BIMCraft: an open-source BIM clone of Revit built by a Brazilian student, 22 days, 949 stars, pushed by architecture creators

In Oct 2026 evening (UTC) 11, a user named matbrgz opened an issue in ArtCraft's GitHub repo titled "[App Request] BIMCraft – open BIM for architecture (Revit / ArchiCAD alternative)". He explained BIM in a sentence: "You're not drawing lines, you're building a house out of smart parts: walls, doors, slabs. Change one wall and plan, section and 3D all change together." He also checked the price: Autodesk Revit runs about $3,005 per seat per year. Four days later, in Oct 15, Pedro Medeiros (GitHub user IPedrax), a computer engineering student in Brazil who does WhatsApp bot freelance work and is writing a cyberpunk novel, created a repo with the same name. By Nov 6 it had 949 stars, 155 forks, and installers downloaded about 19.6k times. It is his only public repo on GitHub.

What it is

A free, open-source building modeling app modeled on Revit. The first line of the README reads "an open-source, clean-room take on the Autodesk Revit workflow, rebuilt in pure Rust". What it can draw is Revit's set: levels, walls, doors and windows, floors, rooms, columns, stairs, roofs. Plan, section, elevation and 3D views all come from the same model, it can lay out sheets, read and write IFC (the open format of the building industry), and read Revit's own .rvt files.

Two things make it instantly recognizable to Revit users: the interface copies the Ribbon, properties panel and project browser, and two-letter shortcuts like WA for walls and DR for doors work the same. Every action is also a command, so AI agents can model through MCP or the command line. There are installers for Windows, macOS and Linux, plus Flatpak, and you can open a sample house right after installing. The README embeds a 34-second demo video with AI-generated narration. The status says "early development".

The README states that its architecture, rules and MCP design follow CADCraft. CADCraft is ArtCraft's "open-source AutoCAD", released that same month.

How the stars climbed

Pulling YouTube videos from Oct 10 onward with BIMCraft in the title, the top 40 together have about 410k views (11-06). One channel, Open Source Architecture, posted more than 15 videos in two weeks, long-form, Shorts and livestreams, basically one per release. There are also a Portuguese creator Allan Brito, Arabic and Thai channels, and a series filmed by one contributor.

Developer circles barely moved: almost 30 days with no X posts about it turned up in search, and none on Hacker News either. This is the reverse of CADCraft. CADCraft's stars were pushed up by the parent brand on HN and X together. BIMCraft's stars came from architects and BIM practitioners, via the YouTube and LinkedIn they watch.

One number shows who is coming: installers were downloaded about 19.6k times, 20 times the star count, and the Windows msi was the most downloaded (one version alone got 0.9.0 downloads at v2,047). Developers who star a repo don't usually install a Windows modeling app; these people are trying to see whether it can replace Revit. The download count may include auto-updates and mirror crawls, which hasn't been broken out (inference: real people installing account for most of it).

Why this one and not the earlier ones

Several people are building for the same need at once:

The difference comes down to two things you can put in a video title. First, "looks exactly like Revit": the Blender 3D Architect video with 57k views had "Even the Interface" in its title. ConstructCAD deliberately avoids copying the look, which is safer legally, but creators have nothing to film. Second, "opens .rvt": .rvt is Revit's proprietary format, architects' old projects are locked inside it, and "RVT Files Are Free Now" hits harder than any feature list. "Pure Rust" and "agent-drivable" only came up in LinkedIn's AI discussion, and every Craft project in that wave has them, so they aren't selling points.

What keeps people is iteration speed. In 3 weeks it shipped 11 versions and 905 commits, adding linked models, schedules, phases, a family editor, structure, plumbing and electrical one by one, so creators had something new every week. It has more than 22 outside contributors, including someone who filed issues against Brazil's electrical standard NBR 5410 and fire codes, showing Brazilian engineers are actually using it. The code is most likely mostly AI-written (the repo has a CLAUDE.md, and media widely call it vibe-coded), though the author hasn't publicly stated the proportion.

Can you follow it?

