IMAGINiT Clarity Alternative: No VMs, No Months of Setup, No Vendor Lock-In
IMAGINiT Clarity requires VMs, host servers, and months of configuration. CDE Sync deploys in 15-30 minutes with no infrastructure. Here is how they compare.
IMAGINiT Clarity is one of the more established CDE synchronisation tools in the Autodesk ecosystem. It has been deployed on major projects across the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and for organisations running a pure Autodesk environment, it has served a genuine purpose.
But if your project involves platforms outside Autodesk, or if your team has been through a Clarity implementation before, you are likely aware of its significant limitations.
The Infrastructure Problem
Clarity is not a cloud-native SaaS platform. It requires dedicated virtual machines per project, a host server, group policy configuration, and cloud resource access provisioned by your IT department. Implementation timelines of four to five months are standard. For organisations without enterprise IT infrastructure or in-house Autodesk expertise, deployment can take longer.
This overhead is not just a setup problem. It is an ongoing maintenance burden. Virtual machines need to be managed, updated, and monitored. When something breaks, the queue for IT support joins the queue for IMAGINiT support. On live infrastructure projects with daily synchronisation requirements, this creates real operational risk.
The Platform Coverage Problem
Clarity was built for Autodesk environments. It synchronises data between Autodesk Construction Cloud, BIM360, and SharePoint effectively. It does not support Bentley ProjectWise, Oracle Aconex, Procore, Asite, or other non-Autodesk platforms in any meaningful way.
On joint venture projects, this is a disqualifying limitation. If a project partner runs ProjectWise and requires synchronisation into ACC, Clarity cannot bridge that gap. The outcome is manual transfer, with all the cost and error rate that entails.
The Security Certification Problem
Clarity does not hold its own SOC 2 Type II certification. Its security posture is inherited from Rand Worldwide, its parent organisation, rather than being product-specific. For government infrastructure projects, critical infrastructure operators, and any project governed by SOCI Act obligations in Australia or equivalent frameworks in other jurisdictions, this is a material issue during procurement.
How CDE Sync Compares
CDE Sync is fully cloud-native. There are no virtual machines, no host servers, no task servers, and no IT department involvement required. Configuration is done through a browser-based no-code wizard. From sign-up to first live synchronisation takes 15 to 30 minutes.
It supports eleven CDE platforms, including all the platforms Clarity supports and the platforms it does not. It holds SOC 2 Type II certification in its own right, with annual penetration testing and disaster recovery simulations. Files are never stored or cached, they stream directly between platforms, which removes an entire category of data sovereignty and security risk.
For organisations that have previously implemented Clarity and are looking at their options for the next project, CDE Sync represents a material reduction in implementation time, infrastructure cost, and ongoing maintenance overhead.
The Bottom Line
If your next project runs entirely within Autodesk, has a large IT function, and has a four-month runway before synchronisation needs to be operational, Clarity is a known quantity. Most infrastructure projects do not have that luxury. CDE Sync was built for the reality of how large projects actually run.