Bluebeam Revu has been the go-to PDF markup tool for AEC professionals for years, deeply integrated into design reviews and project workflows across the industry. Part of what made it stick was the licensing model: one purchase per user, with support running through the full version lifecycle. Teams bought in, built on it, and kept running it.
Revu 20 is the last version that worked that way, which Bluebeam stopped selling licenses for in October 2023. Revu 21 moved to an annual subscription model and a Cloud-first development direction, which is now the only supported path forward. With that change in direction, Bluebeam has also set a firm end date for Revu 20: support ends July 31, 2026, and Studio access closes December 31.
If your team is still on Revu 20, the deadline means you’ll have to make a decision. Do you commit to Bluebeam's subscription model and where the platform is heading, or use this moment to evaluate whether another platform fits your team better?
This guide covers what each option actually involves.
End of life means a vendor formally stops supporting a product version. Security patches stop, technical support closes, and access to cloud-connected features gets cut off on a set date. The software doesn't disappear from your machine, but it stops being a maintained, supported tool.
For most software, that's a manageable transition. Bluebeam is more complicated, because Revu without Studio isn't really Revu as most AEC teams use it.
Studio is Bluebeam's cloud collaboration layer, the part of the product that powers Sessions and Projects. It's where multi-discipline reviews happen, where markup feedback gets consolidated across a project team, and where document sets get managed through revision cycles. Strip that out and what's left is a capable solo markup tool, but the collaborative workflow that architecture, engineering, and construction teams depend on for design reviews is gone.
Bluebeam structured the Revu 20 EOL across three milestones, two of which are still ahead. Each one has different consequences for different parts of your team.
Bluebeam stopped selling new Revu 20 licenses in October 2023. Teams already on perpetual licenses could keep using the product, but no new seats were available.
For anyone still on Revu 20 today, this is the version they'll be managing through the remaining deadlines.
After July 31, there's no help desk to call if something breaks, and no security updates coming to address vulnerabilities that emerge after that date.
But for most firms, the more significant issue is Gateway going dark. Releasing seats when staff turn over, moving licenses to new machines, and managing who has access to what all have to be handled through Bluebeam's admin portal today.
After July 31, that portal closes for Revu 20. And if a machine fails or gets replaced, there's no guarantee Bluebeam will honor a re-registration on new hardware.
After December 31, Revu 20 can no longer connect to Studio. Sessions and Projects go dark, along with any third-party integrations that route through Studio to sync documents or markups. The desktop app keeps working, but for teams running collaborative reviews, it's a significantly diminished tool.
Before that date, anything stored in Studio Projects should be downloaded. Bluebeam doesn't automatically delete Projects, but accessing them after December 31 requires a supported version of Revu. Sessions are less forgiving: after 180 days of inactivity they're permanently removed from Bluebeam's servers, so anything worth keeping should be pulled well before the deadline.
Every team still on Revu 20 has to make a call before these deadlines land. The right answer depends on how your team actually uses the product, what your device mix looks like, and whether the roles that depend on Bluebeam most heavily will get full value from a Revu 21 subscription.
For Windows-first teams with established Bluebeam workflows, upgrading is often the path of least resistance.
Revu 21 moves to a named-user subscription model billed annually, where one plan covers up to five devices per user and any lapses in subscription lead to immediate suspension of access. It’s far more expensive than the perpetual license, but it’s a cost some firms can justify.
Sticking with Bluebeam also means Tool Chests, custom markup libraries, and CAD pipeline configurations carry over from Revu 20, so the accumulated setup most firms have built over years stays intact.
The bigger adjustment is the tier structure. Revu 20 eXtreme gave power users the full feature set in a single purchase. In Revu 21, those capabilities are distributed across three plans, and the tier your team lands on determines what they can actually do.
While Bluebeam is working to improve Cloud functionality, its lack of feature parity means team members on non-windows devices won’t be able to keep up in the near future.
Many teams will continue to use Revu 20 after it reaches End of Support, and as long as your licenses and devices are stable, it may be the right choice while you decide how to move forward. The product keeps functioning through Studio until December 31, so collaborative review workflows stay intact through the end of the year.
