DraftSight vs. SOLIDWORKS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
DraftSight
Score 7.2 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
SOLIDWORKS
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Dassault Systemes offers SOLIDWORKS, a computer-aided design (CAD) system for education and manufacturing supporting 2D or 3D design, electrical design, simulations, and product development with collaboration tools.
$1,295
per year
Pricing
DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
Editions & Modules
DraftSight Professional
$249
per year
DraftSight Premium (3D)
$549
per year
DraftSight Enterprise
Contact sales team
DraftSight Enterprise Plus
Contact sales team
Solidworks Annual Subscription
1,295
per year
Solidworks Standard
3,996
per standalone license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDraftSight Professional, and Premium are available to purchase online directly. DraftSight Enterprise and Enterprise Plus are available to purchase through local resellers.—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
Considered Both Products
DraftSight
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight is like a 2D light version. Our company uses SOLIDWORKS for our manufacturing, modeling, machining, etc.
Chose DraftSight
AutoCAD, SOLIDWORKS, and a bunch of free software.
The paid versions were super expensive and complicated with a high learning curve. The free software all had caveats and limited what you could do on the drawing. You could pay for it if needed but at this point, I've used …
Chose DraftSight
SOLIDWORKS is most definitely a more robust and feature-rich program that DrsftSIght just can not hold a torch to. We also use Eaagle which is not listed because it was recently purchased by a larger entity.
Chose DraftSight
Absolutely can not compete, it is a night and day difference between this two software, although [DraftSight] claims they were equivalent, but the fact is not so. The reason why management pick the software is initially it bundled up with SOLIDWORKS as a free software, then why …
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight is just as good, or better, than AutoCAD. Also at a price that is very competitive. Plus, DraftSight has new features every few releases.
Chose DraftSight
Being a user for almost 10 years of DraftSight, the ease of use, the distribution of functions, etc. make switching to another program a bit painful and in need of a learning period.
Chose DraftSight
Lower price with similar performance and functions. It is extremely easy to use. I have no problem switching between Draftsight and AutoCAD. It saved me some time from learning a new software so that I can focus on the requests/tasks.
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight is more simple and very economical to use.
Chose DraftSight
We selected DraftSight because Autodesk wanted too much money for their LT software. Initially, I was impressed with the seamless integration, I could use the command line just like AutoCAD. As I became more familiar with DraftSight, and also had more exposure, I started to …
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight is very similar to order versions of AutoCAD, so the learning curve was minimal. Of course the language and commands are different; which takes some getting used to. I still have to think "Sheet Mode" and "Model Mode". I haven't really used the 3D capabilities, but …
Chose DraftSight
Are two different software but a useful one to the other.
Chose DraftSight
The initial cost has AutoCAD LT beat. Draftsight functions similarly, It has been a number of years since using AutoCAD so I don't have the current experience to compare them. We selected Draftsight because, for our small business, it made no financial sense to continue with Aut…
Chose DraftSight
More simple to use with self explaining menu without looking for functions for ages. DraftSight has everything in the right place.
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight seems to be an equivalent software package. If you can use AutoCAD well with the command line features and drawing manipulation you will find it very easy to come up to speed in using the software. The integration of paper and model space is still dicey, but being …
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight is much easier to use, as I really didn't get along with SketchUp. As it is so similar to cad, I am able to find solutions and then discuss [them] with my design department. This makes the production process much smoother and easier, and we can show the production …
Chose DraftSight
Basic 2d DraftSight is just like older 2d versions of AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT. Very easy to use. For business or home, the price is affordable.
Chose DraftSight
It's easier to use and a lightweight program.
Chose DraftSight
DraftSight gives a solution that is much easier to deploy, use and maintain at a much more affordable price.
Chose DraftSight
I cannot compare a 2D sofware against 3D software.
I have started to use DS because of the needs of my job. We provide our customer with a layout of their factories including our machines in 2D. DraftSight was the first option when we had to choose the best software to do this …
SOLIDWORKS
Chose SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS is far superior to DraftSight but each has a place in my daily designs.
Chose SOLIDWORKS
DraftSight is the 2-d equivalent of SOLIDWORKS. Its main competitor is AutoCad by Autodesk, however I find DraftSight to be more user friendly. AutoDesk also makes Inventor, a 3-d software more similar to SOLIDWORKS however my experience with it was only limited to high …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
We use both actually. SW is great for 3D, but given we do not design products, just tooling/processing to make products, we use SW to convert 3D into 2D then do all the work in DraftSight.
Chose SOLIDWORKS
It's faster, easier and a little bit cheaper. Dramatic increased performance on large assemblies management
Chose SOLIDWORKS
In many scenarios, SolidWorks and Inventor actually compare fairly evenly to each other. However, I believe that where SolidWorks really stands out is the fact that it was designed from the start as a 3D parametric solid modeling application whereas Inventor comes from a …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
We have chosen SOLIDWORKS for its diffusion (many of our partners use it), for its ease of use, for its great experience in the development of sheet metal, and for its excellent after-sales service.
Chose SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS is way less complicated and easier to use, overall if you have had any computer training anyone can easily sit down and be trained within a minimal time to be able to use it efficiently and effectively. One of my employees went so far as to teach his 10-year-old …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
I have not used alternatives to SOLIDWORKS. I've used SOLIDWORKS for the past 7 years as it was the standard in my past job. It has many more capabilities than 2D software and is a staple of our engineering department. I plan to continue to use SOLIDWORKS for many years to …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS is simple to use and new users become proficient in a short amount of time. Operation is intuitive and with the aid of the built-in tutorials, most of the skills required for day-to-day use become second nature. The ability to collaborate and communicate ideas to …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS has the advantage on Autodesk Inventor due to the amount of users and support that SOLIDWORKS has. The help you receive from resellers and 3DS themselves is much better. Also the other users on the internet in community forums provide a wider range of solutions. The …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS allows me to work much faster than Solid Edge, and also allows more complexity. SOLIDWORKS has more available features that make it easier and give you more options to form your model. It is also much easier/faster to edit parts in Solidworks than Solid Edge.
Chose SOLIDWORKS
I found SolidEdge (used in 2005 and 2006) much less user-friendly and less productive for 3D design. Being an experienced user of SolidWorks for years I found the interface and design tools more cumbersome to use and transition to that software was not easy and it was abandoned …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
Solidworks & Inventor are actually pretty evenly matched in terms of design & modeling capability. I will say in my experience that Solidworks is easier to learn the basics of 3d modeling on but at the advanced level both are very capable pieces of software. Inventor has the …
Chose SOLIDWORKS
I have used the 3D side of AutoCAD (not Inventor) and it doesn't even come close to touching SOLIDWORKS.
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

