Structural Engineering Software & Resource Directory

A working engineer keeps a toolbox of trusted websites — the authority to download a standard, the manufacturer app to size an engineered joist, the analysis package that returns member forces, the tool that pins down wind and seismic loads. This page gathers those links in one place, organized by what each one is for, with side-by-side comparison tables in the key sections so you can pick the right tool quickly.

This is a living directory — we keep adding to it over time, with more links and, where they help, screenshots. If a tool you rely on isn't here yet, it likely will be soon.

A quick mental map first, because these tools do different jobs and newcomers often mix them up:

• Code & load authorities give you the rules and the demands — the standards (NDS, ASCE 7, AISC 360, ACI 318) and the loads acting on your structure.
• Analysis software gives you the forces — it models the structure and returns moments, shears, and reactions.
• Design software takes those forces and checks or sizes a member against a code.
• Manufacturer (EWP) tools size a specific proprietary product — an LVL, an I-joist — using design values you won't find in the NDS.

Plenty of packages blur these lines, and that's fine. Use the grouping as a starting point, not a rulebook.

#Codes, standards & design loads

Start here: the bodies that write the standards, the platforms that let you read the adopted codes, and the tools that quantify the loads you design against.

Standard-developing organizations (SDOs). The bodies that author the design standards you cite. Their sites host the current editions, errata, and free technical resources.

Straight to the standards. The design standards those bodies publish — the documents the code adopts by reference and a member check ultimately cites.

Reading the adopted code itself. The building code that governs a project (IBC, IRC, and their referenced standards) is read online through one of these two platforms.

Design loads. Once you know the code, you need the numbers it asks for.

Prescriptive span chapters. The specific code chapters that carry conventional light-frame span tables (the source behind prescriptive joist/rafter sizing).

Free web calculators. Free browser tools from AWC and APA that apply the NDS and AWC SDPWS directly — handy for a quick check or to confirm a prescriptive choice.

#Engineered wood products (EWP)

When you specify a proprietary product — an LVL header, a manufactured I-joist — its design values come from the manufacturer's evaluation report, not the NDS. This section has both the apps that size those products and the published documents behind their numbers.

Sizing tools. Free cloud apps that pick a product and check it against your loads.

Each manufacturer app is tuned to its own products and ESR values — handy when the product is already chosen, but tied to that brand. A code-based design tool (below) — StructSuite, for instance — instead works from the NDS and the manufacturer ESR values directly, so several brands of LVL/LSL/PSL (Microllam, Versa-Lam, TimberStrand, Parallam) sit side by side in one check.

Evaluation reports. Where each manufacturer's code-recognized design values for engineered wood actually live.

#Structural analysis & design software

The packages firms run day to day. Some are pure analysis (you take the forces elsewhere to design), some are component-design libraries, several do both, and a few are wood-specialized. The table after the cards lays them side by side.

How they line up. The cards above say what each tool is for; these two tables compare them on the things that actually decide day-to-day fit — where it runs and what it costs, then the loads it can build for you. (Split in two so nothing gets squeezed on a narrow screen. ForteWEB is carried in from the engineered-wood section above, since you'd weigh it alongside these.)

Where it runs, and what's free.

The loads it builds for you (per ASCE 7). A check mark means the tool generates that load type for you, rather than expecting you to arrive with it.

Reading this one: Dead means superimposed dead built from material/assembly weights (ASCE 7-22 Table C3.1-1a) and Live from occupancy (Table 4.3-1) — not the structural self-weight an analysis model already computes on its own. As the marks show, generating wind and seismic is common across the analysis and component tools; building dead and live from the tables is the unusual part. Some wind/seismic generators are paid add-ons. These were read from each vendor's own site (June 2026); tell us if one is wrong. On cost, most "free" options are limited in scope or time (a trial, a student license, a capped tier, or — ForteWEB — free but tied to one manufacturer's products), while StructSuite's full module set is free with no time limit (paid Pro: $100/month or $1,000/year).

