2020 Design Live Reviews

Big fan of 2020 Design Live, and happy with the product and the service! I use the software daily, and even though I handle much more than just designing as my job, being creative and designing with 2020 is my favorite part of the day.

I'm very happy using 2020 Design Live to create my works of art. I love the customer support when needed, and how I get use manufacturers catalogs to make ordering simple and fast. Also, love that I can use SketchUp to bring in other items to make the renderings look realistic.

Not a big fan of the Flex Closet system. I currently use Mozaik for my closet jobs.

Overall is a good program, but it is too expensive, especially for a small business, the price is abusive.

The futures in the program is good and not too difficult to work with. It is good to have someone to assist you when you have a glitch on the system.

Some catalogs do not work correctly on shipping, volume and price is totally off, It is very frustrating to generate quote. Programs stall very often. Lighting in renderings is hard to work with, it does not give the looks depending on the color of the cabinets.

I have to use 2020 to do my job. We cannot take the time to switch to ProKitchen and test that out so here we are.
Would love to have 2020 dev team take time to sit with us and learn the issues we constantly face and focus on existing issues, not new features.

It's the only program we have.
It has my manufacturers catalogs.

I cannot lock items (like walls) to keep them from being moved by accident.
Crashes regularly (duplicate Sketchup items always causes a crash).
Rendering is finicky and lighting impossible to get right.
cloud items often don't work and are out of style (decorative items).
Many changes have to be done in repetitive and time consuming manner. Instead of having a single button option or automation.

Very helpful tool but user experience could be improved. It has the potential to be a go-to program, but it is very frustrating to complete simple layout tasks.

Allows for very detailed and accurate cabinet layouts.
Great for pricing out cabinets.
Limits error during install process.

Not super user friendly with moving/placing cabinets.

A good program that is easy to use but might be a bit much for smaller companies. Learning the program is very easy.

Ease of installation.
User friendly.
Easy to learn.
Nice finished products.
Great catalog organization.

Intermittent crashes.
Yearly subscription.
Price increase each year.

Overall I think the program is good - some days are better than others. I don't think going up on the price every year and then having so many tech issues is a good idea - it defers me to look at other programs similar to 2020, however I am familiar with 2020 and not one for change.

It's a fairly simple program to use. The cloud has a lot of good manufacturer options for drawing, I think it could use more updated lighting and appliances

Too many errors on opening files, constantly getting messages that it's not loaded properly, too often items in the cloud are deleted or no longer "available" in my designs so I get a message that I need to remove those items.

Frustrating. I spend a considerable amount of time correcting, looking for work-arounds, tweaking things to get as close as possible to accurate drawings that are representative of what a client is actually getting. The clients want to see accuracy and the company I work for demands it, because these drawings become part of a legal and binding contract. PLEASE fix the dimension issues! And PLEASE give us generic appliances and plumbing fixtures that can be modified to show accurate dimensions. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE.

Generally, there are many things that work well, however, the things that don't, mainly dimensions and appliances/plumbing products work very poorly.

Dimensions. They used to work well. Now I spend a considerable amount of time correcting them. There are too many dimension-related issues to outline here. Appliances/Plumbing fixtures. For the brands you partner with, the designs are so full of lines that it looks too busy on the page and the images usually over-lap the cabinet image. For those products you don't have available, and there are many, most of the generics cannot be modified to show accurate sizing; and those that can be modified are horribly out of date as a visual. Renderings. They used to work better, too. Now, if I I'm too close to an island, the perimeter countertop doesn't show, if I pull away far enough to get the countertop to show, the wall of the room will be in the way, blocking the view. My issue with support is that the only way support can try to address some of the issues I have (such as when I produce a rendering, it prints to a pdf as a blank page) is to get into areas of the computer that I can't give them access to because the owner of our company will not give the workers his ADMIM password; and he is certainly not going to sit for long periods of time while they try to figure it out. Then, they'll often make recommendations that inevitably cost him money after he's already provided a state of the art, very expensive computer. They'll often say he needs a new graphic card when he just invested on getting an excellent graphic card. I can't even call support anymore because it's pointless if I can't give them admin access. This software should be set up so that admin access isn't necessary to keep things running smoothly. I can't even clear out the temporary file cache without admin permission!!

It's still the best template program out there. Until it isn't. I believe it won't take long for another company to surpass the frustrations accompanied by this program.

I've been using it for so long I've learned to navigate around some its shortcomings. They finally allow "docking" of walls and items so the cursor doesn't accidentally select and move them!

The "Cloud browser" items aren't labeled in any sensible order. Some of the basic items are just ridiculous....who designed these?

I have issues with an undersized graphics card that may be the main reason for some of my other concerns, but overall the product is just ok. There are a lot of features that I think can be improved on. Help hotline and online support are also lacking.

It is nice for making quick 3D renderings of square spaces and showing off to client with accurate depiction of cabinetry.

You need to make it possible to show different floor levels. We have had a few jobs were a kitchen or bathroom has had a step down and that cannot be shown. Also, we have had a few jobs with round wall or ceilings. Your product needs a way to show this with out piecing together a bunch of small walls. Further more, cathedral ceilings or sloped ceiling don't show up right. They always have triangle pieces going to the wrong connection point. it makes it difficult to properly show renderings without having holes in the ceiling etc. Lastly, your wall cut though for the camera is a nice feature, but as soon as it hits the wall, the entire wall is gone. When looking down a long room, if the side walls are touched by the camera cut circle, the whole wall disappears leaving cabinets floating in the air. Having the wall only cut out where it is hit by the camera line would be better.
Finally better flooring options would be nice. the standard floors you have are only for solid or square tile.

