2026 comparison
Six software platforms share the Quebec building inspection market: Lumos, UDATA, Vesta, Enzo Solution, Axiome³, and Habita. This comparison puts them side by side across 30 criteria that follow the real cycle of a mandate, from client intake to the invoice. Every claim about a competitor comes from their public website; when something is not stated there, we write "Not announced" rather than "no".
Five complete head-to-heads, one per competitor: field capture, AI, BNQ 3009-500 compliance, mandate management, and pricing.
Lumos vs
The tablet app established for over two decades versus the next-generation platform. Capture, AI, compliance, and management, point by point.
Read the comparisonLumos vs
The desktop software with an iOS companion versus the cloud platform. Two philosophies of AI in the inspection report.
Read the comparisonLumos vs
The questionnaire and text library versus the flow where your voice and photos become the report draft.
Read the comparisonLumos vs
Two Quebec platforms covering the full mandate cycle. The real divergence: the place of AI in report writing.
Read the comparisonLumos vs
The Quebec market newcomer versus the full-cycle platform. Offline capture, AI, and BNQ compliance compared.
Read the comparisonThe rows follow the mandate cycle: intake, fieldwork, compliance, writing, delivery, then business management. The Lumos column describes our product; the other five report what each public website announces.
| Criterion | Lumos | UDATA | Vesta | Enzo Solution | Axiome³ | Habita |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Cloud web platform + native iOS and Android app (Lumos Capture) | Software with a dedicated tablet app, per their site | Desktop software + Vesta Go iOS companion, per their site | Web application, per their site | Cloud platform in the browser, responsive web, per their site | Web application in the browser, no install, per their site |
| Public intake form | Yes: the client fills it in themselves, no account needed | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Announced: no account needed, per their site | Announced: self-fill link sent to the client, per their site |
| Quote signed online | Yes: sent and signed online | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Announced, per their site | Agreed price and signature in the client portal, per their site |
| AIBQ, APCHQ, and BNQ service agreements | Yes: templates, annexes, online signature, and archiving | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Announced: AIBQ and APCHQ, per their site | Agreement and attestation matching the chosen standard, per their site |
| Digital signature | Yes: built into agreements and quotes | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Announced: DocuSeal integrated, per their site | Announced: timestamped signature, per their site |
| Calendar and day's route | Yes: Google, Apple, and Outlook sync + optimized day's route | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | ICS calendar sync, per their site | Calendar + two-way Google Calendar sync, distance per appointment, per their site |
| Native offline app | Yes: Lumos Capture (iOS and Android), offline-first field capture | Dedicated offline tablet app, per their site | Vesta Go iOS companion for the field, per their site | Not announced | Not announced: responsive web, per their site | No native app announced: offline mode in the browser, per their site |
| BNQ 3009-500 structure | Native: component-by-component editor, mandatory fields built in | Through your templates, per your configuration | Through your reports, per your configuration | Not announced as native: depends on questionnaire configuration | Announced: component by component, per their site | Announced: BNQ 3009-500 among eight selectable standards, per their site |
| Ready for the standard REIBH will make mandatory | Yes: two normative templates included (pre-purchase and pre-delivery) | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Announced, per their site | Built around BNQ 3009-500, per their site |
| Findings bank | 1,165 bilingual findings in two normative banks: 710 pre-purchase, 455 pre-delivery | 650+ templates announced (UDATA Store), per their site | Not announced | Built-in text library, volume not announced, per their site | 1,800+ bilingual findings written by hand, per their site | Library included; about thirty findings on a new account when we tried it (August 2026) |
| BNQ qualification of deficiencies | Yes: apparent defect, deficiency indicator, safety risk, carried by each finding | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Source traceability of findings | Yes: each finding linked to its source, verifiable in the report | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Template editor | Yes: sections, subsections, inspection items, automatic findings, unlimited templates | Configurable templates, per their site | Report configuration, per their site | Configurable questionnaire, per their site | Not announced | Template builder and template import, per their site |
| Customizable severity levels | Yes: colour, icon, label, and definition | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Voice dictation | Yes: hands-free, the capture becomes the draft | Not announced | Announced: AI dictation into fields, per their site | Not announced | Not announced | Voice notes at capture, per their site |
