DraftSight vs. PTC Windchill

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

This product is perhaps typical of something that seems as though it was conceived in the 90's and has seen various appendages since, none of which do their job particularly well. Nothing in this system is efficient and all its processes demand a huge, close to maximum possible level of human effort. No doubt many companies, such as my own are spend huge amounts of money for the debateable privilege of tripling their employees workload and making them as inefficient as possible to make the administration of the system seem more important than it actually is.

• 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

• It is compatible with all devices and operating systems such as web-based, Android, and iOS.
• It allows user to customize its interface based on their requirement.
• It provides a digital part list with all required data like Part Name, Part No., Weight, Material, etc.
• Searching data is so facile that one can get data without any trouble.

• 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

• Extract partlist should be directly in Excel because everyone time we have to convert it to Excel.
• ECN report formatting need improvement.
• Many times part no doesn't go to ERP even after ERP released state.

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

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

Windchill is an extremely verbose and unintuitive system, with masses of unnecessary duplication of fields, convoluted workflows, unclear roles and terrible search capabilities. It is one of the worst software products I have ever seen to propose solving something that is actually factors quicker to do with manual writing and paper work

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.

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

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.

Windchill is having a great market share & its UI is simple & neat, integration with Creo & ERP system. These are the main reasons of considering Windchill by our organization.

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

• 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

• Saves time as all of our drawings and business instructions and procedures are housed in a central location with check-in/out capability and version control.

Incentivized