Once you work out the problems with rendering, it will like the program much better. I like the ez render feature, I just wish I had a faster computer to run it on.

I have gotten very comfortable with the rendering feature in the newest versions, I like that it reproduces whites better than it used to.

Ever since I downloaded version 13.6 I have had several problems with the renderings losing the textures of the floor and walls etc. This has caused me to call tech support several times. They seem to want to blame it on my graphics card, but it has worked fine for all previous versions.

Overall, I enjoy using 2020 Design live, with just a couple of "tweaks" to the lighting it would be absolutely amazing.

I love the number of catalogs available at your fingertips, & the help that is available both virtually and over the phone.

I really have issues with hotspots in the renderings and the lower cabinetry not getting enough light.

I've had less crashing. The customer support is exceptional. And there are so many more catalogs to design from.

I love the cartoon rendering. There are so many more decorative options. The renderings are faster and better looking.

I really haven't found any yet. If I had to choose something I would say the cloud decor items don't render if your internet cuts out.

Generally my experience I can say is good using 2020 Design. Apart from the need for few improvements, the general experience is good.

I think I like everything about the pros, the rendering options to adjust the saturation, white balance, shadows. I find it very easy and intuitive working with various manufactures brands.

The cloud portion most of the times logs me out. many times this initiates the program to shut down. I have more recovery layouts than I have ever had. I am not that happy with this upgrade.

Overall, I've had great experiences using 2020 LIVE. I've worked with 2020 design for many years and can say that despite a few cloud connection issues I've had, I thoroughly enjoy working within the LIVE program.

I would highly recommend this product to all designers who want element flexibility, faster high-quality renders, and more options overall.

The 2020 Design Live is a great product overall. Having access to the live catalog allows our designs to take on a more realistic look that our clients love! I like being able to pull different elements into my designs to show clients what their homes can look like. This is also great for clients who are particular about their design and want to get a more accurate image of their overall space. I love the EZ render options in the Live program as well because it does make rendering designs faster, easier, and look better overall. You can still manipulate light features, sun, and angles but don't have as many issues balancing ambient vs natural vs user-added light features.

While I love the online catalogs for their options, one issue that I come across regularly is when the cloud does not connect to 2020. Usually, this is a wifi issue, so not completely a 2020 Live issue - but it would be nice to be able to select your most used items to be available offline. Having that option would keep designs from missing design elements when working through internet connection issues.

Great if you know the tips and tricks to get your design done. Great way to show customers their finished product.

- I like how easy it is to update cabinet catalogs
- how easy it is to generate reports
- Like the ability to make quick changes in the attributes section.

There is definitely a learning curve. Wish the UX was a little better.

Melanie was extremely helpful assisting with my errors and questions that we had regarding 2020 Live. Melanie's promptness and knowledge was great.

Melanie was extremely helpful assisting with my errors and questions that we had regarding 2020 Live. Melanie's promptness and knowledge was great.

It would be nice to have updated cabinet catalogs available automatically for our cabinet lines we are a dealer for.

I like it. It's easy to use and it has a lot of options and variety. Has a loot of tools that help me in showing my creativity.

It helped to show my customers the product fast and that helped in saving our time and it's easy to browse and render and gives a reality-like view of the kitchen.

It saves our time and pushes the customer to buy and that increases the rate of selling.

Reasonably good, could be better. Support has been reasonably good, though I've been hung up on a couple of times. ( is this enough text to select "next step?")

I've been using 2020 Since 2006. The rendering capability really helps the customer understand what our concept of their new kitchen is. It make it much easier for them to visualize and us to explain the redesign. I generally don't have the time to utilize some of features, like placing tile floors or backsplashes. It seems you have to remove then anyway of a customer wants a revision, or to edit an item.

The design field is ridiculously large. I've lost small designs. I estimate that it is about 750 meters across. I'm designing kitchens, not subdivisions. On a large layout for our new showroom, 30m x 30m the program lags behind in saving and takes a long time to render. I had to break it up into sections keep to avoid waiting for it update as I was working.

Far too many "Critical Errors", the program crashes and the history resets as if I'd never opened it that day. The program also freezes up. My CPU usage shows as being anywhere from 2% to 20%, but nothing is happening. This is especially bad when I have a customer here on a design review and we are watching an hourglass where the curser is. We purchased a new "gaming computer" in hopes that things would run smoother, but it hasn't improved.

From the moment I started using 2020 Design, it quickly became apparent how practical and user-friendly it is. The intuitive interface and well-thought-out features have significantly streamlined my design workflow, saving me valuable time and effort. It's a testament to your team's dedication to creating a seamless user experience.

One of the standout features of 2020 Design is its extensive library of high-quality design elements and materials. The vast selection and attention to detail truly set this program apart. Whether I'm searching for the perfect kitchen cabinets, countertops, or fixtures, I can always find a wide range of options to suit any project. The ability to visualize these elements in realistic 3D renderings is invaluable for both me and my future clients.

I really enjoy how simple and practical it is to use. I'm taking a class and we are learning how to use 2020 Design.

I think aesthetically the program could use some updates on the home screen and the tabs etc...

Not a great program.
Dimensions do not stay in place.
Always have to add hand written items as 2020 does not enter them properly or the dimensions move.
Overall, the color rendering are extremely time consuming and are not good enough.

Hidden line drawings.
Floor plans.
Cabinet manufacturer catalogs.
Not too many positive things to say about 2020 Design Live.

Renderings are not comparable to other similar products.
Pricing is very high and renewal increases yearly with no additional support.
Does not integrate well with other programs.
Not user friendly.
Renderings are not good enough in color.
Lighting.
Ease of use.
Constant crashing.
Dimensions are not good enough.