I know that these other programs likely have their place, but with all you can currently do with SP, they just take up hard drive space for me. I did try Chief, Sketch up and various others, but after a day or so of attempting to even begin to learn it as fast as I did SP, I knew I had the right stuff. Having self taught me, around about a version 4 of SoftPlan, once I started using it, finally went to a class, and continued with updates, I never looked back. It was fun to learn and with a lot of time and effort, you could produce a decent set of prints, but a LOT OF TIME, and you (yourself personally) had to be very accurate, or you had just another average drafted plan set. I started with AutoCAD back in the 80's, version 1.4. (no dimensions, only names and size notes) It did look kinda cool, a little sketched looking with line intersects extending slightly past the corners as in the old fashioned drafting way. I know many Architects that seem to use a mix of several design programs, to this day, I've no clue why, except one did seem to like the plan presentation in a simple version.

I have to say, I am with Sam on this one.

Chief architect premier x9 review