Civil Designer
What Civil Designer is
Civil Designer is a Windows desktop suite for civil infrastructure design, made by Civil Designer in Cape Town, South Africa. Its integrated tools cover earthworks, roads, highways, stormwater, wastewater, and potable water supply. The Design Centre combines CAD, aerial image handling, and digital terrain modelling for final drawings. Survey workflows can use 3D drawing entities, TIFF DEM, Lidar, LandXML, or ASCII files. Roads supports geometric design, rehabilitation, junctions, safety analysis, and quantity measurement. Storm includes Illudas, Rational, Wallingford, and SWMM runoff models. Water can connect to external consumption and tariff tables, while CAD supports IFC and Google Earth integration with KML output. IFC 4.3 interoperability allows selected model elements to be shared through a common data environment. Cloud collaboration is supported, and listed file formats include DWG, DXF, DGN, IFC, PDF, KML, CSV, Excel, and Shapefile. Licensing may be subscription, lifetime with renewable support, or modular. Pricing is on request, with a free trial and no free plan.
Who it suits
Civil Designer is aimed at civil infrastructure design professionals working on Windows desktop projects. It suits teams needing roads, terrain, drainage, sewer, water, and related data workflows.
What it does well
- Covers roads, water, stormwater, and sewer
- Supports IFC 4.3 interoperability
- Imports many engineering formats
- Cloud collaboration supported
- Free trial available
What to know first
- Windows desktop requirement
- No free plan
- Pricing available only on request
- Minimum operating system is Windows 11 64-bit
Plans
| Plan | Billed and limits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Roads & Highway Design | Roads and highway design module | On request |
| Clean Water Distribution | Clean water network design module | On request |
| Surface Runoff Design | Surface runoff and stormwater design module | On request |
| Foul Water Networks | Foul-water network design module | On request |
| Enterprise Suite | Roads · Survey & Terrain · Storm · Sewer · Water · Signage · Turn · CAD & Rendering · team size affects price | On request |
| Specialised Design Package | Design Centre platform module · multi-user licensing · technical support · current upgrades | On request |
As civildesigner.com lists them, read 22 Sept 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.
Verdict
Civil Designer brings multiple civil infrastructure disciplines into one Windows suite with broad file exchange and BIM support. Its modular licensing and trial provide ways to evaluate or configure the system, but buyers must request pricing.
Facts from Civil Designer's own pages
- BIM interoperability
- Civil Designer supports IFC 4.3 and lets users choose which model elements to share through a common data environment. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- CAD integrations
- The CAD module supports BIM IFC integration and Google Earth integration with KML file output. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Cloud collaboration
- Yes · civildesigner.com, 22 Sept 2026
- Company history
- Civil Designer says its origins date to 1989 and its CEO recounts that the project that became Civil Designer began by 1997. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Design Centre
- The Design Centre combines bespoke CAD, aerial image handling and digital terrain modelling to produce final drawings. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- File import and export
- DWG, DXF, DGN, LandXML, IFC, PDF, KML, CSV, Excel, TIFF DEM, ASCII, Shapefile · civildesigner.com, 22 Sept 2026
- Free plan
- No · civildesigner.com, 22 Sept 2026
- Headquarters
- Cape Town, South Africa · civildesigner.com, 28 Sept 2026
- Intended users
- The company describes its software as being for civil infrastructure design professionals and says its staff include engineering design industry professionals. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Modular licensing
- Customers can choose subscription, lifetime licensing with renewable support or modular purchasing, and specialised module licenses can be shared when they are not in simultaneous use. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Platform requirements
- The trial is available for Windows desktop; the listed minimum and recommended operating system is Windows 11 (64-bit). · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Civil Designer is an integrated suite for designing civil infrastructure including earthworks, roads, highways, stormwater, wastewater and potable water supply. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Road design
- The Roads module supports geometric design and rehabilitation of highways and urban or rural roads, including junction design, safety analysis and quantity measurement. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Stormwater analysis
- The Storm module supports Illudas, Rational, Wallingford and SWMM models for runoff and drainage analysis. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Support
- Purchases include technical support, and the Help Desk says it does not charge per support hour. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Supported platforms
- Windows desktop · civildesigner.com, 22 Sept 2026
- Terrain inputs
- Survey and terrain workflows can import 3D drawing entities, TIFF DEM, Lidar surveys, LandXML or ASCII files. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
- Water network integrations
- The Water module can link to external consumption and tariff data tables. · civildesigner.com, 11 Oct 2026
Where Civil Designer stands on Freedom251
- 3D CAD Software#62 of 79