Don't bother trying to build "open-source Revit" now: BIMCraft, ConstructCAD and getcadcraft already hold the space, and later entrants can't even get the name. But this case has one lesson more useful than CADCraft's: an unknown person with a single repo, no parent brand, still got close to a thousand stars and 20k downloads. He did it with three things that followers can get too:

1. People publicly ask for it. ArtCraft's App Request issues are themselves a demand list, and each ticket says who the user is, how much they'd pay, and what they're complaining about. Whoever first produces something that installs and works takes the name and the attention.
2. Pick an expensive, resented pro tool with fixed operating habits, and match its look one-to-one. "No relearning needed" is the best pitch and the easiest thing to film.
3. Pitch it to industry creators, not developer circles. AEC YouTube channels need new topics, and they'll write "Autodesk Panics"-style headlines themselves.

The risks are in the same picture. Rust repos created after Sep 20 with "craft" in the name already number 382 on GitHub. ArtCraft shipped craft-anything in Oct 31, turning "clone any software" into a tool. BIMCraft's daily adds have already dropped from 200 to around 20. The window is still open, but it's narrowing.

If it were you

B. The path works: one person, no brand, can still make it, and this time the traffic came from industry creators, not the AI crowd. But BIM is already crowded, switching to another industry means you have to understand that trade yourself, and you have to sustain weekly releases. 949 stars is a good result, not a hit, and the heat is already fading.

Who it suits: people from architecture, structural, MEP, surveying, audio/video or electronics design, or people who know someone in those fields and can describe the habits and pet peeves of long-time users; developers who can use an AI agent to ship an installable version a week; people in language communities where "software is too expensive, everyone pirates it" holds true (Brazil, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia).

Who it doesn't suit: people who don't understand the target industry and just want to apply an "XXCraft" template; people who only publish source code and don't ship installers (those users won't run cargo build themselves); and people who want to build open-source Revit or open-source AutoCAD.

How to do it: first look in ArtCraft's App Request and in the forums of various pro software for the one that's been named but has no builder: expensive industry software that is Windows-only with weak open alternatives (inference: structural calculation, landscape, interior rendering, plumbing, PCB, video color grading, the narrower the better). Copy the look and shortcuts of the old software; find a proprietary format it has and build a reader for it as the hook (BIMCraft's .rvt plays this role); ship installers for all three platforms from the first version; put a full finished-product image and a short demo video at the top of the README. Another route is to fill what BIMCraft hasn't done well: importing DWG underlays (architects are already asking in issues), country-specific code and family libraries, and tutorials.

How to get users: Start with the YouTube channels and LinkedIn practitioners in this industry, not HN. DM the few channels that already make "free alternative" videos, and give them a new feature to film with each release. Title non-English industry channels (Portuguese, Arabic, Thai) simply as "Free alternative to XX". Finally, drop the link under the issue where people asked for it.

Deadline: The window where "AI clones a big software in weeks" still counts as news is about the next one or two months, until roughly the end of 2026. After that, anyone can do these clones and they stop being news. Only the ones people actually use will remain.

How we'd be wrong: ① If over the next month, a personal clone project in another industry uses this same playbook and doesn't get even 300 stars, it means BIMCraft runs on resentment unique to Revit, and the grade should drop to C; ② if BIMCraft's daily star gains fall to single digits and contributors stop submitting, it means this wave was mostly curiosity driven by videos, with few real users; ③ conversely, if an architecture firm publicly says they delivered drawings with it, or its downloads keep rising with each release, it shows this kind of project can go from "collecting stars" to "actually used", and the grade should go up.

Data and sources

• GitHub: IPedrax/BIMCraft's README, Releases download counts, contributors (11-06); daily stars (from 10-22); storytold/artcraft issue #2157 and its comments; star counts for getcadcraft/bimcraft, francisreboucas/constructcad, storytold/cadcraft, and tangency-labs/solidcraft (11-06); the author's GitHub profile bio.
• YouTube: videos from Blender 3D Architect (10-21, 10-23, 10-26), BIM for Interior Design (10-25), Open Source Architecture, IamDyna, Allan Brito and other channels; view counts read as 11-06.
• LinkedIn: posts by Dinar Sharafutdinov (10-28), Salman Pey (10-26) and others.
• Media: Parametric Architecture (10-29), CADSoftUSA review (10-24), note.com (10-31).
• X and Hacker News: no relevant discussion found in the last 30 days (11-06).