A couple of patterns fall out of these tables. The browser tools — StructSuite, ForteWEB, SkyCiv, SPEC Toolbox and Calcs.com — are the ones you can open on a phone or a borrowed laptop and that keep your work in the cloud; the desktop packages (RISA, CSI, ENERCALC, WoodWorks, StruCalc, ASDIP, Dlubal) are long-established and run locally, tied to the machine they're installed on. On loads, generating wind and seismic from ASCE 7 is common, so for an everyday gravity design the line that actually separates the tools is whether one also builds the dead and live loads from the ASCE 7 tables. And every tool exports a PDF for the reviewer; a few also offer a hosted view-only link and auto-assemble the submittal cover sheet and table of contents. For light-frame / residential wood specifically, the wood-specialized options carry the NDS/SDPWS and ASCE 7 detail that general finite-element tools leave to you.

#Connectors, trusses & framing hardware

Wood structures live and die by their connections and framing systems. These tools cover the hardware and the prefabricated components.

Simpson Strong-Tie product literature. The catalogs and bulletins that carry the allowable loads, installation requirements, and code listings you cite when you specify a connector or lateral system.

#Learning & video channels

Channels worth following — practical structural and civil engineering explained on video. A good way to build intuition, see worked examples, and pick up code know-how between projects. (Listed in the order suggested; tell us if you'd like them ranked by audience size.)

#Follow on Instagram

Accounts worth following for quick visual inspiration — real-world structures, framing and detailing from the field, a useful reality check against the drawings.

#Choosing a tool for light-frame & residential wood

Most of the work on a wood-framed building isn't whole-structure finite-element analysis — it's a stack of member, shear-wall, connection and footing checks, plus the wind and seismic loads that drive them. A few practical questions narrow the field:

• Do you need the loads too, or just the member check? General analysis tools (RISA, CSI, Dlubal) and most component libraries expect ASCE 7 loads as input. A smaller set build the loads for you — and fewer still go beyond wind and seismic to also assemble dead and live loads straight from the ASCE 7-22 tables (material/assembly weights and occupancy live loads), e.g., StructSuite. If you'd rather not run the load takeoff separately, prefer a tool with built-in ASCE 7 modules.
• Desktop or browser? Desktop suites (WoodWorks, ENERCALC, StruCalc) are mature and run offline. Browser tools (StructSuite, SkyCiv, SPEC Toolbox, Calcs.com) install nothing and are easy to open — or hand to a colleague or plan checker — from any machine.
• How does the reviewer see your work? Some workflows still mean printing a thick calc package. Tools that produce a shareable, view-only link to the step-by-step calculations (e.g., StructSuite) let a plan-check engineer follow each substitution and code reference online, which can shorten the review loop.
• Who assembles the package? A submittal isn't just the member checks — it needs a cover sheet and a table of contents tying the package together for the plan reviewer, which is often manual desktop-publishing work. A few tools collate that automatically: StructSuite, for instance, generates the calculation-package cover sheet and table of contents from the modules you've completed, so the deliverable comes out paginated and consistent without assembling it by hand.
• Who's reading the calc? If an EIT or student needs to learn from it, favour tools that show every equation, its code citation, and each substitution rather than just a pass/fail (e.g., StructSuite, ENERCALC, SPEC Toolbox).
• What does it cost to try? Several entries are free or have a free tier — the ASCE Hazard Tool and the manufacturer apps (ForteWEB, BC Calc) are free, the code platforms are free to read, and some design tools offer a free tier (e.g., StructSuite) or free student access (e.g., SPEC Toolbox); the established desktop suites are paid.

The directory above lists the options for each of these so you can match the tool to the job.

StructSuite publishes this directory, and it's listed among the tools it competes with on the same terms. We've described every entry — ours included — by what it actually does; if we've got a detail wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.