WiFi Planning Tool runs on a MacBook (macOS 11+) or any laptop (Windows 7/8/10/11) with a standard 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be wireless network adapter.
Best WiFi Design Software
Discover the best wifi design software for planning your wireless network before you buy any hardware.
Most people don't realize they can plan a WiFi network before even installing a single access point. But thanks to modern WiFi network design software, you can simulate signal coverage, test placement strategies, and select the right equipment virtually during the network planning stage.
Whether you're a small business owner, an IT consultant, a tech-savvy home user, or just a regular home user who wants stable WiFi in every room, these tools help you make smart decisions based on data — not guesswork.
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What Is WiFi Design Software and How Does It Work?
Essentially, WiFi network design software is a tool for modeling and planning wireless networks. Instead of guessing how far a signal will travel from an access point, you let the application's engine calculate how radio waves will behave in that environment.
Most tools in this profile work similarly:
- You import or draw a floor plan and scale it to accurately represent distances (for example, one centimeter on the plan equals one meter in real life).
- You specify building materials (drywall, glass, concrete, brick) because different materials have different signal loss values. This allows the program to determine how much each wall will attenuate the WiFi signal.
- You place virtual access points from a built-in hardware library or enter custom characteristics (supported bands, transmit power, antenna patterns).
- Then the tool performs a predictive survey and generates heat maps: signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio, channel overlap, throughput, and, sometimes, capacity estimates for different client types.
Because everything is simulated, you can move access points, try different models, adjust channel widths, or add new radios to see how coverage and performance change.
The result is data-driven design, not trial and error.
This is the core idea of any serious WiFi network design software: design first, deploy later.
Top WiFi Design Software Tools in 2026
Let’s break down the most popular and powerful tools available today.
Choice #1
NetSpot’s Planning Mode works as a virtual WiFi design studio, letting you model coverage and performance in advance so you can position access points as accurately as possible.
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Inspector Mode
Gives you real-time insights into the WiFi networks around you..
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Survey Mode
Provides a comprehensive, map-based analysis of your WiFi network's performance.
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Planning Mode
Enables you to simulate and plan your WiFi network's layout and coverage.
It offers a full-featured, professional WiFi planning solution wrapped in an interface that feels comfortable for both first-time users and experienced wireless engineers.
Inside the app, you get a flexible floor-plan editor where you can sketch walls, doors, and windows and assign real building materials with specific thickness and signal-loss values. If your material isn’t in the preset list, you can add custom parameters to more accurately reflect your environment and predict how the WiFi signal will behave in real life.
In Planning Mode, you simulate the network with nine targeted heatmaps:
- Signal Level
- Signal-to-Interference Ratio
- Secondary Signal Level
- Quantity of Access Points
- Frequency Band Coverage (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz)
- PHY Mode Coverage (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be)
- Low Signal Level Areas
- Overlapping Channels (SIR)
- Low Secondary Signal Level
These layers help you assess coverage quality, density, and interference risks before you deploy hardware.
The planning tool also includes an extensive database of access points from major vendors. When your exact model is missing, you can quickly create a custom AP profile by setting transmit power, supported frequencies, and other key specifications.
Antenna tuning is just as granular: you can switch between omnidirectional and directional antennas, tweak gain, and adjust tilt angles to mirror real installation scenarios and see how each change affects coverage.
A big plus is that Planning Mode is also available in the Android version of NetSpot, so you can build, review, and tweak your wireless design right on your phone or tablet without pulling out a laptop.
Ideal for:
Home users, IT administrators, and wireless pros who want powerful planning capabilities combined with an easy learning curve — no extra hardware or formal certification required. It’s a solid fit for designing, validating, and troubleshooting WiFi networks across multiple platforms.
Strengths:
NetSpot is modern wifi design software with WiFi 6/7 and 2.4/5/6 GHz support, an intuitive UI, and cross-platform apps (Windows, macOS, Android). You get all three core modes — Planning, Survey, and Inspector — to design, test, and troubleshoot your network end to end. Custom walls, realistic materials, and adjustable AP specs ensure accurate simulations, while rich heatmaps visualize everything from signal strength to interference and throughput.
Limitations:
NetSpot doesn’t offer automatic AP placement for now, so you won’t find an AI-style “auto planner” that lays out access points for you with a single click.
Choice #2
Ekahau AI Pro
Available for Windows 10/11 (64-bit), macOS 11 and later.
