarify though- correct me if I have misunderstood, but I have come to understand that the major difference between revit lt and the regular revit is that only one person can be working on a project file at a time with revit lt. This would be no issue of course for the very small one or two man firm, but a huge problem for a larger firm. The other features that revit lt doesn't have, such as energy analysis and mass modeling, probably wouldn't be needed by a small firm either. The lack of on-board high quality rendering might be a problem though you do get some in the auto cad cloud if you pay extra for it. So I don't think you can compare Revit LT with Chief Lt --- I think you have to compare it with Chief as far as features go. So Revit Lt (which includes support and the rendering "cloud" free the first year) is half the cost of Chief x5!!

[RMorrison]

So Revit Lt (which includes support and the rendering "cloud" free the first year) is half the cost of Chief x5!!

"Cost" is a flexible concept. There are many costs besides the initial buy-in, and transferability may be an issue.

For example, once you you "buy" Revit LT, can you transfer it to someone else? (I doubt it. But with Chief, you can.) Then, there is the subscription issue. Autodesk had a policy that if you were not on subscription for a period of three years, you had to buy-in again at full cost if you wanted to upgrade. What is the policy for Revit LT? Do you need a subscription, too?

Then there is the learning cost. If it takes twice as long to get up to full speed, Revit LT suddenly becomes pretty expensive. I can't say what the relative learning costs are, but at least with Chief you get access to "free" training videos as part of SSA.

So before you get too excited by the apparent sticker price, it's worth checking into some of the ancillary costs.