But past that date, the picture changes. Studio goes dark, and what remains is a desktop app capable of individual markup work only. Meanwhile, hardware failures become unrecoverable without guaranteed re-registration, and security vulnerabilities accumulate without patches, putting project progress at risk.
For teams using Revu 20 as a shared project tool, that's not a sustainable long-term strategy.
The Revu 20 deadline is your opportunity to reevaluate the PDF markup and real-time design review market. Revu was the flagship option for a long time, but it’s no longer the only one in town.
The platform's strengths have always been concentrated on Windows desktop, and for firms that have grown beyond that, Revu 21 probably isn't the best value.
Non-Windows users work through a Cloud experience that doesn't match the desktop feature set, so teams on Core or Complete with architects on Mac or project managers on iPad are paying for capabilities that don't reach everyone on the plan.
External reviewers need paid seats to meaningfully participate in Studio, which adds up fast on projects with active consultant and subcontractor involvement. And iPad users lost their native app at the end of 2025 to a Cloud replacement currently sitting at 1.5/5 on the App Store.
If your team has been working around these limitations, it’s worth considering a tool that fits the way you work.
Drawboard Projects is built around collaborative design review as the default workflow. Every contributor works on the same drawing in the same state, whether they're on a Windows desktop, an iPad on site, or a Mac in the office, and markups sync continuously without any session infrastructure to manage.
The most direct comparison is for teams running coordinated reviews across disciplines and revisions. CAD-heavy batch automation and high-volume quantity takeoffs aren’t Drawboard Projects’s focus, so Bluebeam's desktop toolset remains strong there.
Bluebeam Studio Sessions support real-time simultaneous markup, but they're discrete events: a host on Core or above creates a session, invites participants, and closes it when the review is done. For teams running regular iterative reviews across multiple disciplines, that session management overhead compounds. Someone has to own each session, participants have to be invited each time, and the review exists as a defined event with a start and end.
Drawboard Projects works as a persistent shared workspace. Markups sync continuously across all contributors with no session to open or close. Threaded conversations stay anchored to their location on the sheet, and revisions are automatically stacked so the full history of a drawing is visible without manual version management. Teams doing frequent, overlapping reviews across a project avoid the session management cycle entirely.
Drawboard Projects offers native apps on Windows, iPad, and iOS, alongside a full-featured web app for Mac and Android. Architects on Mac, project managers on iPad, and field teams on phones all get the same review environment with similar capabilities.
Bluebeam Cloud, the current option for non-Windows users, is a web-based experience that doesn't include the CAD integrations, advanced measurements, or automation tools available in the Revu desktop application. Non-Windows users on Core or Complete are paying for a tier that doesn't fully reach them.
Bluebeam does allow non-subscribers to join Studio Sessions with a free Bluebeam ID, giving them access to a limited markup toolset: clouds, callouts, lines, and arrows via web or mobile. Reviewers who need the full markup toolset to participate meaningfully require a paid seat.
Drawboard Projects guest access is free and gives external reviewers a complete review experience, including layered markups with contributor attribution and threaded conversations anchored to the drawing. Firms regularly bringing clients, consultants, or subcontractors into reviews will find the difference in what guests can actually do without a paid seat worth factoring into the cost comparison.
Tasks in Drawboard Projects let teams flag issues directly on drawings with due dates, custom statuses, photo attachments, and threaded comments. Every task carries a full history covering status changes, comments, and attachments, so progress is visible without a separate tracking tool. The task list sits alongside the markup view, which means issues raised during a review are captured and assigned in the same place the review happens.
Bluebeam doesn't offer this natively, and teams typically cover the gap with a separate tool or an informal process that's difficult to audit at project closeout.
The instinct for most teams will be to renew with Bluebeam. Years of Tool Chests, markup libraries, and established workflows can make it feel like all that time was wasted if you switch to a new tool.
But the perpetual license model that made that investment feel permanent is already gone. What's left is an annual subscription decision, and that reframes the question: not whether switching costs something, but whether staying still delivers the value it once did.
The window between now and December 31 is enough time to evaluate options properly, run a pilot, and move without disrupting active projects. Most firms that get caught out by a platform transition underestimated how long that process takes, not how hard it is.
