Altair Inspire vs. FreeCAD

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
FreeCAD
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
FreeCAD is an open-source CAD software that specialized in 3D design. New features are added to FreeCAD by an active community of developers.N/A
Pricing
Altair InspireFreeCAD
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Altair InspireFreeCAD
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
Altair InspireFreeCAD
Small Businesses
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.3 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.3 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
AutoCAD
AutoCAD
Score 8.5 out of 10
AutoCAD
AutoCAD
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Altair InspireFreeCAD
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Altair InspireFreeCAD
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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FreeCAD
It is a great cad software if you are wanting to try something without the commitment of a payment plan. It has the ability to do most of what other cad systems do and has some functionality that is way superior to other cad systems. It could be better with things like assemblies and larger part count developments
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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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FreeCAD
  • Importing CAD formats
  • Converting mesh formats to solid and surface objects geometry
  • Fixing errors in geometry cad
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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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FreeCAD
  • Would be great if it was cloud based
  • If it had some basic analysis tools
  • Had a rendering function
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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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FreeCAD
No answers on this topic
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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FreeCAD
Freecad is used often when receiving files from multiple sources and the need to work with cad in various forms from meshes to solid cad. Often when receiving scans of 3d objects the format is easy to work with and convert to traditional cad later on. There is no other cad that can bridge the gap between all the cad formats that we found yet.
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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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FreeCAD
  • It has allowed us to do some cad work that no other systems has allowed us to do and is key to getting that done fast
  • It has lots of online support through forums and blogs for trouble shooting
  • It could have an updated interface to make the functionality more user friendly for first time users
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ScreenShots