Tools I have used long enough to have an opinion on. Each entry lists what it does well, what it does poorly, and the kind of work it is the wrong tool for. If a product is not on this page it usually means I have not used it enough to be fair.

Last reviewed: April 2026.

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This page contains no affiliate links. Nothing on it pays a referral fee, and no vendor has paid for placement. If that ever changes, the disclosure here will change with it.

AI tools

ChatGPT and Claude

The two general-purpose chat models I keep open during a workday. Either one will draft an RFI response, sanity-check a takeoff, or summarize a 60-page spec section in under a minute. Pick one, learn its quirks, and stop chasing the model-of-the-week.

• Good for: drafting, summarization, structured questions about code or spec sections, second-opinion math.
• Wrong tool for: anything safety-critical. Both models hallucinate code references and detail callouts. Verify before you sign.

GitHub Copilot

If you write any code, including the small Python or JavaScript scripts that automate one annoying thing on every project, Copilot pays for itself in a week. The autocomplete is good. The chat sidebar is better.

• Good for: small scripts, refactors, regex, the boilerplate around a real algorithm.
• Wrong tool for: writing whole systems unsupervised. It cheerfully produces plausible code that does not handle real inputs.

Construction tech

Bluebeam Revu

Still the standard for PDF markup on construction documents. Custom toolsets, accurate measurements, and stamps that survive a flatten cycle.

• Good for: daily field markup, takeoffs, stamping, comparing drawing revisions.
• Wrong tool for: document storage. It is a markup tool, not a CDE.

PlanGrid (now Autodesk Build Field)

The drawing-on-the-tablet workflow is solid. RFIs and punch are usable. The price has climbed since the Autodesk acquisition and the UI has gotten heavier.

• Good for: field teams that already live in the Autodesk ecosystem.
• Wrong tool for: a small GC trying to keep software costs flat.

Learning

Procore Certifications

Free, self-paced, and useful even if your shop does not use Procore. The construction-management course is a reasonable orientation for someone moving from the field into a project-engineer role.

NEC Code Updates (NFPA)

Worth the subscription if you do anything electrical. The free summaries are enough for most reading, but you need the actual code book before signing anything.

Get in touch

Used a tool I should be reviewing? Disagree with a take above? Email [email protected] or use the contact page.