If you’re planning new tower builds and need 3D terrain + clutter/land-cover modeling, the “best” RF planning software usually depends on whether you’re doing cellular macro, fixed wireless, or private networks. That said, the top-tier tools most commonly used for this kind of work are:

Best overall: Ranplan Wireless

• Strong 3D radio planning
• Good terrain, clutter, and indoor/outdoor propagation
• Very capable for complex new-site / greenfield planning
• Often favored for 5G, dense urban, DAS, and private networks
• Good visual workflow and scenario comparison

Best for large-scale cellular network design: Forsk Atoll

• Very widely used by carriers and consultants
• Excellent terrain + clutter + propagation modeling
• Good for macro network planning, site search, coverage prediction, and optimization
• Strong ecosystem for LTE/5G planning
• Typically one of the safest “industry standard” choices

Best for high-fidelity propagation and niche engineering: AWE Communications Asset

• Very strong propagation modeling
• Good for 3D terrain/clutter and advanced RF analysis
• Often used when modeling accuracy matters a lot
• More engineering-heavy than some competitors

Good options depending on use case

• Mentum Planet — solid planning platform, often used in operator environments
• iBwave Design — best known for indoor/DAS, but not the top pick for tower build planning
• Eagle Point / GE / ArcGIS-based workflows — useful if your team is GIS-heavy, but usually not as RF-specialized as the tools above
• Radio Mobile — free/low-cost, useful for basic line-of-sight and terrain work, but not really comparable to enterprise-grade planning suites

My practical recommendation

• If you want the best all-around for new tower builds with 3D clutter: Atoll or Ranplan
• If you need most advanced/modern 3D planning and visualization: Ranplan
• If you want the most established carrier-grade standard: Atoll

What to look for in the software

Make sure it supports:

• DEM/DTM terrain data
• Clutter/land-use layers
• 3D viewer
• Propagation models like Longley-Rice, Okumura-Hata, COST-231, and preferably vendor-specific calibrated models
• Antenna pattern libraries
• Automatic site search / candidate evaluation
• Coverage prediction and capacity planning
• GIS integration and export tools

If you tell me:

1. your region/country,
2. whether this is cellular, private LTE/5G, microwave, or Wi-Fi, and
3. your budget range,

I can narrow it down to the single best option for your case.