Start a 30-day free trial of Drawboard Projects and run it against a real project before the deadline forces the decision. Prefer to see it first? Book a demo
Yes, you can still use Revu 20 after EOL, but in a significantly reduced capacity. The desktop application keeps functioning for solo markup work after December 31, but Studio access cuts off entirely, meaning Sessions, Projects, and any integrations that connect through Studio all stop working. Security patches also stopped on July 31, and hardware re-registration after that date isn't guaranteed by Bluebeam.
Revu 20 was a one-time purchase. Revu 21 is subscription-only, billed annually per named user across three tiers: Basics ($260/year), Core ($330/year), and Complete ($440/year). There's no monthly billing option and no grace period if a subscription lapses, and significant external collaboration requires a license.
Studio Projects are never automatically deleted by Bluebeam and can only be removed by the Project owner. After December 31, 2026, Revu 20 users lose the ability to access them, but the data isn't immediately purged.
After 180 days of inactivity, Sessions are permanently deleted from Bluebeam's servers. Anything worth keeping should be downloaded well before your access ends.
Yes, you can use Bluebeam on Mac, but not Revu natively. Revu for Mac was discontinued in 2020 and reached official end of life in June 2023.
The current option for Mac users is Bluebeam Cloud via a web browser, which doesn't include the CAD integrations, advanced measurements, or automation tools available in the Windows desktop application. Running Revu through Parallels virtualization is technically possible but not officially supported by Bluebeam.
Yes. Tool Chests and custom markup libraries carry over from Revu 20 to Revu 21, so the configured toolsets and standards most firms have built up over years stay intact through the upgrade. CAD pipeline configurations connected to AutoCAD, Revit, and SolidWorks also transfer.
The main preparation step is downloading any files from Studio Projects before your access ends on December 31, 2026. Drawboard Projects supports OCR-assisted sheet intake, so uploading existing drawing sets is straightforward.
A 30-day free trial gives your team enough time to run a live review against a real project and identify any gaps before committing. For larger firms, a demo with the Drawboard team can help you realize your specific setup and integration requirements.
Bluebeam Revu has been the go-to PDF markup tool for AEC professionals for years, deeply integrated into design reviews and project workflows across the industry. Part of what made it stick was the licensing model: one purchase per user, with support running through the full version lifecycle. Teams bought in, built on it, and kept running it.
Revu 20 is the last version that worked that way, which Bluebeam stopped selling licenses for in October 2023. Revu 21 moved to an annual subscription model and a Cloud-first development direction, which is now the only supported path forward. With that change in direction, Bluebeam has also set a firm end date for Revu 20: support ends July 31, 2026, and Studio access closes December 31.
If your team is still on Revu 20, the deadline means you’ll have to make a decision. Do you commit to Bluebeam's subscription model and where the platform is heading, or use this moment to evaluate whether another platform fits your team better?
This guide covers what each option actually involves.
End of life means a vendor formally stops supporting a product version. Security patches stop, technical support closes, and access to cloud-connected features gets cut off on a set date. The software doesn't disappear from your machine, but it stops being a maintained, supported tool.
For most software, that's a manageable transition. Bluebeam is more complicated, because Revu without Studio isn't really Revu as most AEC teams use it.
Studio is Bluebeam's cloud collaboration layer, the part of the product that powers Sessions and Projects. It's where multi-discipline reviews happen, where markup feedback gets consolidated across a project team, and where document sets get managed through revision cycles. Strip that out and what's left is a capable solo markup tool, but the collaborative workflow that architecture, engineering, and construction teams depend on for design reviews is gone.
Bluebeam structured the Revu 20 EOL across three milestones, two of which are still ahead. Each one has different consequences for different parts of your team.
Bluebeam stopped selling new Revu 20 licenses in October 2023. Teams already on perpetual licenses could keep using the product, but no new seats were available.
For anyone still on Revu 20 today, this is the version they'll be managing through the remaining deadlines.
After July 31, there's no help desk to call if something breaks, and no security updates coming to address vulnerabilities that emerge after that date.
But for most firms, the more significant issue is Gateway going dark. Releasing seats when staff turn over, moving licenses to new machines, and managing who has access to what all have to be handled through Bluebeam's admin portal today.
