Archistar: our review

Archistar was founded in Sydney in 2010 and sells two distinct products under the same brand: a feasibility analysis for developers and architecture firms, and an automatic permit-review module, AI PreCheck, sold to local governments. Both rest on the same idea — replacing hours of regulatory research with a searchable database — but for different territories.

What it actually does

On a given site, the tool cross-references aerial imagery, land registry and zoning databases to produce, in a few minutes, a feasibility figure: buildable area, allowed height, likely number of lots, yield estimate. The database covers all eight Australian states and territories, fed directly from federal, state and local planning documents — Archistar presents it as the country's largest zoning database. The second product, AI PreCheck, tackles the problem from the other end: a local government uploads received permit files (PDF, CAD, BIM) and the tool flags upfront what doesn't comply with local code, before a human reviewer opens the file.

Why it's pointless in France

This is the point no marketing sheet says plainly: Archistar's value rests entirely on its regulatory database, and that database is Australian. A firm testing the tool on a site in Nantes or Lyon would get no zoning data to process — no PLU, no national planning regulation, nothing resembling French construction law. The AI PreCheck side isn't any closer: its known references are North American and Australian (Los Angeles, Austin, around fifteen cities in Canada), no French local government appears in it. The vendor mentions "international projects in development" with no date or country given, so there's nothing to anticipate in the short term. This is the kind of check a generalist directory never does, and it's exactly the information that saves you a free trial for nothing.

Where it falls short even for Australian use

Two reservations hold beyond the question of territory. First, currency: the published rates are in Australian dollars, local tax (GST) included, and nothing on the page flags this explicitly beyond the mention of GST itself — a quick comparison with a vendor billing in US dollars will throw off the calculation without anyone noticing. Second, confidentiality: the policy states where servers are located based on the user's declared country (Australia, United States, Canada), but never states whether project data feeds a model's training. In the absence of an explicit clause, the question stays open rather than settled in the vendor's favor.

Our recommendation

Reserve it for a developer, engineering firm or local government actually operating in Australia, the United States or Canada: the regulatory database saves real time on the feasibility study, in the same files as those handled on the real estate side. For a project in France, the tool simply has nothing to analyze: better to look at a vendor that documents French planning law, or build that piece with the help of our AI agent services on local data.