Ekahau AI Pro is probably the most well-known WiFi design software in the enterprise space. It’s designed for business-critical WiFi where downtime is expensive and user density is high: hospitals, campuses, warehouses, large office deployments.
Ekahau lets you build AI-assisted predictive designs, run network upgrade simulations, and analyze both collected and live survey data. Its feature set includes AI Auto-Planner for optimal AP placement, an extensive database of thousands of APs and antennas, automatic channel planning, CAD import, advanced reflection/diffraction modeling, and template-based reporting. It’s optimized to work with the Ekahau Sidekick 2 hardware, which captures high-precision WiFi and spectrum data.
On the standards side, Ekahau supports design for 2.4/5/6 GHz networks, including WiFi 6E. The platform is clearly focused on staying ahead of new generations like WiFi 7, with tooling and content around upgrade planning.
Ideal for:
Ekahau is powerful, no doubt. But it’s a serious investment — best suited for corporate environments, university campuses, or anyone with an in-house networking team. If you’re on a budget, this may be too much.
Strengths:
You get deep control and visibility: capacity planning, high-density scenarios, SLA-driven design, multi-floor and multi-building projects, and rich reporting. For teams responsible for hundreds or thousands of APs, Ekahau’s ecosystem makes it much easier to standardize workflows and share designs across engineers.
Limitations:
Two obvious downsides: cost and complexity. Licenses, plus Sidekick hardware, are clearly priced for enterprises, not home users or very small businesses. And while the UI is well-designed, it assumes you understand RF basics and WiFi design concepts. This isn’t the tool you casually fire up once a year.
Choice #3
VisiWave Site Survey Pro
Available for Windows 7/8/8.1/10.
VisiWave Site Survey is a long-standing Windows-only solution that focuses on Wi-Fi site surveys and visualization, with predictive design capabilities unlocked in the Pro edition.
VisiWave Site Survey Pro, includes everything from the regular edition (builds coverage heatmaps, shows coverage voids, and visualizes channel usage and overlap) and adds full predictive site survey capabilities. Instead of only relying on real-world measurements, you can describe the survey area and let the software simulate RF behavior before you ever step on site.
Inside VisiWave’s 3D editor you load a floor plan, draw walls and other barriers, assign materials, and place APs. The software then simulates RF propagation and overlays the result as a heatmap. VisiWave Pro also supports WiFi 6 / 802.11ax when paired with a compatible adapter.
VisiWave Site Survey Pro also includes optimal radio placement assistance. You define the walls and tell the software how many access points you expect to use, and it suggests AP locations that should provide good coverage. You can even mark “priority areas” — for example, a cluster of desks or a seating zone where many users depend on WiFi — and VisiWave will bias its algorithm to favor coverage and performance in those zones.
Ideal for:
VisiWave Site Survey Pro is ideal for IT administrators and consultants comfortable with Windows tools and primarily focused on mapping and reporting without requiring a cutting-edge user interface. While the Pro version offers extensive planning capabilities, it's more of a classic survey tool than a fully-fledged, modern design platform.
Advantages:
VisiWave Site Survey Pro combines both survey and predictive modeling features, supports various data collection workflows, visualizes in Google Earth, and algorithmically places access points with priority zones. This is especially attractive if you want to remotely model sites or design Wi-Fi for buildings in the planning stage.
Limitations:
VisiWave only runs on Windows, the interface resembles a classic utility more than a modern cross-platform application, and advanced predictive functionality requires a Pro license.
Choice #4
Cambium Wi-Fi Designer
Available for: as a free, cloud-based tool in any modern web browser (no installation required).
Cambium Networks’ Wi-Fi Designer is a free, cloud-based planning tool designed specifically for Cambium WiFi deployments. It’s a browser-based wifi design software tool you can use from almost any modern device.
The workflow is simple: you upload or draw a floor plan, scale it, choose wall materials, and place Cambium APs on the map. The tool then produces predictive heatmaps so you can see whether your chosen hardware and placement will deliver the coverage you need. At the end, you get a bill of materials you can share or email — effectively a shopping list of APs for that design.
WiFi Designer is tuned for Cambium’s WiFi 6 solutions and integrates well into their broader cnMaestro management ecosystem once the network is deployed. It’s a nice bridge between planning on paper and a fully managed production network.
Ideal for:
Wi-Fi Designer is great if you want to “play” with predictive design. If you already use Cambium hardware, it makes sense. But for broader network planning, you’ll quickly outgrow it.