After July 31, that portal closes for Revu 20. And if a machine fails or gets replaced, there's no guarantee Bluebeam will honor a re-registration on new hardware.
After December 31, Revu 20 can no longer connect to Studio. Sessions and Projects go dark, along with any third-party integrations that route through Studio to sync documents or markups. The desktop app keeps working, but for teams running collaborative reviews, it's a significantly diminished tool.
Before that date, anything stored in Studio Projects should be downloaded. Bluebeam doesn't automatically delete Projects, but accessing them after December 31 requires a supported version of Revu. Sessions are less forgiving: after 180 days of inactivity they're permanently removed from Bluebeam's servers, so anything worth keeping should be pulled well before the deadline.
Every team still on Revu 20 has to make a call before these deadlines land. The right answer depends on how your team actually uses the product, what your device mix looks like, and whether the roles that depend on Bluebeam most heavily will get full value from a Revu 21 subscription.
For Windows-first teams with established Bluebeam workflows, upgrading is often the path of least resistance.
Revu 21 moves to a named-user subscription model billed annually, where one plan covers up to five devices per user and any lapses in subscription lead to immediate suspension of access. It’s far more expensive than the perpetual license, but it’s a cost some firms can justify.
Sticking with Bluebeam also means Tool Chests, custom markup libraries, and CAD pipeline configurations carry over from Revu 20, so the accumulated setup most firms have built over years stays intact.
The bigger adjustment is the tier structure. Revu 20 eXtreme gave power users the full feature set in a single purchase. In Revu 21, those capabilities are distributed across three plans, and the tier your team lands on determines what they can actually do.
While Bluebeam is working to improve Cloud functionality, its lack of feature parity means team members on non-windows devices won’t be able to keep up in the near future.
Many teams will continue to use Revu 20 after it reaches End of Support, and as long as your licenses and devices are stable, it may be the right choice while you decide how to move forward. The product keeps functioning through Studio until December 31, so collaborative review workflows stay intact through the end of the year.
But past that date, the picture changes. Studio goes dark, and what remains is a desktop app capable of individual markup work only. Meanwhile, hardware failures become unrecoverable without guaranteed re-registration, and security vulnerabilities accumulate without patches, putting project progress at risk.
For teams using Revu 20 as a shared project tool, that's not a sustainable long-term strategy.
The Revu 20 deadline is your opportunity to reevaluate the PDF markup and real-time design review market. Revu was the flagship option for a long time, but it’s no longer the only one in town.
The platform's strengths have always been concentrated on Windows desktop, and for firms that have grown beyond that, Revu 21 probably isn't the best value.
Non-Windows users work through a Cloud experience that doesn't match the desktop feature set, so teams on Core or Complete with architects on Mac or project managers on iPad are paying for capabilities that don't reach everyone on the plan.
External reviewers need paid seats to meaningfully participate in Studio, which adds up fast on projects with active consultant and subcontractor involvement. And iPad users lost their native app at the end of 2025 to a Cloud replacement currently sitting at 1.5/5 on the App Store.
If your team has been working around these limitations, it’s worth considering a tool that fits the way you work.
Drawboard Projects is built around collaborative design review as the default workflow. Every contributor works on the same drawing in the same state, whether they're on a Windows desktop, an iPad on site, or a Mac in the office, and markups sync continuously without any session infrastructure to manage.
The most direct comparison is for teams running coordinated reviews across disciplines and revisions. CAD-heavy batch automation and high-volume quantity takeoffs aren’t Drawboard Projects’s focus, so Bluebeam's desktop toolset remains strong there.
Bluebeam Studio Sessions support real-time simultaneous markup, but they're discrete events: a host on Core or above creates a session, invites participants, and closes it when the review is done. For teams running regular iterative reviews across multiple disciplines, that session management overhead compounds. Someone has to own each session, participants have to be invited each time, and the review exists as a defined event with a start and end.
Drawboard Projects works as a persistent shared workspace. Markups sync continuously across all contributors with no session to open or close. Threaded conversations stay anchored to their location on the sheet, and revisions are automatically stacked so the full history of a drawing is visible without manual version management. Teams doing frequent, overlapping reviews across a project avoid the session management cycle entirely.
