If you own a Bluebeam Revu 20 perpetual licence, you have probably seen the notices: Revu 20 reaches End of Support on July 31, 2026 and End of Life on December 31, 2026. The first thing to know is that your software does not stop working on either date. Revu 20 keeps running locally on the machines where it is installed and licensed. What ends is everything around it: support, licence moves, and Studio. This page lays out exactly what each date ends, citing Bluebeam's own end-of-life notice, the one deadline most people miss, and your realistic options, including the ones that are not us.

The two dates that matter, and the one deadline most people miss

July 31, 2026, End of Support: per Bluebeam's official notice, technical support and self-service licence management for Revu 20 end on this date, including seat releases and licence reassignments to different machines. This is the deadline most people miss: after July 31, you cannot move your Revu 20 licence to a new computer. If a workstation dies or gets replaced in 2027, the licence does not come with you. So if you plan to stay on Revu 20, do any planned hardware changes and licence reassignments before July 31. December 31, 2026, End of Life: Revu 20 loses access to Studio Sessions and Studio Projects, including joining through integrations. After this date Revu 20 still opens, views and marks up PDFs locally, but the collaboration layer is gone. Also worth knowing: Bluebeam stopped selling Revu 20 licences back in September 2023, and Revu for Mac was discontinued earlier still, so the perpetual-licence era at Bluebeam is fully closed. The replacement, Revu 21, is subscription only.

Your honest options, including the one you can own

You have four realistic paths, and the right one depends on what Revu actually does for you. One: stay on Revu 20. Legitimate if your hardware is stable and you do not depend on Studio, it costs nothing, just mind the July 31 reassignment deadline and accept no support and no updates. Two: move to a Revu 21 subscription, Bluebeam's recommended path. You keep the full toolset and Studio, at Bluebeam's published US pricing of roughly $260 to $440 per user per year at the time of writing. Three: if real-time cloud collaboration is the centre of your workflow, a collaboration-first tool like Drawboard may fit; that is the axis those tools optimize for. Four: if what you actually use Revu for is opening heavy drawings and marking them up, and you bought a perpetual licence in the first place because owning your tools made sense to you, that is the case Ncored was built for. Ncored is a fast PDF editor for large AutoCAD, Revit and ArchiCAD drawing sets, built by a working architecture studio. It opens heavy construction drawing PDFs from 50-200 MB+ project sets quickly (roughly 0.8 seconds to first paint on an M4 Pro MacBook Pro, internal benchmark) and stays smooth on scroll, zoom and pan after that. It runs locally on Windows and Mac, drawings never leave your machine, and it costs EUR 159 once for a lifetime licence, the same buy-once model your Revu 20 came with. There is also EUR 12.99/month or EUR 79.99/year if you prefer, and a 14-day full-feature trial with no signup.

Keep owning your tools
A one-time EUR 159 lifetime licence, the same perpetual model you chose when you bought Revu 20. No renewal date, no per-user-per-year maths.
Built for 50-200 MB+ drawing sets
Vector-dense AutoCAD, Revit and ArchiCAD exports open fast and stay smooth while you scroll, zoom and pan, which is the moment general tools stall.
Runs locally, drawings stay on your machine
No cloud upload. For NDA and confidential project work, the files never leave your computer.
Markups that survive anywhere
Annotations produce standards-compliant PDF output that opens correctly in Revu, Acrobat, and whatever viewer your clients and contractors use.
Windows and Mac
Bluebeam discontinued Revu for Mac years ago. Ncored ships native on both platforms, so mixed-platform offices are covered.

Try the 14-day free trial

Download Ncored

Honest comparison: staying, upgrading, or switching

Where Revu 21 wins: Studio Sessions collaboration, takeoff and estimation depth, the plugin ecosystem, and a toolset your team may already be trained on. If Studio is the centre of how your office works, a Bluebeam subscription is the honest answer, and Ncored does not replicate Studio. Where staying on Revu 20 wins: it is free, you already own it, and it keeps working locally after both dates. The honest caveats are no support, no updates, no licence moves to new machines after July 31, 2026, and no Studio after December 31, 2026. Where Ncored wins: speed on heavy drawing sets, a one-time price (EUR 159 once, versus roughly $260 to $440 per user per year for a Revu subscription), native Mac support, and a deliberately small, fast tool instead of a large suite. Ncored does not do takeoffs, estimation, OCR or forms. A pairing many will find practical: keep Revu 20 installed for the occasional job that needs its deeper tools, and do the daily open-a-heavy-drawing-and-mark-it-up work in Ncored.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I keep using Revu 20 after December 31, 2026?
Yes. Per Bluebeam's end-of-life notice, Revu 20 continues to run locally on machines where it is installed and licensed. After July 31, 2026 you lose technical support and licence reassignments, and after December 31, 2026 you lose access to Studio Sessions and Studio Projects. Opening, viewing and marking up PDFs locally keeps working.
Will my Revu 20 licence transfer to a new PC after July 31, 2026?
No. Bluebeam's notice states that self-service licence management, including seat releases and reassignments to different machines, ends on July 31, 2026. If you plan to stay on Revu 20, complete any hardware replacements and move your licences before that date.
Does Revu 20 stop opening PDFs at end of life?
No. End of life ends Bluebeam's cloud services for Revu 20, mainly Studio Sessions and Studio Projects, plus support. The application itself keeps running locally. The practical risks of staying are hardware failure after the reassignment cutoff and the absence of updates.
Is Ncored a replacement for Bluebeam Studio?
No. Ncored has no equivalent of Studio Sessions real-time collaboration. If shared live sessions are central to your workflow, you need a Revu 21 subscription or a collaboration-focused tool. Ncored replaces the other 90% of most days: opening heavy drawings fast and marking them up locally.
Does Ncored do takeoffs and estimation like Revu?
No. Revu's takeoff and estimation tools are genuinely deep and Ncored does not attempt them. Ncored covers markup and annotation, in-place text editing, merge and split, full-text search across hundreds of pages, and compression, with the engineering effort spent on speed with heavy drawing sets.
I bought Revu 20 because I prefer owning software. What are my options now?
Bluebeam no longer sells perpetual licences, Revu 21 is subscription only. If buy-once ownership is why you chose Revu 20, Ncored kept that model: EUR 159 once for a lifetime licence, with a 14-day free trial to test it on your own heaviest drawings first. No signup or email is needed for the trial.