SOLIDWORKS and DraftSight are both extremely popular Computer-Aided Design (CAD) programs. They both lead the category in ratings and reviews, both having over 140 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.

In addition to being a CAD tool, SOLIDWORKS, also functions as simulation software. Simulation software can be used to evaluate, optimize, and compare product designs meant for real-world applications in a computer-generated environment. 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

SOLIDWORKS comes from Dassault Systemes, a French software company that specializes in design and Product Lifecycle Management software. SOLIDWORKS features several sub-products that cover a wide variety of specialties and capabilities. Whereas Draftsight focuses more on CAD specifically, SOLIDWORKS, as previously mentioned, supports simulation, product configurator, product data management, and technical communication. Its design capabilities support 2D and 3D design, CAM, electrical design, and visualization, with collaboration tools for team projects. 

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

Critiques of SOLIDWORKS share common themes with most CAD software in that it can be resource-intensive and slow performance. Additionally, it may be more expensive than competitor products. While it excels at electrical applications, it may also not be so suited for certain industries like aerospace and automotive. 

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 run into issues, they report that customer service with DraftSight leaves much to be desired and that online support is not useful for troubleshooting. 

Pricing

SOLIDWORKS buyers have 5 different pricing models from which to choose: Commercial, Academia, Research, Students, and Entrepreneurs & Startups. Buyers can directly purchase the Student edition for $99 as a 1-year license. Pricing for other tiers requires buyers to contact the SOLIDWORKS sales team. 

DraftSight’s pricing is available to analyze before contacting sales. 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 of your business and number of users. Expect to pay more than $500/yr at this tier.

