AutoCAD is a CAD product from Autodesk. It allows designers to work in 2D and 3D, and is available on Windows and Mac, but with extensive online collaboration tools.
$245
per month
DraftSight
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
DraftSight is a 2D and 3D CAD solution for architects, engineers and construction service providers, as well as professional CAD users, designers, educators and hobbyists. DraftSight lets users create, edit, view, and markup any kind of 2D and 3D DWG file with greater ease, speed, and efficiency. Its familiar user interface helps to facilitate a quick transition from other CAD applications. DraftSight Offerings: DraftSight Professional: the advanced 2D CAD drafting…
$249
per year
Pricing
AutoCAD
DraftSight
Editions & Modules
Monthly Subscription
$245
per month per user
Yearly Subscription
$1975
per year per user
3-Year Subscription
$5925
3 years per user
DraftSight Professional
$249
per year
DraftSight Premium (3D)
$549
per year
DraftSight Enterprise
Contact sales team
DraftSight Enterprise Plus
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AutoCAD
DraftSight
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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DraftSight Professional, and Premium are available to purchase online directly. DraftSight Enterprise and Enterprise Plus are available to purchase through local resellers.
AutoCAD and DraftSight are both extremely popular Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs. They both lead the category in ratings and reviews, both having over 250 each. Compared to most SaaS platforms, CAD software has been around for several decades. And while CAD software is most commonly used for engineering and architectural purposes, it has a growing variety of applications.
AutoCAD is a CAD product from Autodesk, a major software company specializing in design tools for various industries. On TrustRadius, most of its users are from mid-sized construction companies. This is in contrast to DraftSight which represents mostly small businesses and/or engineering firms.
Features
In addition to running as desktop software, AutoCAD also has a mobile and web-based version for both Mac and Windows OS. Its major selling points are its pre-built architecture, electrical, and mechanical toolsets. AutoCAD’s key features set support 2D drafting, drawing, and annotation; 3D modeling and visualization; online collaboration; and issue tracking. AutoCAD allows users to access their drawing history, compare Xrefs, and remove and edit multiple objects at once as well.
Draftsight has 5 different tiers of pricing: Standard, Professional, Premium, Enterprise Plus. The key difference between the different tiers is whether or not they support 3D design. While Standard and Professional do not, Premium, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus do.
Standard is best for non-professional use cases, whereas the other three tiers. The more advanced tiers feature APIs for integrating your ERP, PDM, and LISP tools. as well as complete tools for drafting, modeling, prototyping, manufacturing, laser cutting, and 3D printing. The Enterprise offers are best for organizations with many users across multiple sites.
Limitations
While AutoCAD is extremely popular, no software is perfect. AutoCAD excels at 2D design, but reviewers on TrustRadius frequently call out that its 3D design tools require some improvements to be on the same level as its 2D features. AutoCAD in general seems to have a steep learning curve, so may be best for more experienced users. Reviewers also mention that AutoCAD is a bit slower than comparable programs.
With DraftSight, reviewers mention that it is not as customizable as they would like, and that often updates will add new features that make using the tool more difficult to use. When reviewers have ran into issues, they report that customer service with DraftSight leaves much to be desired and that online support is not useful for troubleshooting.
Pricing
While AutoCAD is free for students and educators, its pricing starts at $1,690/year or $210/month. Buyers also have the option of committing to 3-year licenses at $4,565 total. AutoCAD can be installed on multiple computers, but can only be used on one station at a time.
DraftSight is marketed as being a cheaper alternative to AutoCAD. Its cheapest tier (Standard) starts at $99/year per user. Professional is $199/yr, Premium $499/yr, and Enterprise or Enterprise Plus tiers have customized pricing depending on the size your business and number of users. Expect to pay more than $500/yr at this tier.
I think AutoCAD is great for creating precise site plans that show the layout of buildings, roads, parking lots, and other features on a piece of land. you can use it for designing roads and highways, including lane configurations, intersections, signage, and pavement markings, as well as for designing utility systems like water, sewer, and stormwater drainage. Engineers can create detailed layouts and profiles for these systems. However, I think it is less appropriate for advanced 3D modelling tasks compared to dedicated 3D modelling software, BIM (Building Information Modelling), advanced geospatial analysis.
