Procore vs. Autodesk Forma (ACC): Which One Do You Need — Or Do You Need Both?

“Procore vs Autodesk” is one of the most searched comparisons in construction technology, and most of the content answering it is written as if the outcome is a single winner. In practice, it rarely is. Procore and Autodesk Forma (formerly Autodesk Construction Cloud, or ACC) are built for different parts of the same project, and the majority of firms of any size end up running both, not because they couldn’t decide, but because different stakeholders on the same job genuinely need different tools.

This article compares what each platform actually does well, why the “versus” framing breaks down once real project teams are involved, and, because running two platforms only works if the data between them doesn’t get stuck, how Graitec File Sync acts as the connective layer that keeps Procore and Autodesk Forma working as one system instead of two.

What Procore is built for

Procore’s strength is in the operational layer of a project: RFIs, submittals, daily field reports, punch lists, scheduling, and cost and financial workflows in a single system that general contractors and site teams live in day to day. Its document and drawing tools support execution — tracking what’s current, what’s outstanding, and what’s overdue — rather than design authoring. For firms whose primary need is running the job site and managing the contractual and financial side of a project, Procore is usually the system of record.

What Autodesk Forma (ACC) is built for

Autodesk Forma sits inside the Autodesk ecosystem, which makes it the natural hub wherever model-based design is central to the project, architects, structural and MEP engineers, and BIM/VDC teams coordinating Revit models, drawings, and design documentation. Its strength is design collaboration and document control tied directly to the models the design team is producing. For owners and delivery partners whose priority is design coordination and a controlled, model-linked document environment, Forma is usually the system of record.

What breaks when the two platforms aren’t connected

When a project genuinely needs both platforms and nothing links them, the cost shows up as manual work rather than a missing feature in either tool: documents downloaded from one system and re-uploaded into the other, RFIs or submittals re-keyed by hand, drawing sets that drift out of alignment, and metadata that has to be re-entered rather than carried across. None of this is a flaw in Procore or Autodesk Forma — it’s the predictable result of two well-built, independent systems that were never designed to talk to each other directly. File Sync addresses this by automating controlled data movement between them, rather than leaving it to whoever has time to do the re-upload.

File Sync: the link between Procore and Autodesk Forma

This is the gap Graitec File Sync is built to close. Rather than asking a project to standardize on one platform, File Sync sits between Procore and Autodesk Forma and keeps the data both sides depend on moving automatically, in either direction, on a schedule the project controls.

In practice, that means File Sync can:

• Synchronize documents and files between Procore and Autodesk Forma in either direction, preserving folder structure
• Keep drawings and sheets aligned between Forma Sheets and Procore Drawings
• Synchronize RFIs and submittals between the two platforms, including attachments, so neither team is re-keying the same information
• Carry supported metadata and version history across, so the design team’s model-linked context survives on the Procore side and vice versa
• Copy that same project data into a backup location your firm controls, on the same schedule as the sync itself
• Run on a schedule — daily, weekly, or as needed — so the connection is continuous rather than a one-time cleanup

Choosing your setup

Rather than asking “Procore or Autodesk Forma,” the more useful questions for a project team are:

• Who is the general contractor standardized on, and who is the design team or owner standardized on?
• Does the project need model-linked document control, execution-focused field management, or both?
• If both platforms are in play, which project data — documents, drawings, RFIs, submittals, metadata — actually needs to move between them, and how often?
• Who owns keeping that data aligned once both platforms are live: is it a manual task assigned to document control, or an automated sync?

For most projects past a certain size, the answer to the first three questions is “both platforms, and most of the data types.” The fourth question is where File Sync fits — turning a manual reconciliation task into a configured, scheduled workflow.