BricsCAD vs. DraftSight vs. Ironclad

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.

2D design work

3D design work

Large area (500m²+) analysis and assessment

From product design, including production drawings to lay out of large (10m x 1m footprint) layouts DraftSight is a cost effective solution providing all appropriate interfaces for BIM.

The level of detail during rendering (while it can be slow) is good for visualization and for use in installation and training materials

Incentivized

I think it worked realllly well at my previous company where we used it for a very simple form that just required one simple signature from both sides- this was a form used to record custom pricing/discounts for a product that typically was not discounted. In my current role, there are many more required fields on the form/contract, and can be multiple levels of approvals on one side, and then possibly multiple levels of approvals/signatures on the other side. I've never used another solution in the exact same way (like DocuSign) to be able to compare experiences, but on Ironclad, understanding where I am in the completion process can be confusing. Within the app, I wish it was more of just a checklist or schedule of what needs to happen, but it's not written out that clearly. Lastly, there is something wrong with our notifications (I'm not sure if this is specific to my company's settings)- I frequently get 'contract completed' or 'contract signed' email notifications even if that hasn't occurred. They seem to correlate with updating the form or refreshing the sync from SFDC.

• 3D Modeling
• Machine learning / A.I.-assisted feature named PROPAGATE.

Incentivized

• You can easily bring in a dwg format drawing into the programme and it will display the information just as well as AutoCAD.
• The programme supports shortcut features or one-click buttons for the most commonly used operations.
• Script files can be used which is a bonus.

Incentivized

• Keep track of legal documents versions
• Approve legal workflows
• Forward email threads to the legal workflow

Incentivized

• 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

• The text search and replace is very crude and barely works. Needs a major revamping.
• The layout tabs are very clunky and hard to use. Needs to be fixed.
• DraftSight will fix a problem in one version, mess it up in another version, then fix it again later on. And so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Very poor software update control.

Incentivized

• Contract link feature in the case of amendment/addendum.
• Auto document retention feature (expiration and deletion).

Incentivized

It has given us, a small startup, the ability to compete effectively with far larger competitors by evening the playing field at a low cost.

Incentivized

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.

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.

Incentivized

Ironclad is the best tool I have used to date, to manage workflow and tickets. It was very easy to use and navigate from the very first time I used it. My time is very valuable and I don't have time to sit in training sessions, simply to use a new product. I'm happy to say that I was never formally trained on Ironclad as it simply wasn't necessary.

Incentivized

Other than a bug created by a VAR tech support that didn't get resolved until I installed the next version, DraftSight has worked fine.

In general it's very quick to load drawings...now it depends a lot on the file we're opening or working on.

Incentivized

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.

I haven't used the support services for IronClad, but I understand from our legal team, the support is very good, they have replied and provide solutions quickly and effectively. I have used the documentation and support pages which are very complete and which have been updated given the user interface updates.

Incentivized

Based on some knowledge of AutoCad, using Draftsight took a short time before I felt comfortable using it.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

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.

Miles ahead of LinkSquares

Incentivized

It's a typical contract for cad software. It was inexpensive at the time I started. But now the more useful features are on the more premium (priced) version.

As a startup, we really appreciate scalable software or tools, and because we use it for diverse types of projects, flexibility is key.

Incentivized

Quite responsive when I have an issue, and with little to no delay in responding. They are professional and know the software so have been able to solve all of the issues that I have had with both using the software and also with making revisions as required. Non-technical issues like invoices have also been resolved quickly.

Incentivized

• Evaluation and budget management
• Better monitoring of projects
• Respect of execution deadlines

Incentivized

• Draftsight has been very cost effective, it was free a few years ago then £79 a year, which it still is if you have the standard version. Now the minium level is Profession edition at £159+ VAT per year. Which is still very good value for money, just more that what we currently pay with the standard licences we have.

Incentivized

• At Gusto, where we operated on no contracts for many years, Ironclad allowed us to create a very simple process for getting approval for, and keeping records of, customized pricing on our new, high-end plan.
• Wasn't part of the buying committee, but in my current role it's been heavily utilized externally for customer contracts, but also internally for employee agreements.
• I don't have any actual numbers, and don't have a way to compare it to any prior e-signature setup.