We put it through its paces with our drawings and it works fine. We do a lot of wiring diagrams and industrial control panel layout drawings, so we use a lot of its 2D capabilities. I would not use it in a multi-user environment where you have multiple designers working on one project at a time. This software makes no provisions for allowing multiple users to work at the same time on the same drawing and has no native version control. And because of their poor software control, DraftSight many times put out versions that are "crashy", which would make a lot of people very unproductive very quickly. I would look at other products for larger projects like that.
The tools are easy to use and the learning curve is fairly minimal to be able to create blueprints.
The 3D application is very fun to use and it is nice to be able to see your product instead of having to imagine what it will look like.
The speed and accuracy in which students can create plans is a huge bonus. Students can plan their industrial art projects out and use their own set of plans to build them.
Draftsight could run better on lower performace machines, even on high performance machines there can be some lag now and again.
There used to be a more basic subscription version which was perfect for our needs, now lowest subscription is more expensive. Bringing back the standard version would be great.
Including hash pattern files would be very useful.
Because rarely we [would] rather wait for a whole year to update, sometimes the new updates don't bring many new features and we are still ok with the current version. Also the change of interface is always something that takes time for every partner in the company to get comfortable with. So those are the main reasons we may want to keep the same version.
Is an extremely usefull and accurate software , yo certainly can do almost every task requiered to document a project drawings and specifications , the only is that to be confortable with it you need a little of practice and to be familiarized with the commands and the core functioning to get expected results.
Easy if you know how to use CAD software. But is not very difficult to learn using DraftSight if this is your first CAD software. As soon as you get in to it the work flow will save you a lot of time and its simple interface is very nice.
AutoCAD has the issue of crashing or slowing down the design procedure once a heavy design that includes several disciplines or multiple families/blocks is involved. Customer services gets the feedback from the crash reports but this issue seems like it has never been addressed in the software updates past several years.
Technical support seems to be overseas with broken English and difficulty to read English. I asked for a trial license to try the fix but it was declined. Ask pratiksha.dahotre and gayatri.keskar for details. In summary, they released a broken version, I helped to fix by providing feedback and error logs. They claimed it is fixed but I can't test it.
the implementation was realy easy , to set up our workstation we pay for the licenses we are about to use , there was a little bit of delay to get the payment processed to receive the serial but after that the install runs without any problem , so you can fell secure there will be not issue with the implementation.
Take time to get used to where commands are and how the interface can be customized to suit your needs and work style. The keyboard commands are very helpful and can make work more efficient if time is taken to learn them.
I have experience with Autodesk Maya, and am familiar with their user interface with creating 3D objects. AutoCAD while from the same family, requires a steeper learning curve and more in-depth knowledge of the software.
I have experience with this software because it is the industry standard in the jobs that I applied to, and was required to the company that I interviewed for. Part of the interview process was a proof-of-work test to create a mock solution for a client, which would demonstrate knowledge and skill with using AutoCAD.
I have little experience with CorelCAD, but I found AutoCAD to be more in-depth with your options and what you could create.
While SketchUp is free, DraftSights cost is minimal and its abilities are much greater. It is so much easier to layout and modifies a system design. Since DraftSight is compatible with all versions of CAD, it makes it easy to collaborate with customers on their specific system design. We spend less time and see greater sales on our projects.
AutoCAD has helped our smaller firm produce lots of finished products matching that of a much larger size firm. With its many features, we have been able to do so much more and meet deadlines that much faster.
Since we do use AutoCAD, we're able to work with many other engineering firms to collaborate together to complete various building projects.
We have many clients now who expect us to provide for them at the end of a project not just printed construction drawings but also the digital AutoCAD drawing so they can in turn use it for future modifications themselves.
I have been able to save countless hours by making drawing corrections myself. Previously, I would have had to wait hours or days to get drawings back from our customers.
In the past year I would say that DraftSight has saved roughly 200 hours. That time would have been spent waiting for our customers to make corrections and then send them back to us.