Strengths:
It’s free, easy to access, and focused on getting a working plan quickly. If your organization already uses Cambium APs, Wi-Fi Designer fits naturally into your workflow and helps standardize designs around that hardware.
Limitations:
The obvious trade-off is vendor lock-in: Wi-Fi Designer is really meant for Cambium APs, not generic multi-vendor designs. You also rely on an online service, which may be less convenient in highly regulated or air-gapped environments.
When Does It Make Sense to Use WiFi Design Software?
So when does it actually make sense to reach for WiFi design software instead of just installing an AP and “seeing what happens”? Here are the most common situations.
When you’re planning a brand-new network in a house, office, school, or warehouse and want to get AP counts and placement right on the first try.
When you’re refreshing old equipment — for example, moving from WiFi 5 to WiFi 6E or WiFi 7 — and you’re not sure if you can reuse existing locations or need to rethink the layout.
When you keep getting complaints about dead zones, dropped calls, or “slow corners” in your space and need to decide whether the fix is more APs, different APs, changed channels, or simply smarter placement.
When you’re expanding an existing network (new wing, extra floor, more conference rooms) and you want to see how additional APs will interact with what’s already there instead of just bolting on hardware.
When you’re budgeting for a future project and want a realistic idea of how many APs and which models you’ll actually need, rather than guessing line items in a spreadsheet.
In all these cases, wifi design software lets you replace “let’s try it and see” with “we know this design meets our coverage and capacity targets before we ever place an order”.
Final Verdict
With the right WiFi design software in your toolkit, your next wireless project can start from real data instead of guesswork — and your users will feel the difference every time they connect. All four tools help you replace guesswork with data, but they serve different audiences. Whichever route you choose, the main takeaway is simple: design first, deploy second.
If you want one tool that lets you plan, survey, and troubleshoot on an ongoing basis — without needing a full enterprise budget — NetSpot is usually the most convenient and flexible choice. It gives you the key benefits of WiFi design software (virtual modeling, predictive surveys, modern standard support) while staying easy enough to use for power users, consultants, and small IT teams.
SO, WE RECOMMEND
NetSpot
Wi-Fi Site Surveys, Analysis, Troubleshooting runs on a MacBook (macOS 11+) or any laptop (Windows 7/8/10/11) with a standard 802.11be/ax/ac/n/g/a/b wireless network adapter. Read more about the 802.11be support here.
FAQs
What is WiFi design software?
It’s a planning tool that models your building, walls, and access points to predict real-world coverage and performance before you buy or install hardware. Good WiFi design software also helps verify the results with on-site surveys later.
Do I need special hardware to use WiFi design software?
For predictive planning, no. You can design with a regular laptop. For on-site validation and spectrum analysis, some tools support dedicated adapters or survey devices, but they’re optional for basic planning.
Can WiFi design software work with Wi-Fi 6, 6E, or even WiFi 7?
Yes, most modern WiFi design software supports the latest Wi-Fi standards as long as your hardware and adapters do. Tools like NetSpot and Ekahau can model 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz bands, so you can see how WiFi 6/6E/7 access points will cover your space and where extra APs or different channels might be needed.
How many access points do I need?
It depends on square footage, wall materials, client density, and application requirements (voice, video, scanners). Use WiFi design software to test AP counts and placements virtually, then tweak until coverage and capacity targets are met.
Which WiFi design software is best for beginners?
If you’re new to WiFi planning, NetSpot is usually the easiest starting point. It combines an intuitive interface with solid predictive planning, live surveys, and troubleshooting tools. Enterprise suites like Ekahau AI Pro are extremely powerful, but they’re designed more for full-time network engineers than first-time users.
How accurate is predictive WiFi design software in real life?
Predictive WiFi design software can be very accurate when your floor plans, wall materials, and AP specs are entered correctly. It won’t match reality down to the last dBm, but it’s usually close enough to get AP counts, locations, and general coverage right. After installation, you can fine-tune the design with on-site surveys that help you design a reliable WLAN instead of guessing where to put APs.
Get NetSpot for Free
Wi-Fi Site Surveys, Analysis, Troubleshooting runs on a MacBook (macOS 11+) or any laptop (Windows 7/8/10/11) with a standard 802.11be/ax/ac/n/g/a/b wireless network adapter. Read more about the 802.11be support here.