stainless vs aluminum

I am making jump from extract to all grain. Most of the equipment I am making myself from a lot of helpful YouTube postings. Am all ready to start but can not find a stainless steel boil pot on the cheap. I have an aluminum one from a Turkey fryer but not sure if it is recommended. Any thoughts? Also, any thoughts on software?

Thank you for the valuable info. Huge help!

I use aluminum most of the time, i have a 5 gallon Stainless Steel i heat sparge water in or do small batches but my 7-1/2 gallon and 10 gallon aluminum pots do the bulk of the work.

An aluminum turkey frier pot is what I started with and it is perfectly fine.

Chances are that your turkey fryer pot isn't going to be big enough. If you're going all-grain and doing 5 gallon batches, you're going to be collecting about 6.5 to 7 gallons of wort. Add in some headspace to avoid boil-overs and I'd recommend a 10 gallon pot at minimum. Aluminum is still OK, though, and much cheaper. Restaurant supply stores usually have a 40 to 60 qt stockpot in stock for roughly 70 bucks.

But don't toss that turkey fryer pot. You're going to want a hot liquor tank and it'll do the trick just fine.

You can use a 8 gallon pot easily for 5 gallon batches with control of your boil and Fermcaps.

Look at Walmart or Target, they both sell an IMUSA Tamale Steamer pot which is 32Q(8 Gallons) for 20 bucks and is Aluminum. Many people use this including myself, works perfectly fine.

Kegs are the cheapest way to go.

I have used Beersmith, Brewtarget, and Hopville. I like them all but I just use Beersmith now. Hopville is nice because it's all online and you can get your recipes from anywhere. I used Brewtarget when it was pretty new and it was good. I'm sure it's great now. It's hard to beat free open-source software when it's good.

Check Amazon also. I bought the bigger of my pots there.
Make sure and read the reviews though. I wanted to make sure it was a heavy enough pot and had a heavy bottom. I read the reviews and a home brewer had posted there. His concerns were the same as mine and he posted about the thick bottom and quality of the pot.
I bought it.

I don't have a lot of exposure to different software, but beersmith is great. Easy to import recipes, does every conversion you want, you can keep notes. On and on.
If you want to try beersmith, I think you get 20 or 30 days use before you have to buy it.
Download it and give it a try.