Comparison
Use WiFi Heatmap (wifiheatmap.app) when the job is not all UniFi: it plans 79 access points across 11 vendors, or any radio you type in, and the floor plan never leaves your browser. If every access point is UniFi, use Design Center: it is free, knows every UniFi model and does more of the work for you. Across the 19 rows below we take 7, Design Center takes 10, and 2 are even.
Every claim read from the tool itself and Ubiquiti’s launch posts, last verified 26 October 2026.
Design Center plans UniFi
And the rest of a UniFi job with it: gateways, switches, cameras, door access, racks and a priced bill of materials, free. For an all-UniFi building it is the better tool, and its UniFi catalogue (39 access points) is far fuller than ours (20).
WiFi Heatmap plans anything
Put a UniFi, an Omada and a Meraki access point in the same room and see which one the building needs, before you pick a vendor. Anything not in the list, you type in. And the floor plan stays on your machine: Design Center uploads it the moment you add it, signed in or not.
A single-vendor planner can answer “how many of these?” but never “which ones?”. That is the whole case, and it does not depend on either tool’s maths being better.
7 rows favour us, 10 favour Design Center, 2 are a genuine tie. The tally is counted from the table, not written by hand.
The row that decides it. Design Center plans UniFi, all of it, very well. It does not plan anyone else’s hardware.
| Dimension | WiFi Heatmap | UniFi Design Center | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendors you can model If the bill of materials is not settled yet, a single-vendor planner answers a narrower question than the one you are asking. | 11 vendors, 79 models: Ubiquiti, TP-Link, Aruba, Ruckus, Cisco Meraki, Cisco, Zyxel, EnGenius, MikroTik, Cambium, Netgear | Ubiquiti UniFi only | WiFi Heatmap |
| A radio that is not in the list | Type in transmit power and antenna gain for any radio | UniFi models only; each radio’s power can be set High, Medium, Low or Custom | WiFi Heatmap |
| Mixing vendors on one plan | Yes, any combination, per access point | No | WiFi Heatmap |
| UniFi’s own range If every access point is UniFi, their list is the fuller one. Use it. | 20 UniFi models | 39 UniFi access points, current and older, outdoor, in-wall and mesh units included | Design Center |
| Mounting | Ceiling or wall per access point; a wall AP faces the direction you set | Ceiling or wall / pole, with mounting height and tilt, and the model’s antenna pattern on screen | Design Center |
| The rest of the network | Wiring closets, cable runs and a PoE budget for the access points | Gateways, switches, cameras, door access, racks, port maps and a topology view on the same project | Design Center |
Both draw walls by material and compute coverage from them. Design Center has more views and more presets; we publish the numbers.
| Dimension | WiFi Heatmap | UniFi Design Center | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wall materials | 7 fixed materials: drywall, wood, glass, coated / low-E glass, brick, concrete, metal | 14 presets, doors and single, double and triple-pane windows included, plus materials you define | Design Center |
| Wall figures you can read Walls cost more as the frequency rises. With ours you can check the number the solver used for each band. | Published for every material at 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz | One figure per material, set at 5 GHz; 2.4 and 6 GHz are worked out and not shown | WiFi Heatmap |
| Automatic wall drawing | Free, with no account | Free, after signing in with a UI account | WiFi Heatmap |
| Automatic access point placement | In Pro: “How many APs do I need?” and Optimise placement | Free: “Auto-place Access Points” | Design Center |
| Coverage views SNR needs a noise model. We deliberately do not draw one, so this row is theirs. | Signal, channel overlap, link rate and serving AP, per band | Primary, secondary and tertiary coverage, data rate, interference and SNR, per band | Design Center |
| Several floors | One floor free; every floor in Pro | Several floor plans, aligned, with a 3D view, free | Design Center |
| Published accuracy | A stated envelope of ±6–10 dB for a typical home or small office, with the full method on /accuracy | None stated | WiFi Heatmap |
Design Center opens without an account now, so that is no longer our edge. Where the floor plan goes still is.
