Free WiFi Planning Tools Compared (2026) — Which Ones Are Actually Free?

"Free" hides four very different products

Before you download anything, sort the candidate by what it actually is. Almost every disappointed "this free tool was useless" review comes from picking the wrong category, not the wrong product:

• •Predictive planner vs. scanner. A planner simulates coverage from a drawing before you buy anything. A scanner measures real signal once the gear is up. If you haven't installed APs yet, a scanner can't help you; if you have, a planner is the wrong half of the job.
• •Free product vs. free tier of a paid product. A free product stays free for its intended scope. A free tier is a lead magnet for the paid SKU above it — fine, that's the market, but expect a low AP cap and locked exports.
• •Vendor-neutral vs. single-brand. Some excellent free planners only model one manufacturer's hardware. Perfect if your bill of materials is already that brand; useless if you're mixing or comparing.
• •Real RF model vs. simplified. A physics-based model accounts for distance and per-material wall loss. A simplified model paints a rough circle. The difference shows up the moment a brick wall sits between the AP and your office.

The 2026 comparison table

Sorted by how useful it is for a genuinely free, multi-AP home or homelab plan. Prices are the entry price of the paid SKU where one exists.

"Genuinely free" means free for a real home-scale plan, not a time-locked or feature-locked demo. RF accuracy ranges are typical for a residential interior, not a guarantee.

WiFi Heatmap (us) — genuinely free, vendor-neutral, predictive

We built this for the gap the table makes obvious: a predictive, vendor-neutral, physics-based planner that's actually free for a home. Under the hood it runs a real COST-231 multi-wall path-loss model — distance plus the summed attenuation of every wall the signal crosses — with per-material wall loss calibrated to typical 5 GHz values: drywall 3 dB, glass 2 dB, brick 8 dB, concrete 15 dB. It's also 2.5D multi-floor: signal bleeds between storeys with a ceiling-loss term (wood 5 dB, concrete 18 dB, reinforced concrete 25 dB), so a router on the ground floor shows realistic coverage upstairs.

It runs entirely in the browser — no download, no signup. Your floorplan and walls never leave your machine; everything lives in localStorage. You place any AP from any vendor (or enter Tx power and antenna gain by hand), so it works whether you're running UniFi, Omada, Aruba, MikroTik, ASUS, or a mix.

Things I want to be upfront about: it does not yet do channel or interference planning, SNR/throughput estimation, or measured calibration against a real survey. Those are on the roadmap. Accuracy is roughly ±6–10 dB in a typical home — enough to get the placement decision right, not enough to certify an enterprise WLAN.

The free tier covers up to 5 access points and 1 floor with a watermark on export — enough for most homes and small offices. €9 project pass or €29 lifetime unlocks unlimited APs, unlimited floors, and watermark-free export.

UniFi Design Center — free, but Ubiquiti-only

Ubiquiti's planner is genuinely free, runs in the browser, and lets you lay out any UniFi AP and see predicted coverage. If your bill of materials is already 100% UniFi, it's an obvious first stop — it knows the exact radios you're buying. The two honest catches: it's locked to Ubiquiti hardware (you can't model an Aruba Instant On or a MikroTik cAP next to it), and it uses a simplified RF model with a coarser wall picker than dedicated planners.

When it fits: an all-UniFi home or homelab where you're not comparing vendors and don't need fine-grained per-material walls.

Hamina free tier — capable, but a demo for a home plan

Hamina is the modern, browser-native challenger to Ekahau and the underlying tool is excellent — proper 3D propagation, engineer-grade output. The free tier exists, but it's very limited: roughly 3 APs, with most of the real capability behind a paid subscription. For a homelab plan it behaves more like a demo than a finished free planner. If you're scoping a serious one-off project and don't mind the account, it's worth a look.

When it fits: a one-off serious project where you'll likely move onto a paid plan anyway, and you want enterprise-grade RF math.

NetSpot free — a great scanner, not a planner

NetSpot's free tier is genuinely useful, but it does a different job. It's a Wi-Fi scanner and survey tool: you walk around your space with a laptop and it maps the signal you actually have. That's measured, real-world data — perfect for validating a network after install or hunting down a dead zone. It is not predictive: it can't tell you where to put an AP you haven't bought yet. Predictive planning sits behind the paid tiers ($199+).

When it fits: post-install validation. Pair it with a predictive planner — plan first, then walk the space to confirm.

Ekahau, iBwave, Acrylic — accurate, but overkill for a home

These are the engineer-grade tools, and they're genuinely the best in the world at what they do: precise predictive modelling, full survey support, certified reporting. They're also priced for professional WLAN engineers — roughly €389 to €8,000+ per year depending on the product and SKU. For a 50,000 m² hospital with metal shelving and strict SLAs, you pay for Ekahau or iBwave and it's money well spent. For a 100 m² apartment with two APs, it's the wrong tool at the wrong price.

When it fits: you're a professional certifying a large, mixed-material, high-density deployment — not a homeowner deciding between one router and two.

The practical free workflow

For a home or homelab multi-AP plan, you don't pick one tool — you use two, both free, each for the half of the job it's built for:

1. 1.Plan predictively in WiFi Heatmap. Upload your floorplan, draw walls by material, drop your APs (any vendor), and read the heatmap. Decide AP count and placement before you drill a single hole.
2. 2.Install, then validate with a free scanner like NetSpot. Walk the space and confirm the real signal matches the prediction. Where it doesn't, the prediction told you exactly where to look.

That's the whole loop. The predictive half is where most people get stuck, because the genuinely-free, vendor-neutral, physics-based option barely existed — which is exactly the gap WiFi Heatmap fills.

So which one should you actually use?

• →Mixed-vendor home or homelab, planning before you buy: WiFi Heatmap. Free, vendor-neutral, physics-based, no signup.
• →All-UniFi shop: UniFi Design Center — it knows your exact radios.
• →Already installed, hunting a dead zone: NetSpot free (or any phone survey app). You need a scanner, not a planner.
• →Serious one-off project, willing to sign up: Hamina free tier, knowing you may hit the paywall.
• →Professional, large, high-density deployment: pay for Ekahau, iBwave, or Acrylic. The free tools aren't the right tool for that job.