2020 Design Live Reviews

Overall, 2020 is a great software for kitchen design. The software can sometimes be limited due to file size, making the program crash or lag.

The 2020 software is relatively easy to use and navigate. It is great at representing 2D and 3D designs.

The software crashes/lags often and the cloud browser only sometimes works.

I have never used anything but 20/20 so I cannot compare it to other programs. I think because I have used it awhile and am older change is hard. Going to 20/20 live was easy but it is more technical and I am not of that “techno” age group in which it comes easy.

Easy to design with as far as creating floor plans, elevations and perspectives. Easy to access the help center and support.

I have trouble when creating the color perspectives. Depending on the colors in the design the EZ Render sometimes works great…but with lighter colors it seems everything gets washed out. It seems that you have to add lighting or manipulate the design in other ways to get it to look right.

I've designed 100s of kitchens with 2020 and helped me make lots of people satisfied clients over the years.

Saves Many designs, lots of catalogs to download. Elevations and different views to help clients get understanding of what to expect from project.

Sometimes is a little buggy but usually works itself out.

Overall great experience and heave used this program for years. with most companies catalogs being compatible it creates ease of use when designing and ordering. Please change back rendering functions, the photos look to AI generated now and over done.

Ease of use when it comes to cabinet catalogs and creating spaces. Being able to show clients a 3D visual is amazing. Actually showing what tile and specific measurements will be. It is a great program for designers with a lot or little experience.

Do not like new rendering setup. The pictures do not look as realistic, miss ceiling lighting and becomes too light sometimes.
Also, wish there as a monthly option like Chief Architect.

I have been using 2020 Design for over 6 years now. The changes that have been made over the past few years have just benefited me and all designers around. It is very simple and easy to use. The resources available make it easy to truly show my customers what they will be getting. Keep up the great work!

2020 Design Live is very user friendly & easy to use. The resources available now are super handy when it comes to designing kitchens, baths, etc. One of my favorite things is the cloud - where I can pull basically anything into my designs!

For the most part, I find that everything goes well with 2020 Design Live. Occasionally I may have it quit on me randomly, but I always follow up with the support team for the best solution.

My experience with 2020 Design Live is bittersweet. I like the program in terms of quickly producing floor plans and rendering kitchen and bathroom designs. However, the program tends to get laggy often and that sometimes hinders how efficient projects get completed.

-Easy to produce floor plans and renderings
- Produces quality renderings
- Easy to drag and drop objects into floor plan

-Laggy software
- Needs to provide more objects to add to design
- Needs to provide a better way of adding surfaces such as backsplashes and flooring to designs

2020 Design is one of two software options for the cabinet industry that includes manufacturer pricing. I have used the software for well over 20 years. Overall the software has made little changes in the product. That can a be good thing as the interface and features are always familiar with new updates. The down side to the lack of major changes is that problems never seemed to get fixed. The Drawing Layout tool was introduced many years ago, and still has issues some as simple as printing multiple pages. Most of the focus development in the software revolve around improvements/glitches for the rendering engines. A couple years the software was migrated from 32bit to 64bit. The most recent major change was migrated existing users, and onboarding new customers to the subscription based pricing model. This new version introduced the new EZRender rendering module which is quite a bit faster than the previous Redway module. Live version also introduced the Cloud Configurator which allows you to use different door styles/colors easier for the manufacturers that support it. The downside to the newer Live version is it requires users to sign in periodically, and unfortunately their authentication servers have availability issues causing the software to not work.

Does 2020 Design make my job easier to draw and price kitchen/baths? Yes. Do I wish there was a better option in the market? Yes.

Easy to learn.
Quick design pricing.
Nice renderings.
Decent reporting of cabinet lists.
Customizable interface.

Frequent crashes & freezing.
Has not changed much in 20 years.
3D panoramas are incredibly slow to render.
Measurements tools need improving.
Presentation tools need improving.

I think 2020 has a huge potential to improve its product and bring it up to date with the industry and its commands. I have not used Chief Architect and ProKitchen Design, but I do hear from other professionals in the industry that they are better software to use. I prefer to stick with 2020 for I used it for a little over 7 years now. I know 2020 is up for the challenge.

I love the ease of the 2020 Design Live, and love the features and tools given in all aspects of the program. I love the cloud based items and catalogs, the EZ Render is absolutely fantastic. The textures in the default catalog, and the ease of generating quotes for each project.

The number one issue is the amount of crashing that happens per project. It's frustrating to loose data from crashing events, or corrupting the kit file after crashing. The buffering and processing data while selecting items from catalogs, or as simple as cut and paste which causes instant crashing, or as simple as going into the light properties of the light fixtures also causes instant crashing. The limited amount of decorative items in the basic 2020 generic catalogs, and the outdates items in it can really use some weeding and updating. When I can't find what I need for the design, I go to Sketchup to download what I can find, but that is also limited to what I can integrate into 2020.

I have been using 2020 for over 5 years and have had a mostly positive experience. No real major issues.

Even with some glitches from time to time, I've never really had any major issues with 2020. It's pretty easy to use.

It's still an app so there are glitches but it is to be expected.

It was easy to learn the basics but anything advanced, the training courses are needed. Customer service has been wonderful to work with and are available both by chat and phone to answer questions. The interface/processing of the program could be updated but overall, when you know how to use the program to its full potential it creates beautiful designs and renderings.

I am new to the industry and using 2020 has made it possible to design like others who have been in the industry for years. The basics of the software was easy to learn and understand. Customer service is always available to answer any questions big and small. The training courses have been very knowledgeable and has allowed me to take my designs to the next level.

