Cityworks is built for big cities. Here is what a small water system can use instead.

What is the best Cityworks alternative for a small water utility?

For most small systems, it is a field-first app: map and work in one place, nothing to keep fed underneath it. Cityworks can hold every asset you own. The trouble is what it takes to keep it current.

Cityworks is GIS-centric by design. It uses your Esri ArcGIS geodatabase as the system of record, so the map only stays right if somebody keeps that map right. On a 3-to-12-person crew, that somebody usually does not exist. So the GIS sits in the office while the crew works off a clipboard in the truck. The asset register was never the real problem. Getting the crew to use it in the field is.

Ziptility is built for that. Every main, valve, hydrant, meter, well, and lift station is a point on the map. Your crew taps it, sees the whole record, and logs the work right there. The map stays current because the work rides on the asset, not because one person keeps a second system fed. There is no ArcGIS underneath and no second system to maintain. It works out of the box, and you customize it from there: the water and wastewater thinking is already done, so you start using it instead of building it.

Where does Cityworks fit, and where is it a lot for a small system?

Give Cityworks its due. It is a serious system of record for public assets and has been for decades. Salt Lake City's water department has run it since 1998. For a city or county with a GIS team, IT, and assets spread across water, sewer, streets, and signs, it is powerful. It is built for exactly that job.

The trouble starts when a small water system tries to run it. Because it is built on Esri ArcGIS and uses the ArcGIS geodatabase as the system of record, you need ArcGIS in place first. Then you need someone who can keep that map current. Where that feeding staff already exists, the design is a strength. Where it does not, you are buying an engine you need a specialist to drive, and if nobody's full-time job is keeping it fed, it is really hard to support from an asset management standpoint.

Ziptility vs Cityworks for a small utility

Here is the honest side-by-side. Short version: Cityworks is the better system for a big GIS shop. Ziptility is the better fit for a small crew that needs to run the work from the field.

What does it really cost to keep Cityworks running?

The license is one line on the quote. The real bill is everything under it. Because Cityworks runs on Esri ArcGIS, you are also paying for ArcGIS underneath. Add a GIS person or an engineering firm to keep the data current, plus IT to keep everything underneath it healthy. For a big city that staff already exists. For a small system, every one of those is a new cost or a new hire.

We saw this land on a small system directly. A water system of a few hundred connections was told it might run 60,000 dollars a year and up. That is a reported quote to one system, not a Cityworks list price, and the software was only the start of it. The point is not the exact number. The point is that the sticker hides the staff and the Esri licensing it takes to feed the thing, and a small crew has neither. (Reported to us by one small system, kept anonymized.)

There is a simpler way to ask it. Do you have Cityworks, or does your engineer have it? On a lot of small systems, an engineer built an ArcGIS setup and Cityworks sits on top of it. Nobody on the crew touches either one.

Trimble says Unity Maintain will replace Cityworks

As of 2026-07-04, this is Trimble's own public statement, published 2025-09-05: "Trimble Unity Maintain will replace Cityworks over the long term." Trimble says Cityworks 23.x functionality carries into Unity Maintain, and it has not published transition timelines. The install base still calls it Cityworks, and so do we here. Along the way the labels have included Cityworks AMS, Cityworks OpX, Trimble Cityworks, and now Trimble Unity Maintain. Same GIS-first system underneath.

That is not a knock on Cityworks. It is a fact about the road ahead. If you run Cityworks today, a change is coming on Trimble's schedule, not yours, and Trimble has not said when. The practical move is to plan your landing before the calendar picks it for you. For a big organization with GIS and IT staff, following Trimble into Unity Maintain may be exactly right. For a small system that already struggles to keep Cityworks fed, this is a natural moment to land on a record your own crew can run, with data you can export anytime. We will not guess past Trimble's words. We will just say: whatever you pick next, pick it on your own schedule.

We already have Cityworks. Should we switch?

It depends on whether your crew actually uses it, and you do not have to rip it out either way. If you are a city with a GIS team and Cityworks is humming, keep it. That is the right tool for that job.

If you are a smaller system and the GIS sits in the office while the crew works off paper, that is worth a hard look. We have had a small utility tell us flat out they were confident Cityworks was not working for them and wanted to see other options. That says nothing bad about the software. It is a system that is the wrong size for it. Your data is yours regardless, so you can export it whenever you want. (Reported by a prospect, kept anonymized.)

One more thing worth weighing if you run the GIS or IT side yourself. Cityworks setup and changes usually go through a third-party engineering firm, so a question can turn into phone tag between the firm that did the setup and the company that makes the software. With Ziptility you work with us directly, one to one, and you configure it yourself. No go-between.

Why did Cityworks send a small system to us?

Because some systems are too small for Cityworks to fit, and the company knows it. This is the part we could not make up. A water system of a few hundred connections came to us because Cityworks pointed them our way. They were too small for Cityworks. They had an ArcGIS setup an engineer built that nobody used, and no way to get the crew to fill out a work order. (Reported referral, kept anonymized.)

That is the whole line this page draws. A big public works org with IT and GIS staff goes to Cityworks. A small water system with a few operators goes to Ziptility. We are not the bigger tool. We are the one a small crew can run themselves.

What does Ziptility cost compared to Cityworks?

One yearly price based on your number of service connections, with unlimited users. No per-seat licenses. No Esri ArcGIS license to buy underneath. No engineering firm on retainer to keep it running. Pricing by connection instead of by seat is on purpose. Every operator and field tech gets the app on a phone, so the whole crew feeds the map and it stays alive. (Looking at the price? Here is rough pricing.)

And it earns its keep on the admin side, not just the map. At Mogollon Water Management, the contract operator we run ourselves, running systems on Ziptility saves about 15 hours a week of admin time: work goes straight from email to the crew in the field instead of routing through the office. The work goes out, it lands on the asset, and the record fills in behind it.

Honest about who this is for. Ziptility fits the system where nobody's full-time job is keeping software fed: you run it yourself, configure it yourself, and the whole crew carries it in the field. If you are a big public works organization with IT and a GIS department, Cityworks is probably the right tool for that job, not us. And somewhere north of about 50,000 connections, a full enterprise suite will serve you better than we will. We do less than Cityworks on purpose, and we do the part a small crew actually touches.