The short answer: they’re two doors into the same system. The desktop version is the installed Windows application — full toolbox, works offline, projects live on your machine (and sync). Xactimate Online runs in a browser — nothing to install, projects live in the cloud, you work from anywhere with internet. The estimating engine and price lists are the same underneath. The differences are about where you work, whether you’re connected, and which workflows each version handles best.
What each one is
Xactimate Desktop is the traditional installed application. You launch it from the Control Center, work in Local Projects, and the full feature set is on your machine. It works without an internet connection — useful on job sites with dead zones — and syncs when you’re back online.
Xactimate Online is the browser-based version. You log in, see your Projects page with recent cloud projects, and hit + New Project to start. Nothing installs; updates happen server-side, so you’re always on the current version. The tradeoff is the obvious one: no internet, no estimating.
Both are Xactware/Verisk products, both use the same regional price lists, and both produce estimates in the format carriers accept. Nobody downstream can tell which one you used.
The real differences
Where projects live. Desktop defaults to local — your machine holds the projects, and you manage backup and sync. Online defaults to cloud — projects follow your login to any device. For a one-person shop, this barely matters. For a team with estimators in trucks and reviewers at desks, cloud projects remove an entire category of “which version is current” confusion.
Offline work. Desktop wins outright. Basements, rural properties, new construction with no service — the desktop app doesn’t care. Online needs a connection. If your estimators regularly work where signal is unreliable, this alone decides it.
Updates and maintenance. Online wins outright. No installs, no version mismatches across the team, no IT afternoon getting everyone current. Desktop requires managing installations — minor for one machine, real overhead for twenty.
The sketch experience. Both have the full sketch tools. On a large monitor with a mouse, they’re equivalent. On a laptop trackpad in a truck, both are mildly miserable — the difference between them is smaller than the difference a real mouse makes.
Getting started. Online is faster for a new user: log in, new project, go. Desktop has the install and setup step. Neither is hard; Online just has fewer steps between “I need to estimate” and estimating.
Which one for which situation
- Solo estimator, sometimes offline: Desktop. The offline capability is the deciding factor.
- Team, multiple locations, reviewers and field staff: Online. Cloud projects and zero install overhead pay off fast at team scale.
- Mixed: many shops run both — desktop for the field estimators who hit dead zones, Online for office staff and reviewers. They’re the same system, so this isn’t the compromise it sounds like.
- New to Xactimate entirely: start Online. Fewer setup steps, always current, and you can move to desktop later without relearning anything — the estimating workflow is the same.
What doesn’t differ
The price lists are the same. The line-item database is the same. The 4-step estimating process (Claim Info, Sketch, Estimate Items, Complete) is the same — our estimate-writing guide applies to both. An adjuster receiving your estimate cannot tell which version produced it, and doesn’t care.
Where this comes from
- From Xactimate (official): the Online project workflow (Projects page, + New Project, profiles, project types including Estimate/FEMA Flood/360Value, cloud-based Estimate Writer) per Xactware’s official help documentation. The desktop workflow (Control Center, Local Projects) per Xactware’s training materials.
- From the field (labeled): the practical tradeoff framing — offline dead zones, team-scale update overhead, the trackpad-in-a-truck reality — reflects working estimator discussion (third-party, not Xactware-official). Treat as lived experience, not specification.
- Related on Restoration Intel: How Do I Write an Estimate in Xactimate? · What Is Xactimate and What Does It Cost? · How Do I Learn Xactimate?
Two doors, same house. Pick the door that matches where you work.