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DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
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User Ratings
DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
Likelihood to Recommend
4.0
(414 ratings)
9.3
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(22 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(19 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.7
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
4.1
(14 ratings)
5.2
(16 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.4
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DraftSightSOLIDWORKS
Likelihood to Recommend
Dassault Systemes
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.
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Dassault Systemes
As a mechanical engineer, it is one of the best tools to just start modeling and engineering with. The UI tools are intuitive and engineering analysis such Mold Analysis, FEA, are great! Other 3D CAD modeling tools have a longer learning curve to master. All in all, if you're not planning to design an entire airplane with large assembly files, then Solidworks is your tool!
Read full review
Pros
Dassault Systemes
  • 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.
Read full review
Dassault Systemes
  • The collaborative work environment is a cool and useful feature where groups of people can work on the same model at the same time, and SOLIDWORKS ensures that you don't overwrite each other's work.
  • The ease and amount of customization options are very useful for creating a personalized and intuitive user interface, whether SOLIDWORKS is your native CAD package or not.
  • It is very easy to quickly edit a model you have already created. The software allows sketch and feature editing without having to take the time to actually enter the sketch/feature environment.
  • The use of configurations and configurations-specific dimensions in the same sketch is very useful for creating different forms of the same part
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Cons
Dassault Systemes
  • 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.
Read full review
Dassault Systemes
  • Save DWG 2D files in inches or metric easily, defaults to metric and has to be manually converted to inches
  • When using the sketch feature, the ability to disable ALL references. If I don't know the exact shape and I want to draw/adapt my design, it harshly interprets the references which have no value to me. The easiest exact is to think about when you have a Microsoft Word document that has a lot of formatting, photos, tabs, etc. If you accidentally hit the "enter" key, you can explode the formatting and everything goes crazy. SW does this to me, I just want to "doodle" my sketches, edit/delete/etc and not be bound by arbitrary references.
  • For the sketch feature, ability to use a DraftSight plugin of some sort. I'm super fast in DS, if I could draw using the commands in SW then I would probably never open DS again and convert to SW full time. Currently, I only use SW as a way to convert 3D files so I can build everything in DraftSight.
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Likelihood to Renew
Dassault Systemes
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.
Read full review
Dassault Systemes
We have absolutely no reasons to not keep with SolidWorks for the foreseeable future.
Read full review
Usability
Dassault Systemes
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.
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Dassault Systemes
SOLIDWORKS is very user-friendly. The user interface is intuitive. Many sources for help are available in the event you are attempting something new.
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Reliability and Availability
Dassault Systemes
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.
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Dassault Systemes
No answers on this topic
Performance
Dassault Systemes
In general it's very quick to load drawings...now it depends a lot on the file we're opening or working on.
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Dassault Systemes
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Dassault Systemes
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.
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Dassault Systemes
We have an unusual arrangement. We don’t pay for support, but we’re partnered with a VAR for second-tier support.
I work with other users if I have questions but when we’ve had to ask the VAR, they always have answers. It appears that all of the VARs have access to a support platform from DS SOLIDWORKS that helps them answer most questions.
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In-Person Training
Dassault Systemes
Based on some knowledge of AutoCad, using Draftsight took a short time before I felt comfortable using it.
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Dassault Systemes
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Dassault Systemes
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.
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Dassault Systemes
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Dassault Systemes
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.
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Dassault Systemes
Onshape is a direct competitor. It has great entry level pricing and it is easy to access with no installation required. Being a web based app there is sometime some lag being based in NZ. Management also have concerns over where the data is stored on the cloud. With SW we can control where it is stored
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Scalability
Dassault Systemes
As a startup, we really appreciate scalable software or tools, and because we use it for diverse types of projects, flexibility is key.
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Dassault Systemes
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Dassault Systemes
  • 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.
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Dassault Systemes
  • Creation of small 3D pieces to generate cash flow.
  • Not being able to create 3D sculptures with this tool, and not being able to fulfill the client's requirements.
  • To be able to sell high visual quality simulations for companies that hire the service.
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ScreenShots

DraftSight Screenshots

Screenshot of Plate InsertScreenshot of Image TraceScreenshot of 2D and 3D DWG filesScreenshot of HomeByMe Integration