Altair Inspire vs. Autodesk Inventor

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Altair Inspire
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Altair Inspire, developed by SolidThinking which was acquired by Altair, is software for Generative Design/Topology Optimization, and rapid simulation solution for design engineers. It is designed to enhance the concept development process by enabling simulation-driven design to increase a product’s efficiency, strength and manufacturability. This can lead to reduced costs, development time, material consumption, and product weight.N/A
Autodesk Inventor
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Autodesk Inventor 3D CAD software offers professional-grade 3D mechanical design, documentation, and product simulation tools. These blend parametric, direct, freeform, and rules-based design capabilities. Inventor includes integrated tools for sheet metal, frame design, tube and pipe, cable & harness, presentations, rendering, simulation, and machine design. It also features TrustedDWG® compatibility and Model-Based Definition capabilities for embedding manufacturing information directly in…
$300
12 days over 1 year via Flex pricing 100 tokens
Pricing
Altair InspireAutodesk Inventor
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Subscription - Monthly
$305
per month per user
Subscription - Yearly
$2440
per year per user
Subscription - 3 Years
$7320
3 years per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Altair InspireAutodesk Inventor
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAlso available for limited use through tokens on a Flex plan.
More Pricing Information
Features
Altair InspireAutodesk Inventor
Computer-Aided Design Software
Comparison of Computer-Aided Design Software features of Product A and Product B
Altair Inspire
-
Ratings
Autodesk Inventor
6.8
2 Ratings
3% above category average
3D Modeling00 Ratings8.52 Ratings
2D Drafting00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
Rendering and Visualization00 Ratings6.52 Ratings
Parametric Design00 Ratings7.52 Ratings
Collaboration and Sharing00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
Compatibility with other software and formats00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Assembly Design00 Ratings6.52 Ratings
Simulation and Analysis00 Ratings5.52 Ratings
Documentation and Annotation00 Ratings6.52 Ratings
Customization and Extensions00 Ratings7.52 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Altair InspireAutodesk Inventor
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Rhino
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Score 8.5 out of 10
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Score 8.5 out of 10
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User Ratings
Altair InspireAutodesk Inventor
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(27 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.1
(12 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Altair InspireAutodesk Inventor
Likelihood to Recommend
Altair Engineering, Inc.
This software is incredibly intuitive and really does provide a great finished product. The software runs relatively quickly and will usually throw an error right away, which is a nice feature. I didn't use the geometry editing parts of the software, but it looks promising to be able to edit files directly in the program.
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Autodesk
Autodesk Inventor is a great tool for students and faculty for engineering areas that don't require great precision or development of more thorough scientific results. Is you are conducting research, or deal with very intricate and complex systems I would recommend a more robust platform that complies more to industry standards.
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Pros
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • Defining the actuators, pin joints, sliding joints is very easy.
  • Defining a motion sequence is straightforward.
  • The UI tends to make you follow a sequence of steps to be successful in doing a motion simulation and finite element analysis study on a design.
  • The motion simulation results are automatically transferred to the FEA solver.
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Autodesk
  • The program is very good at simplicity. Each of the buttons, menus, and options has an explanation of exactly what the feature does, and even a more advanced description if you desire to learn more about what each one does.
  • Autodesk Inventor is a very fast program. Everything renders extremely quickly and there are no delays when examining a 3D model, part, or assembly. This is especially useful when giving a presentation about a product or design, and you need to be able to show a concept to an audience in real time.
  • The software has an extremely accurate simulation feature that lets users do stress analysis on a 3D model. It can calculate precisely where the stress concentrations are going to be in a particular model and even give you an accurate depiction of where the part could likely fracture and/or fracture during loading.
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Cons
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • I think the tools to create CAD are a bit difficult to use. Consequently, it is now easier to develop the part in other software, which is bad since we need to use more than one tool at a time.
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Autodesk
  • most if it still runs on a single core. Please fix this
  • Crashes. In our experience, too many crashes. We have high end machines and crashes are way too common.
  • Autosave. I think it is simply unacceptable that Autodesk Inventor combines common crashes with no autosave functionality. We feel this pain all the time.
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Likelihood to Renew
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Autodesk
Inventor continues to meet our enterprise needs. I don't see a need to change unless we change our business model significantly.
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Usability
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Autodesk
It’s easy and very good for mechanical design
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Support Rating
Altair Engineering, Inc.
When I needed clarification on how do use a feature or best way to define the constraints for a design problem, the response was quick and solved my needs.
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Autodesk
I think the support for Autodesk Inventor is very good. The staff at our reseller were very knowledgable and able to walk us through problems pretty easily. The training we received was very good also. I will say that there were a couple of times we reached out to support with a question or challenge we had, and the support agent was not able to resolve our problem, and after touching base back we found out that there was not a solution for the problems we were experiencing. One of them was just how Inventor represents colors inconsistently at times, all things being equal. Another was that Inventor would not let decals on parts transcend to the assembly level. they just would not show up.
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In-Person Training
Altair Engineering, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Autodesk
I got the training during college, so mostly i learned on my own
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Alternatives Considered
Altair Engineering, Inc.
Working Model, MathCad, Dynamic Designer, Algor, and Mathlab had poor UI's and poor ways to define actuator and motor motion profiles. The force results and vectors were not easy to input into the FEA software. SOLIDWORKS Motion does not have an excellent way to define a linear actuator or its motion profile. Altair provides a UI that guides you through defining your linear actuator or motor's motion profile quickly.
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Autodesk
When it comes to solid modeling, the bad choices died out years ago. So we looked at the total ecosystem and chose Autodesk Inventor because of the integration with Nastran, HSM (machining), Autodesk CFD, MoldFlow, and AutoCAD. This means our legacy data (2D) is still a valid part of our design methodologies going forward, and we have the full breadth of engineering tools at our disposal. Other solutions in this space have similar offerings but not nearly as potent of a portfolio in total. It's worth saying that we do not consider Inventor in the same space as CATIA or NX, but that the entire Autodesk portfolio (e.g. Alias, PowerMill, etc) includes a total toolset that exceeds these industry giants.
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Return on Investment
Altair Engineering, Inc.
  • In my personal opinion, we think that this product does not have any negative aspect that makes us feel very uncomfortable.
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Autodesk
  • Working on a project designed with Inventor provides a modular design platform that can quickly be configured or changed as required. This allows for the quick turn around time for the design and revision of drawings.
  • We've used Inventor over the years (since 2013) and the updates and newly released versions of Inventor do not require re-training or restrict use.
  • Autodesk follows an intuitive approach and users or designers who have worked on other design platforms like SolidWorks can transition easily to Inventor.
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ScreenShots