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
Onshape
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Onshape is a cloud-native product development platform with integrated CAD, data management and analytics. Onshape aims to accelerate time to market and improve innovation by: 1) Access: Unlike file-based CAD which is on-premise only, Onshape enables remote access for designers and engineers from anywhere, and on any internet-connected device -including tablets and smart phones. 2) Collaboration: Onshape aims to eliminate the version control problems and blocking of file-based…
$1,500
per year per user
Pricing
Autodesk Inventor
Onshape
Editions & Modules
Subscription - Monthly
$305
per month per user
Subscription - Yearly
$2440
per year per user
Subscription - 3 Years
$7320
3 years per user
Standard
1,500
per year per user
Professional
2,500
per year per user
Enterprise
Contact sales team
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Autodesk Inventor
Onshape
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Also available for limited use through tokens on a Flex plan.
No dedicated hardware is required. Works on all web-connected devices including tablet, Chromebook, iPhone, Android.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Autodesk Inventor
Onshape
Considered Both Products
Autodesk Inventor
Verified User
Engineer
Chose Autodesk Inventor
Audesk Inventor is better than SOLIDWORKS in all ways, better than Onshape in important ways, but not as good on collaboration tools, and more professional than Fusion 360.
Fusion works very similarly to Inventor as it is from the same company. SOLIDWORKS is also fairly similar, with only small features/functions and user interface differences. Onshape functions similarly to Inventor, but is web-based, so it requires no download to use. It is …
We chose Onshape for its ease of use and ultimately its mobility. Our mobile team wanted to be able to do work anywhere with a solid internet connection, instead of having to rely on bulky and tethered desktop machines or high powered laptops. All of Autodesk's products, while …
OnShape was lower cost, with a reasonably comparable set of tools to Inventor and SOLIDWORKS. The cost and ease of assimilation (ability to change mouse and keyboard shortcuts to SOLIDWORKS or Inventor controls) made the choice easier.
Onshape is quickly becoming the CAD software I recommend over any other. SOLIDWORKS and Inventor are feature rich and leaders in the industry, however, Onshape is beginning to match them with constant updates and is already as feature rich as the two mentioned.
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.
Onshape shall be used by organizations where cost is a major factor as the license is relatively competitive than the competition. Where Onshape , excels the most is the ability to be operational on any device with internet connection and webbrowser. Onshape doesn't require your hardware to be beefed with Graphic cards (if added better). Where onshape can be better. If they are able to include simulation packages bundled like SOLIDWORKS.
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.
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.
Dimensioning a hole feature in a drawing when there are multiple holes, the hole count does not parametrically update. For example, when there are 3x of the same hole, Onshape forces you to manually type in 3x instead of parametrically populating the hole count. This gets very dangerous if say, one of the 3x holes changes but you forget to update the 3x to 2x. Other CAD software does provide this.
I know Onshape provides guidance on performance considerations and how to structure a project through their literature, however, a dedicated video from Onshape that directly addresses the guidelines on how to minimize file load and reload times would be beneficial to all future and current Onshape users. I think they should incorporate this directly in their training. Poindexter by Design went through the growing pains of this issue but through the Onshape literature and our own experiences we've developed guidelines on how to keep our Onshape performance maximized!
Familiarity and ability to work from any location. Also easy to cooperate with potential customers, existing customers, systems users, and fabricating shops. Most of the standard designs are now in On Shape and I would like to continue using it. It is easier to run versions to clarify imrovements to the previous designs
It is quite user-friendly as long as you have the computing power to download and use it. However, this makes it quite inconvenient if you are trying to access files on different devices, as Inventor has to be loaded on all of those devices. While the program itself works just fine, it would be much better for my application if it, or a version, were web-based and allowed users to access and modify projects from anywhere.
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.
Been fairly standard experience with support team. Issues have always been addressed, but is understandably focused on business side applications which typically has different issues than education applications. I have very few IT issues with the design side of the software, my issues are more often with the control of users and access
I might be biased by coming from using three different CAD softwares in the past, so I already understood many modeling concepts, but the training OS offers is really good. Videos are clear, they explain operations in good detail and besides that OS has a really good help system that explains even more how every tool works.
Onshape is revolutionary. Its advantage is that it can be used without having to download it. You are free to work wherever you want. This means that even if you take a vacation or attend a family event, your work will not be interrupted. You can still bring your work and complete it quickly.
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.
I have used SOLIDWORKS for over four years, and the vault system is time intensive for control of design history, and revision management. I have used Pro-E for over four years, and this has the capability but is not user-friendly. Not needing high-end computers is another great reason to choose Onshape
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.
