Carrie Marshall

REVIEW Planoplan’s design program looks more modern than many rival apps. You can run it in a web browser but we recommend downloading the Windows or Mac app.

Review Virtual Architect Ultimate 10.0 combines easy-to-use features with a fantastic selection of props and objects to really bring your ideas together.

Review SmartDraw Online Edition doesn't have the whizzy 3D features of its rivals but it's a solid technical drawing app that's good for creating floor plans.

Review It's limiting you to one retailer, of course, but the IKEA Home Planner app is a surprisingly clever option for fans of its Scandinavian designs.

Review Roomstyler 3D Home Planner is a simple, straightforward way to plan your room furnishing and decoration. Paid apps do more but this does plenty.

Review HomeByMe allows you to create beautiful, photorealistic versions of your designs to see exactly how each room will look.

Review Planner 5D is a great browser-based home design app, but watch out for the hidden pricing.

Review Floorplanner is a hugely capable and user-friendly interior design app with a superb object library, cross-platform support and confusing pricing.

Review Home Designer Suite isn't the friendliest app but the online help is good and there’s a great selection of design tools. The plant chooser is particularly useful.

Review Cheap and cheerful, DreamPlan Home Designer is best suited to straightforward projects such as planning decks or working out how best to fill a room with furniture.

Review Sweet Home is quite basic but it's free, really easy to use and it runs very quickly on even fairly modest hardware. Just don’t expect super-speedy photorealistic rendering.

Review RoomSketcher is a brilliant home design app that's let down with a bad pricing structure.

Review SketchUp Free is a 3D app rather than a dedicated design app so you’ll need to put in a little more work, but it produces good results and has excellent camera controls.