Drawboard Projects offers native apps on Windows, iPad, and iOS, alongside a full-featured web app for Mac and Android. Architects on Mac, project managers on iPad, and field teams on phones all get the same review environment with similar capabilities.
Bluebeam Cloud, the current option for non-Windows users, is a web-based experience that doesn't include the CAD integrations, advanced measurements, or automation tools available in the Revu desktop application. Non-Windows users on Core or Complete are paying for a tier that doesn't fully reach them.
Bluebeam does allow non-subscribers to join Studio Sessions with a free Bluebeam ID, giving them access to a limited markup toolset: clouds, callouts, lines, and arrows via web or mobile. Reviewers who need the full markup toolset to participate meaningfully require a paid seat.
Drawboard Projects guest access is free and gives external reviewers a complete review experience, including layered markups with contributor attribution and threaded conversations anchored to the drawing. Firms regularly bringing clients, consultants, or subcontractors into reviews will find the difference in what guests can actually do without a paid seat worth factoring into the cost comparison.
Tasks in Drawboard Projects let teams flag issues directly on drawings with due dates, custom statuses, photo attachments, and threaded comments. Every task carries a full history covering status changes, comments, and attachments, so progress is visible without a separate tracking tool. The task list sits alongside the markup view, which means issues raised during a review are captured and assigned in the same place the review happens.
Bluebeam doesn't offer this natively, and teams typically cover the gap with a separate tool or an informal process that's difficult to audit at project closeout.
The instinct for most teams will be to renew with Bluebeam. Years of Tool Chests, markup libraries, and established workflows can make it feel like all that time was wasted if you switch to a new tool.
But the perpetual license model that made that investment feel permanent is already gone. What's left is an annual subscription decision, and that reframes the question: not whether switching costs something, but whether staying still delivers the value it once did.
The window between now and December 31 is enough time to evaluate options properly, run a pilot, and move without disrupting active projects. Most firms that get caught out by a platform transition underestimated how long that process takes, not how hard it is.
Start a 30-day free trial of Drawboard Projects and run it against a real project before the deadline forces the decision. Prefer to see it first? Book a demo
Yes, you can still use Revu 20 after EOL, but in a significantly reduced capacity. The desktop application keeps functioning for solo markup work after December 31, but Studio access cuts off entirely, meaning Sessions, Projects, and any integrations that connect through Studio all stop working. Security patches also stopped on July 31, and hardware re-registration after that date isn't guaranteed by Bluebeam.
Revu 20 was a one-time purchase. Revu 21 is subscription-only, billed annually per named user across three tiers: Basics ($260/year), Core ($330/year), and Complete ($440/year). There's no monthly billing option and no grace period if a subscription lapses, and significant external collaboration requires a license.
Studio Projects are never automatically deleted by Bluebeam and can only be removed by the Project owner. After December 31, 2026, Revu 20 users lose the ability to access them, but the data isn't immediately purged.
After 180 days of inactivity, Sessions are permanently deleted from Bluebeam's servers. Anything worth keeping should be downloaded well before your access ends.
Yes, you can use Bluebeam on Mac, but not Revu natively. Revu for Mac was discontinued in 2020 and reached official end of life in June 2023.
The current option for Mac users is Bluebeam Cloud via a web browser, which doesn't include the CAD integrations, advanced measurements, or automation tools available in the Windows desktop application. Running Revu through Parallels virtualization is technically possible but not officially supported by Bluebeam.
Yes. Tool Chests and custom markup libraries carry over from Revu 20 to Revu 21, so the configured toolsets and standards most firms have built up over years stay intact through the upgrade. CAD pipeline configurations connected to AutoCAD, Revit, and SolidWorks also transfer.
The main preparation step is downloading any files from Studio Projects before your access ends on December 31, 2026. Drawboard Projects supports OCR-assisted sheet intake, so uploading existing drawing sets is straightforward.
A 30-day free trial gives your team enough time to run a live review against a real project and identify any gaps before committing. For larger firms, a demo with the Drawboard team can help you realize your specific setup and integration requirements.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
