Autodesk Inventor vs. BricsCAD

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
BricsCAD
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
BricsCAD is a computer-aided design (CAD) toolkit, supporting 2D drawing, 3D modeling and visualizations, and is customizable as well as compatible with many 3rd party applications, developed by Belgian company Bricsys, a Hexagon company since late 2018.
$314
per year
Pricing
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Editions & Modules
Subscription - Monthly
$305
per month per user
Subscription - Yearly
$2440
per year per user
Subscription - 3 Years
$7320
3 years per user
BricsCAD Lite
$590
one-time fee
BricsCAD Pro
$1,265
one-time fee
BricsCAD Mechanical
$1,780
one-time fee
BricsCAD BIM
$1,890
one-time fee
BricsCAD Ultimate
$2,100
one-time fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Free Trial
YesYes
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
Community Pulse
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Features
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Computer-Aided Design Software
Comparison of Computer-Aided Design Software features of Product A and Product B
Autodesk Inventor
6.8
2 Ratings
5% below category average
BricsCAD
8.4
1 Ratings
16% above category average
3D Modeling8.52 Ratings9.01 Ratings
2D Drafting6.02 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Rendering and Visualization6.52 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Parametric Design7.52 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Collaboration and Sharing6.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Compatibility with other software and formats7.02 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Assembly Design6.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Simulation and Analysis5.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Documentation and Annotation6.52 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Customization and Extensions7.52 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Small Businesses
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.6 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.6 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Rhino
Rhino
Score 8.5 out of 10
Rhino
Rhino
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(27 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Autodesk InventorBricsCAD
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Hexagon AB
SMBs who do want to minimse their involvement with expensinve, inconvenient and bloated Autodesk products will find lots to love. The only hinderence is the market share of Autodesk means some 3rd party developers will not support it unfortunately, but it has it's own solutions to many things users of the AutoCAD ecosystem currenrtly rely on.
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Pros
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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Hexagon AB
  • 3D Modeling
  • Machine learning / A.I.-assisted feature named PROPAGATE.
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Cons
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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Hexagon AB
  • there is not full compatibility with dynamic blocks but it isn't so bad -we can create them in AutoCAD and use them to some extent anyway
  • it doesn't look as "sexy" and the interface looks kinda orimitive in some screens but the functionality is all there and the some
  • there is the hurdle of users thinking they are getting a lesser product so more marketing pozazz is needed to get the message over it is a very capable product
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Hexagon AB
No answers on this topic
Usability
Autodesk
It’s easy and very good for mechanical design
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Hexagon AB
it's exteremly useable. AutoCAD users will carry over many eisting skills and learn some new ones on the cross over. It's fast adn lightweight meaning ot can be run on just about any PC. The help and support are realy good and problems are usually responded to within a day by experts.
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Support Rating
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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Hexagon AB
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
Autodesk
I got the training during college, so mostly i learned on my own
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Hexagon AB
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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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Hexagon AB
Very cost-effective solution, it even supports pointclouds natively and is something we will investigate further as time goes on and may in fact utilise it to replace AutoCAD with 3rd party add-ins at some point in the future, and we hope it can further reduce costs in the long-run as it continues to develop and mature.
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Return on Investment
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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Hexagon AB
  • Evaluation and budget management
  • Better monitoring of projects
  • Respect of execution deadlines
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ScreenShots