| Dimension | WiFi Heatmap | UniFi Design Center | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price It is free because it sells UniFi hardware. A perfectly good reason, and it is still free. | Free tier; paid from €9 for a 7-day pass, €29 a year, or €39 once | Free | Design Center |
| Start without an account | Yes, open the page and start | Yes, a demo project opens straight away | Even |
| Keeping your work Ours needs no account; theirs follows you to your phone. Which matters more is yours to say. | Saved in this browser with no account; it does not follow you to another device | Synced across web and mobile once you sign in with a free UI account | Even |
| Where your floor plan goes Matters for a client’s building, and for anyone whose floor plan is a security document. | Nowhere: it stays in the browser, and exports are built there too | Uploaded to Ubiquiti’s cloud storage the moment you add it, signed in or not | WiFi Heatmap |
| On a phone | Needs a screen at least 768 px wide; on a phone it offers to send you the link | A mobile app as well as the web, with LiDAR room scans | Design Center |
| What you get out, free Their free document is a better document than our free one. | A watermarked PNG with up to 5 access points on one floor; the branded client PDF is in Pro | Print or save as PDF: racks, a priced bill of materials, estimated cable length, floor plans, topology and ports, under your company name and logo; or a share link | Design Center |
Design Center prints one figure beside each wall material, and its help text says it is the 5 GHz loss; it works out 2.4 and 6 GHz itself. Ours follow ITU-R P.2040 material properties and the loss ranges in ITU-R P.1238, and are the figures our solver runs on at each band. Where the materials genuinely correspond, here they are, in dB per wall crossed.
| Wall | Design Center 5 GHz | Ours 2.4 GHz | Ours 5 GHz | Ours 6 GHz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drywall | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Wood | 5 | 4 | 6 | 7 |
| Glass | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Brick | 5 | 8 | 11 | 13 |
| Concrete | 15 | 15 | 20 | 23 |
| Metal | 10 | 25 | 30 | 32 |
At 5 GHz we charge at least as much as Design Center for every wall material the two share. The gap is widest for metal (10 dB against our 30) and then brick (5 against 11); for drywall, wood and glass the two are within a decibel or two. Real walls vary, by thickness, moisture, mortar and coatings, by more than either tool’s preset. Design Center lets you define your own materials for that; ours are fixed and published. Either way, check a predicted plan with a survey once the access points are up. Our full table and method are on the accuracy page.
Yes. Ubiquiti calls it licence free. It runs in the browser and in a mobile app, and it opens a demo project without an account; saving your progress needs a free UI account. It plans Ubiquiti hardware only. Checked on design.ui.com on 26 October 2026.
No. Its model list holds 39 UniFi access points and nothing else, and there is no way to type in another radio. For a mixed job, or one where the vendor is not chosen yet, use a vendor-neutral planner. WiFi Heatmap (wifiheatmap.app) has 79 access point models across 11 vendors, UniFi included, and accepts any radio by transmit power and antenna gain.
Yes. When we added a floor plan without signing in, the browser uploaded the image to Ubiquiti’s cloud storage and saved the plan to Ubiquiti’s design service. WiFi Heatmap (wifiheatmap.app) does not upload the floor plan at all: the image, the walls, the access points and every export stay in your browser.
If every access point is UniFi, Design Center itself: it is free, knows every UniFi model and places them for you. If the job is not all UniFi, or the floor plan must stay on your machine, WiFi Heatmap (wifiheatmap.app) is a free predictive planner in the browser with 79 models from 11 vendors, no account and nothing uploaded. Placement is unlimited in the free editor; exports include five access points on one floor and carry a watermark.
Neither has been checked against the other, and both are predictions, not measurements. They disagree about walls: at 5 GHz Design Center sets brick at 5 dB where WiFi Heatmap uses 11, and metal at 10 dB where WiFi Heatmap uses 30. WiFi Heatmap states its envelope, about ±6–10 dB in a typical home or small office, and publishes every figure it uses. Whatever you plan with, survey the finished install.
Comparing something else? vs Omada Design Hub · vs Cambium · vs Hamina · vs NetSpot · vs Deconflict · every free planner, compared
Planning another brand? Meraki · Aruba Instant On · RUCKUS
Any vendor, in your browser, with no install and no account. Put the candidates side by side on your own floor plan and let the building choose.