UrbaWind vs ArchiWind: Which Urban Wind Simulation Software Fits Your Project?
Cloud speed vs. desktop setup, compare ArchiWind and UrbaWind for wind simulation.
Pedestrian wind comfort violations can stall a planning submission for 6 to 12 months. By the time most teams discover a wind problem, the massing is locked and the fix means redesign, not adjustment. The software a firm picks to catch that risk early and prove it’s been handled shapes how much of that timeline it keeps.
Two names come up most often for that job: UrbaWind, from French developer Meteodyn, and ArchiWind, from NablaFlow. Both use CFD (computational fluid dynamics) to model how wind behaves around buildings. Where they differ is deployment, turnaround, and how much of the compliance workflow happens inside the platform versus outside it.
What UrbaWind covers
UrbaWind is built around three modules: pedestrian wind and thermal comfort, natural ventilation potential, and small urban wind turbine assessment. It runs on an established CFD solver with automatic meshing refined to 50 cm near buildings, the ground, and result points, and it ships with an integrated meteorological database plus a catalog of international comfort and safety standards. Projects come in as STL models with weather data in TIM or TAB formats.
It’s a desktop tool: simulations run on a local installation rather than in the cloud, so getting started means provisioning a machine before the first result. Access runs through a traditional licensing path rather than tiers, and licensing follows a per-CPU model, where faster or parallel processing requires additional licenses.
What ArchiWind covers
ArchiWind is cloud-native, no install, no provisioned machine, accessible from a browser or the Revit plugin from day one. Pricing runs on published, flat annual subscription tiers rather than per-machine or per-CPU licensing, so cost doesn’t move with how many runs a project needs. The Explorer tier is free to start.
The numbers that matter most against a submission deadline:
- Draft simulations, unlimited, for early-stage iteration, return in 30–60 minutes.
- Detailed simulations, the compliance-grade runs used for final approvals, are included at 30 per year on standard plans, with cloud-powered parallel runs so multiple studies can process at once rather than queuing on local hardware.
- Mesh resolution reaches 12 cm (detailed) / 25 cm (draft), against UrbaWind’s 50 cm near buildings.
A few workflow details worth calling out for architecture teams specifically: ArchiWind imports STL and OBJ directly and includes a Revit plugin; wind data input covers TIM and TAB plus Weibull distributions, with Israeli meteorological data (IS 5281) ready out of the box. Reports generate as branded, compliance-ready PDFs directly from the platform, and results share via link rather than manual file handoff. Updates deploy continuously, and customers can submit feature requests that shape the roadmap, a contrast to Meteodyn’s publicly documented release cadence of roughly one major version per year, without a published roadmap.
ArchiWind also extends past the design desk through ArchiWind Live, bringing the same wind-risk modeling to active construction sites, a phase UrbaWind’s three modules don’t address.
Side by side
| ArchiWind | UrbaWind | |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Cloud-based, any device, no install | Desktop local installation required |
| Mesh resolution | Up to 12 cm (detailed) / 25 cm (draft) | Up to 50 cm near buildings |
| Draft simulations | Unlimited, 30–60 min turnaround | Unlimited, turnaround depends on local hardware |
| Detailed/compliance simulations | 30 included/year on standard plans | Unlimited, hardware-dependent speed |
| Parallel runs | Cloud-powered, multiple at once | Limited by local CPU |
| 3D model import | STL, OBJ, direct upload | STL |
| Revit plugin | Available | Not listed in public materials |
| Wind data input | TIM, TAB + Weibull; Israeli met data ready | TIM, TAB |
| IS 5281 (Israeli standard) | Compliant | Compliant |
| Client-ready reports | Branded, compliance-ready PDF included | Raw output, report requires manual assembly |
| Collaboration | Share via link, internal sharing | Manual file sharing |
| Updates | Automatic, always latest version | Manual, local install (per Meteodyn’s public documentation) |
| Development pipeline | Continuous releases; customers shape the roadmap | ~1 major release/year per public documentation; no published roadmap |
| Pricing model | Flat annual subscription | Per-CPU licensing, per available public information |
Where UrbaWind figures aren’t independently confirmed by NablaFlow, they reflect Meteodyn’s own publicly available documentation rather than direct testing.
What the feature gaps actually cost you
A spec sheet doesn’t say what a missed detail costs on a real project. Translated into time, risk, and budget, the differences above come down to a handful of consequences a design or ops lead would actually feel.
Deployment and turnaround. Every day spent provisioning a machine or queuing a hardware-bound run is a day the design team isn’t iterating. A wind issue caught while the massing is still moving costs nothing to fix; the same issue caught at compliance review costs weeks of redesign and is exactly how projects end up in the 6-to-12-month planning appeals cited above. A 30–60 minute draft turnaround means the check happens inside the design meeting, not after it.
Mesh resolution. Coarser meshing is more likely to miss the tight acceleration zones the Venturi effect between two towers, the wind funnel at a plaza corner that actually drive comfort complaints and permit objections. Finer resolution is built to catch exactly those pinch points before a planning reviewer does.
Parallel runs. Testing more wind directions and seasonal scenarios only helps if it happens before the meeting where the client or planning committee needs an answer. Cloud-powered parallel runs mean a firm can test several scenarios in the same afternoon instead of queuing them one CPU at a time walking into sign-off with more evidence, not less.
Reporting and collaboration. A compliance-ready report generated in-platform closes the gap between “we ran the simulation” and “we have something to submit.” Manual report assembly is where a Friday-afternoon deadline turns into a weekend, and passing results as files rather than links adds one more place for a team to lose track of which version is current.
Pricing model. A flat annual subscription is a number a firm can put in a budget line and forget. Licensing that scales with processing power is a number that moves the moment a project needs faster turnaround or more parallel capacity, the cost grows with it, which makes adopting the tool firm-wide harder to plan for.
Development pace. A platform on a continuous release cycle, where customers can request features, keeps pace with changing regulations and project needs. A slower, less transparent release cycle means a firm is waiting on someone else’s schedule for capabilities it needs now.
None of this shows up on a feature comparison table. It shows up in whether a project clears its submission deadline, and what that costs the team if it doesn’t.
Proof it holds up under pressure
The clearest test of a wind platform isn’t a spec sheet it’s what happens when the wind actually shows up. Kajima, one of Japan’s largest construction firms, adopted ArchiWind Live to standardize wind-risk decisions on urban sites where tall surrounding buildings make generic weather forecasts unreliable. The result: 48 work-days saved per year, replacing inconsistent, intuition-based calls with site-specific modeling including through Typhoon Shanshan, when the team used ArchiWind’s data to make real standby and safety decisions rather than guess.
Which one fits your team?
If your team needs to move from concept to a submittable compliance report inside a single planning cycle, without IT setup, without a quote-request round trip, and with a report your permitting authority can review as-is, ArchiWind’s cloud turnaround and published pricing are built for that pressure.
For most architecture practices and planning consultancies, the deciding factor comes down to one question: how many wind checks does your project actually need between concept and submission? If it’s one or two, either tool will get you there. If wind comfort needs testing every time the massing shifts which is how most late-stage redesigns get avoided, a 30–60 minute turnaround and unlimited draft iteration stop being a nice-to-have.