To use the software to its full potential you need to utilize the training courses. The internal processing of the program could be updated to handle the advanced rendering more smoothly. Even with the best equipment, the program can crash. As a beginner in design software, I wish the menus and preferences were more easily understandable. Importing catalogs can be time consuming. It would be nice to access catalogs over the web in place of uploading them with the catalog manager.

Wonderful! While new to this software, only two weeks in, I am live designing in front of clients who are very impressed with me, when really, the credit goes to 2020.
Thank you 2020 team!

Easy to use!
The UI is user friendly and customizable to your personal work flow. Saving templates for future reference is an excellent way to get started. When filling in items which your clients may want to see varied colors, you can group items to change all of the groups color at once which is excellent.
Customer service is excellent.
Online trainings are available at your pace.
Good community: Many folks help the community out by posting tips and tricks on youtube.

Cant seem to find hotkeys to make work ultra efficient.
Bit expensive upfront.

I've been using 2020 for over 30 years and it seems to have similar issues with cutting out unexpectedly and having to redraw your design. I know it has an auto save feature but this slows the designing process way down so I opt to take the chance. When it's slow you know to hit save often before it cuts out on you.

It's the only design soft ware I use, details in colors and cabinetry is great!
Pricing is great.
Perspective views are great.

I get kicked out of 2020 often when in a design process and find myself having to redo what I had done in the first place. Auto save slows the design process.

I have enjoyed using 2020 Design Live so far and will continue to use it for future projects. It helps my customers visualize what could/will be!

Countertop & Trim Wizard.
Lighting Wizard.
Ease of Use.
Pretty realistic renderings.
Cloud Browser - Decorative Items!

Pop-Ups.
Fatal Errors.
Slow Renderings.
Recovery Files that don't save correctly.

I am loving my learning with 20/20 and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with it. I am excited to create new designs.

I love the in depth video training and the access to real time help if needed. Everyone that I have worked with thus far has been great. Looking forward to learning more about the program.

Feels a little dated. Some of the graphics appear a little dated but nothing that makes this program not worth having.

User since 2005. Still learn new tricks every week. Product has the flexibility I need for design work outside of the standard 3-wall kitchen or simple bathroom. Confident is will continue to introduce innovative features that make design and ordering faster, more efficient, and beautiful.

Commitment to continual improvement. As an industry-standard design software, I am able to work with all cabinet lines/companies as needed.

The Cloud-based items do not import when I am working in areas with Wi-Fi . I would like to be able to increase font size in the dialogue boxes, most are too tiny to read clearly. It's a lot of program for a new user.

My coworker has used this program over 15 years and she thought me how to navigate it and it was very easy for me to do so. Even though I am a beginner in this field.

The program is very easy to work with even when you are a beginner at designing. I have been a beginner and love it.

Customer service wait time is long maybe they need to call us back in a faster timing or not have us waiting for that long.

Like it just wish I could rely on it more. Wish something can be done about the crashing of the program and the corrupt files.

Ease of use nice images used to it by now have been using for over 10 years and overall happy with the product, the cloud is less my favorite thing liked it more before the cloud was much faster. Images from the cloud make the design too large to open In rendering hence slowing you down.

Crashes too many times I could be working on a new design and it will crash and lose my work or corrupt my file and have to use the back up file to open which sometimes is corrupt too, making me re-do the entire design. This can be a real problem, wish this was resolved.

I like the program, but many improvements could be made. I am used to working with Solid works or rhino, being familiar with product design and being very computer savvy, it is not the easiest program to work with or understand even for the most complex computer users. for those who design large kitchens with many attachments and items, it is something that gives struggles when overloaded with a large project which is also frustrating to have to split different rooms onto different files. I also wish i could put accessories on the floor plan as well so that i can keep track of my installation product count for pricing and designing purposes when it comes to pricing and making paperwork for the installer if a custom part is planned to be designed, you can explain it on the floor plan with the items shown being used with it.

I like the rendering quality and the simplicity of the program at times. The program has many opportunities for improvement and growth, but overall is is successful for what i use it for every day besides the crashing.

I cannot stand how frequent it crashes. I HATE the lighting on this program, as it seems to need a rocket scientist to get white to show up properly and not super bright and not super grey. i wish the lighting was more standard. It is such a heavy program that it cannot run renderings/photos quickly or seamlessly with anything else running on a brand new computer. I wish it was available on mac. I wish i could set a queue for renderings of different camera shots to run and save to my computer automatically when i leave for work so that i do not have to spend many hours out of my day watching the rendering bar move. (similar to keyshot rendering program where can select it to render when not at the computer with different shots in line). i really wish that i could change the color of each catalog in the floor plan so when i change an island to be different than a perimeter of a kitchen i can see it on the floor plan without selecting a 3D view or selecting the cabinet itself to see which catalog it is on, this would save me a lot of problems with placing the wrong items on the wrong catalog, which would save me time too.

Overall, it's a great software/tool to create various designs in the kitchen/cabinet industry. It allows you to do all the drawings from 2D and 3D. Highly recommend.

I like how you can easily visualize the drawings from the plan to elevations and renderings. And the variety of catalogs are amazing which opens you to array of options and possibilities in creating cabinet/kitchen designs.

I am just having a bit of a problems with dimensions.

Excellent tool that is easy to use and has great customer support. 2020 Design Live is essential for my projects and really helps close the sale!

I like how easy the tool is to use. The features that help me with designs and being able to import the actual appliances for my projects. The drawings I am able to create in 2020 definitely help in closing sales. The technical support is easy to use and is quick to resolve any issues I might have.

The only thing I don't like is occasionally the program will just shut down. fortunately there is always a backup to recover with.