What DIALux evo does well
DIALux evo is free, commercial work included: “DIALux is free of charge for users.” For a lot of lighting work that ends the comparison before it starts.
It is also the broadest tool in the field. Indoor, emergency, outdoor and street lighting are all first-class use cases, and daylight can be simulated alongside artificial light. The standards list covers EN 12464-1 indoors, EN 13201 for roads, EN 1838 for escape routes and EN 12193 for sport.
And it is where the industry is: DIAL counts “more than 450” manufacturers and 750,000 active users.
Worth knowing: where the UGR table stops
For luminaires with a direct light component, DIALux evo generates a UGR table automatically, with the observer fixed mid-wall at 1.2 m and H always 2 m. DIAL’s own knowledge base names the limit: “Luminaires with a position index outside the validity range of the table are not considered in the UGR calculation. This is the case, for example, in H/R > 2.” DIALux does give you a way around it: place UGR calculation points yourself in the Calculation objects tool and pick the viewing directions. A manual step, not a wrong number — but worth knowing before you read a UGR number out of any tool, ours included.
DIALux figures are DIAL’s own, checked against DIALux evo 14 Patch 5.
When you start looking for an alternative
Five situations cover almost every search that lands here. Only the first is about the software itself.
- You are on a Mac. DIALux evo is Windows-only and DIAL says no Mac version is planned.
- You do not want to install anything, or update a desktop app on twelve machines.
- You want a luminaire catalog that is not sorted by membership.
- Your geometry already exists in Revit, and exporting it to a second application is doing the work twice.
- You need the study today: draw or upload your zones, filter the catalog, click Calculate, receive your report.
The catalog is the sharpest difference, and DIAL documents its model openly: manufacturers “need to buy a DIALux Membership” to fund the software, and “only products from DIALux Members will be available in the free version of DIALux evo”. Membership runs from €2,100 plus target market a year to €99,000 a year, and the higher tiers buy position in your workflow — “Become the preferred brand in the planning process” — not better photometry.
That does not make DIALux’s numbers wrong; it does mean the free shelf is a paid shelf. Momik is not a manufacturer: every luminaire is calculated from its own IES or LDT file.
DIALux evo vs Momik, side by side
Aggregator listings rank brands — one of the biggest drops render engines that do no lighting calculation into the same list. Here it is one property per row, figures from DIAL’s own pages:
| DIALux evo | Momik | |
|---|---|---|
| Operating system | 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 only. ARM CPUs not supported. No Mac version planned. | Any browser — macOS, Windows, Linux. The Revit plugin runs where Revit runs: Windows. |
| Installation | Desktop install, plus a DIALux ID account to start the software. | None. Log in and work; the calculation runs in the cloud. |
| Price | Free, commercial use included. DIALux Pro €29.99 / month or €329.99 / year (region 1); Unlock Non-Members €5.99–€9.99 / month. | Free account. Studies priced per m²: a plan with a monthly allowance, or pay-as-you-go. 14-day trial. |
| Luminaire catalog | 450+ manufacturers, all paying members. The free version shows member products only; non-members need Pro or the add-on. | Several suppliers per study, brand-neutral. Each luminaire calculated from its real IES or LDT file, compared on numbers and list price. |
| Revit integration | DIALux Bridge for Revit: IFC out to DIALux evo, native Revit families back in — a round trip. Needs Pro, evo 14 and Revit 2025. | Plugin reads your model, calculates in the cloud, places the chosen luminaires back as families with photometry linked. In every plan. |
| Standards | Broad: EN 12464-1 and -2, EN 13201, CIE 140, EN 1838, EN 12193, EN 15193, DIN 5034. | EN 12464-1, indoor work places. Illuminance, uniformity (Uo) and UGR checked per zone against that room type’s values. |
| Scope | Indoor, emergency, outdoor and street lighting, daylight, sport, whole buildings, ray-traced visuals. | Indoor workplaces: the compliant study, the supplier comparison, the report. |
DIALux on Mac: what DIAL says, and the browser route
Here is DIAL’s own answer rather than ours. DIALux evo “runs only on 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11”, and systems with an ARM CPU “are currently not supported”.
On a native build: “We develop DIALux evo for Windows environments and have currently no plans to provide a Mac version in the future.” On the workaround: “We know that it is possible to run DIALux evo on a Mac by using virtualization software such as Parallels or Fusion” — followed by “we do not provide support for problems on Mac systems”. So it can be done — with a Windows licence, a virtualisation licence and no vendor support the day it breaks.
The browser route removes the question. Momik’s web version runs on macOS, Windows and Linux: nothing to install, and the calculation runs in the cloud, not on your laptop. A Mac and a Windows machine work from the same account and the same engine.
What you give up that way is scope, not compliance: no street layout, no outdoor façade scheme, no emergency-lighting plan, no daylight study. For indoor workplaces the browser is enough; if your work is not, a Windows machine — virtual or physical — is the shorter path.
What Momik does not do
A vendor comparison turns worthless where it stops listing the other tool’s strengths. DIALux evo use cases Momik has no answer for:
- Outdoor lighting — façades, plazas and parks, with light pollution and glare.
- Street lighting — street profiles, pole spacing, mounting height and tilt, to EN 13201.
- Emergency lighting — escape routes and anti-panic areas to EN 1838, with a false-colour preview.
- Daylight — natural and artificial light simulated together.
- Photorealistic visualisation — ray-traced images for the client.
- Whole-building modelling — entire buildings, imported DWG plans, room scans.
Momik does one job: the EN 12464-1 indoor study — a supplier comparison on real photometry, illuminance, uniformity, UGR and isolux per zone, and a standards-compliant PDF report. If your next project is a car park, a sports hall or a street, DIALux evo is free and it is the right tool. Plenty of teams run both.