Landscape design
Free Landscape Design Software: Plan Outdoor Spaces in 2D & 3D
Design landscapes, terraced gardens, retaining walls, patios, paving, planting, water features, to scale. Browser-based, free to use, no paid tier. Walk through in 3D.
Landscape design lives or dies on how the levels, paving, and plant masses read in three dimensions, a flat plan view alone never tells you whether a retaining wall feels imposing, whether a path is too narrow, or whether a tree will eventually block a view. Home 3D Plan lets you design landscapes on the same 2D / 3D canvas you'd use for the house, so the whole property can be planned as one project.
Whether you're a homeowner planning a full yard redesign, a landscape designer mocking up a quote, a contractor pitching a project to a client, or a hobbyist gardener mapping out next season's beds, the tool is the same, free, in the browser, no sign-up.
Who uses landscape design software
Landscape designers and architects using it for fast pitches: a coloured 2D plan plus a couple of 3D angles often closes a quote without booting AutoCAD or Vectorworks.
Contractors walking a client through a proposed project visually before tearing up turf.
Homeowners DIYing a yard remodel, testing patio sizes, plant masses, and retaining wall heights before committing to materials.
Master gardeners planning bed rotation, sun mapping, and companion-plant arrangements across an entire growing season.
How to plan a landscape in five steps
Step 1. Establish the site. Draw the property boundary, the house footprint, any existing trees worth keeping, and slopes or grade changes you're aware of.
Step 2. Zone the property. Identify the functional zones, outdoor dining, lawn, planting beds, utility (compost / shed / bins), front-of-house, paths and drives. Mark them in 2D before placing individual elements.
Step 3. Lay out hardscape first. Paths, patios, retaining walls, paving, these define the bones. Get them right before placing softscape.
Step 4. Place softscape. Trees, shrubs, perennial beds, lawn areas. The catalogue includes mature-size trees so you can verify shading and clearance from buildings.
Step 5. Switch to 3D and walk through. View the design from the front door, from the road, and from the main interior windows. Verify focal points read correctly, sightlines work, and no plant ends up blocking a view five years on.
Terraced gardens + retaining walls
Terracing turns unusable slope into usable level platforms. The planner lets you draw retaining walls at their actual height (typically 60 to 120 cm per terrace for residential), and visualise the stepped result in 3D, much easier than reading it off contour lines on paper.
A useful check: from the bottom of the slope looking up, does the retaining wall feel imposing or proportionate? From the top looking down, does the lower terrace feel like a room or like a leftover? Both questions are obvious in 3D and almost impossible in 2D.
Patios, paths + paving
Path width is the most often-wrong dimension in residential landscaping. Single-person paths want at least 75 cm; comfortable two-person paths want 110 cm; primary entry paths want 130 cm and ideally 150 cm. The planner will tell you in 2D whether your proposed path actually clears that.
For patios, area-per-use is the heuristic: dining for 4 people wants ~9 m², dining for 6 wants ~12 m², a 6-seat lounge configuration wants 10 to 14 m². Place the table or sofa from the catalogue and verify the patio actually fits it with chair pull-back space.
Planting + sun mapping
Mature plant size is invisible at planting time and obvious five years later. Use the catalogue's mature-size trees and shrubs to verify that your sapling won't one day be pressed up against the house.
Switch to 3D and rotate the sun position to test shadow throw at different times of day, useful for siting outdoor seating (you want morning sun on the breakfast patio, late-afternoon shade on the lounge), and for understanding which beds will get the light a sun-loving border actually needs.
Why Home 3D Plan for landscape design
Free, with no paywall, most landscape-design tools are paid subscriptions or vendor-locked. Here every feature is free for every user.
Indoor + outdoor on the same canvas, uncommon for landscape software, which usually doesn't do interior plans at all. Here your house and yard live in one project.
The 3D walk-through lets you preview proposed beds, paths, or trees at real scale from any angle, catching "that retaining wall is taller than I thought" before construction.
Snapshot the lit 3D scene to a photo render (PNG) in one click, unlimited and watermark-free, and share a live link. For a to-scale, permit-ready drawing, the platform includes DraftCAD, a separate 2D CAD tool that exports PDF, DXF, and SVG.
Frequently asked questions
Is this really free?
Yes. Every design feature is free for every user on every device today, with no per-export charge and no watermark.
Will there ever be a paid plan?
It is free today with no paywalled features. Home 3D Plan is community-funded rather than investor-funded, supported by optional partnerships and community contributions. If we ever introduce paid plans, we will show the fees before any charge and will not lock features you already use behind a paywall.
Do I need to create an account?
No. You can open the editor and start designing without signing in. A free account only adds cloud saves across devices, sharing, and a personal texture library; it does not unlock design features.
Can I plan terraces and retaining walls?
Yes. Walls can be drawn at any height, and the planner visualises stepped / terraced layouts in 3D so you can verify the effect before construction.
Does the catalogue include trees and plants at mature size?
Yes. Trees and shrubs are catalogued at typical mature dimensions so you can verify clearance from buildings, paths, and other plantings 5 to 10 years out.
Can I share the landscape design with a contractor?
Yes. Share a read-only or editable live link that opens in any browser, or snapshot the lit 3D scene to a photo render (PNG). The 2D plan shows every dimension on screen. For a to-scale drawing with a takeoff, the platform includes DraftCAD, a separate 2D CAD tool that exports PDF, DXF, and SVG.
Is Home 3D Plan free?
Yes. Home 3D Plan runs in your browser at no cost, with no sign-up requirement and no paywalled features. The PWA install is also free.
Do I need to install anything?
No. Home 3D Plan is a Progressive Web App, so you can open it in any modern browser and start designing. You can optionally install it to your home screen for offline access.
Can I export my plans?
Yes. Snapshot your lit 3D scene to an image (PNG) with one click, unlimited and with no watermark, and share a read-only or editable live link that opens in any browser without an account.