| AI-assisted writing | Yes: unlimited, every finding validated by the inspector | Not announced | AI text suggestions, optional module, per their site | Not announced | No: a deliberate choice, per their site | Announced: findings written from notes and photos, per their site |
| Works fully without AI | Yes, a complete workflow: findings bank, keyboard entry, and photo import | Not applicable: no AI feature announced on their site | Announced: the AI module is optional, per their site | Not applicable: no AI feature announced on their site | Yes by design, per their site | Announced: a plan where AI is pay-per-use, per their site |
| Compliance review before delivery | Yes: real-time BNQ compliance gauge (beta) and automated review | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Client portal with no account | Yes: one secure link per client — read, sign, upload documents | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Secure portal without an account, per their site | Announced: portal with agreed price, signature, report and invoice, per their site |
| Document tracking and client reminders | Yes: Document Center — status, history and automatic reminders | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Interactive web report | Yes: by access code, no account creation, with severity filters | Not announced: PDF delivery by email, per their site | Not announced: PDF delivery, per their site | Not announced: PDF by email or download link, per their site | Secure portal without an account, per their site | Announced: interactive web report and PDF via secure link, per their site |
| Report viewing tracking | Yes: you see when the client opened their report | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Service request widget for your website | Yes: embeddable form for your own site | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Google review collection | Yes: automated after delivery | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced |
| Invoicing with GST and QST | Yes: automatic tax calculation | Not announced | Not announced | Announced: built-in tax calculation, per their site | Announced: integrated invoicing, per their site | Announced: GST/QST, Interac payment, and accounting export, per their site |
| Team roles and permissions | Yes: multi-seat, roles and permissions per member | Not announced | Not announced | Account grouping, per their site | Not announced | Announced: roles, trainees, and support seats free of charge, per their site |
| Project export and import | Yes: full project export as .zip | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | Data export at any time, per their site |
| Hosting and Law 25 | Data hosted in Canada, application served from the United States, encryption, Law 25 with PIA | Not announced | Data stored locally on your computer, per their site | Not announced | Montreal, SOC 2 Type II, aligned with Law 25, per their site | Hosted in Canada, practices aligned with PIPEDA and Law 25, per their site |
| Public pricing | Yes: $10/inspection or $110/month (2 months free on annual), extra seat $99/month | Not announced | Published fee schedule: $625 licence, $34.95/month maintenance, Vesta Go and AI module extra, per their site | Not announced: monthly subscription, per their site | Yes: $175/month, $131.25/month on annual, blocks of 10 inspections, per their site | Yes: Essential $79/month, Unlimited $149/month, per their site |
| Free trial | 3 complete real inspections, no credit card + free student program | Not announced | Not announced | Not announced | 10 inspections, no credit card, per their site | First month free, no credit card, per their site |
Information about UDATA, Vesta, Enzo Solution, Axiome³, and Habita comes from their respective public websites, reviewed on August 28, 2026. "Not announced" means the feature does not appear on the vendor's public site at the time of review, not that it does not exist. Features evolve: if something seems inaccurate, write to us and we will correct it.
There is no absolute best software. There is yours, the one that matches how you work. Six situations, six honest answers.
Axiome³ deserves your attention: the absence of AI is a deliberate design choice there, with a library of 1,800+ findings announced as fully hand-written. Lumos also works entirely without AI, but if you want a tool that contains none at all, that is their pitch.
Axiome³'s trial is the most generous on the market: ten complete inspections without a credit card, per their site. Habita offers the first month free. The Lumos trial is shorter (3 complete real inspections, no credit card), but it covers the entire cycle, from quote to invoice.
Look at Lumos: Lumos Capture is a native iOS and Android app, offline-first, that stores photos, audio, and text locally and syncs on its own when the network returns. UDATA announces an offline tablet app and Habita an offline mode in the browser; Axiome³ and Enzo Solution do not announce an offline mode.
Lumos is free for the entire duration of your inspection program (CEI and Institut Grasset partnerships), plus two months after graduation. Habita also announces a free student plan and Axiome³ has a students page, per their sites. Start free, choose with full knowledge.
Lumos and Axiome³ cover the full cycle: public intake form, signed quote, service agreements, invoicing with taxes. The difference plays out in the field (native offline capture with Lumos) and in what your client receives (interactive web report with viewing tracking at Lumos, secure portal at Axiome³).
