I’ve used Archicad on the Mac for about 30 years, and my BIMcloud server runs on one too. So reading that BIMcloud 2027 will be the last Mac version, with Windows or SaaS as the way forward, was hard. Archicad started on Apple computers in the 1980s, years before Windows, and that history is part of why many of us chose it.
I understand the cost of two platforms. Still, Graphisoft should look at Adobe. It moved everyone to subscriptions in 2013 and kept tightening the terms. In 2024 users objected to new terms that seemed to let Adobe use their work to train its AI. Adobe had to rewrite them and promise not to. This year it paid $150 million to settle the US government’s case over cancellation fees hidden in its “annual, paid monthly” plan, without admitting wrongdoing. Revenue is still at a record, but the shares are down about 30% this year, as investors expect users to keep moving to Affinity (now free), DaVinci Resolve ($295, paid once) and Canva.
Those alternatives come from other companies, which is nothing new. What is new is who can build this software. In October one developer, fed up with Adobe’s fees, used AI to release open-source versions of seven Adobe apps, plus CADCraft, an AutoCAD-style app that passed 7,000 GitHub stars within weeks. They’re early and not ready for real professional work, but they improve every month, and the code is shared for anyone to build on. The cat is out of the bag. For decades, the sheer size of programs like these kept clients locked in. AI is wearing that down fast, and pushing loyal users away will cost far more than it used to.
Many Mac offices chose Archicad because Graphisoft treated the Mac as home. This is a good moment for Graphisoft to rethink this decision, before its users start rethinking theirs.
DT.