Vesta is the only one of the six that runs primarily on your computer, with your data stored locally, per their site. If your priority is precisely not depending on the cloud, that is the matching option, as long as you take on your own backups.
Short, factual, sourced answers. When a fact comes from a competitor's website, we say so.
There is no absolute best: it depends on your workflow. Six players share the Quebec market: Lumos, UDATA, Vesta, Enzo Solution, Axiome³, and Habita. Lumos stands out with its native offline capture, its bank of 1,165 bilingual BNQ-qualified findings (710 pre-purchase, 455 pre-delivery), and its interactive web report; the master table on this page compares all six across 30 criteria.
No player publishes verifiable usage numbers, so any numbered answer would be invented. UDATA is the oldest, present in the Quebec landscape for over two decades. The more recent platforms (Lumos, Axiome³, and Habita) do not publish their user counts either.
Compliance belongs to the report the inspector signs, not to the software. Lumos is natively structured around BNQ 3009-500: a component-by-component editor, BNQ qualification carried by each finding, and a real-time compliance gauge (beta). Axiome³ and Habita also announce a BNQ 3009-500 structure on their sites; with UDATA, Vesta, and Enzo Solution, coverage depends on how you configure your templates.
Lumos Capture, the native iOS and Android app from Lumos, captures photos, audio, and text offline and syncs automatically when the network returns. UDATA announces a dedicated offline tablet app and Vesta an iOS companion (Vesta Go) for the field; Habita announces an offline mode in the browser. Axiome³ and Enzo Solution do not announce an offline mode on their sites.
Three of the six: Lumos (unlimited assisted writing and AI Assistant, every finding validated by the inspector), Vesta (dictation and text suggestions as an optional module, per their site), and Habita (findings written from notes and photos, per their site). Axiome³ made the public choice not to integrate generative AI; UDATA and Enzo Solution do not announce AI features.
Yes. Lumos works entirely without AI: the bank of 1,165 BNQ-qualified findings, keyboard entry, and photo import form a complete workflow, not a degraded mode. Axiome³ is AI-free by design, and Habita offers a plan where AI stays pay-per-use, per their site.
First, a clarification: REIBH certifies inspectors, not software. No vendor is "REIBH certified". What the regulation requires of a certified inspector is compliance with BNQ 3009-500, so that is what a tool should be judged on. Lumos ships two normative templates, pre-purchase and pre-delivery. Axiome³ announces readiness for the regulation, and Habita says it is built around BNQ 3009-500, per their sites. UDATA, Vesta, and Enzo Solution do not announce it explicitly on their sites.
Lumos ($10/inspection or $110/month, two months free on annual), Axiome³ ($175/month, $131.25/month on annual, per their site), and Habita ($79 or $149/month, per their site) display public monthly pricing. Vesta publishes a licence and maintenance fee schedule; UDATA and Enzo Solution do not publish their prices.
Start with the trials and student programs. Lumos is free for the entire duration of your inspection program (CEI, Institut Grasset) plus two months after graduation, and its trial covers 3 complete real inspections without a credit card. Axiome³ offers the longest trial (10 inspections, per their site) and Habita makes its Essential plan free during studies, per their site. Test on a real file before deciding.
It depends on what makes you look elsewhere. If you want native offline capture, assisted writing you validate, and the full mandate cycle (agreements, invoicing, Google reviews), look at Lumos; the detailed Lumos vs UDATA comparison is on this page. If your priority is a library with no AI at all, Axiome³; if it is the lowest displayed entry price, Habita announces $79/month on its site.
Lumos hosts its data in Canada; the application is served from the United States, with encryption and a documented Law 25 assessment. Axiome³ announces hosting in Montreal with SOC 2 Type II, and Habita data residency in Canada with practices aligned with PIPEDA and Law 25, per their sites. Vesta stores data locally on your computer, per their site; UDATA and Enzo Solution do not specify their hosting.
Yes. Lumos is free for students for the entire duration of their inspection program, through partnerships with the CEI and Institut Grasset, plus two months after graduation. Habita announces its Essential plan free during studies and Axiome³ has a students page, per their sites.
3 complete real inspections, no credit card. You compare on your own ground, not on a web page.
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