Alfresco vs. Designcenter Solid Edge vs. zeroheight

Easy integration with the external APIs Workflows can be invoked via REST call Wonderful swagger documentation for process REST APIs REST, MULE, CAMEL, Google Drive, and Box features are available with Alfresco Process Services The micro-service version deployment should be well documented and needs improvement

Incentivized

Well Suited for:

• Integrated designs performed by multiple designers simultaneously (designs requiring a Product Lifecycle Management system);
• Designs requiring a high degree of parameterisation;
• Large companies where specific standards and best practices are applied to all models and drawings created.

Not Well Suited for:

• Personal use in designing one-off models and drawings;
• Small business use where very few of the expensive features are actually used.

Incentivized

For creating and maintaining a component library, it is a fantastic tool that creates an interface between Developers, UX Engineers and Designers. It is easy to get both general information about a component, but also incredibly detailed information when looking at the component on a pixel-level, where information on paddings, margins, colors, fonts etc. can be easily accessed.

Incentivized

• Basic workflows are easy enough for casual users to set up and utilize.
• Cloud sync capability provides a great way to share documents with third parties and to use as a backup system for critical documents.
• Alfresco mobile app makes it easy for those on the road to access, approve and share documents.
• Folder rules are easy to set up and make assignment of metadata easier to automate.

Incentivized

• It has very good user interface in classic or ordered environment.
• In 2D or drafting, you can give any Geometric tolerancing and symbols to any dimension. There is a wide range of options available.
• You can convert any files in step file (.stp) and can open it in other designing applications easily.
• After converting 3D drawings in 2D you can make changes in 2D drawing by converting it in the draft. You can also add details like cross-sections and detailed view.
• You can directly make threads without creating holes.

Incentivized

• showcasing components and other topics
• ease of seeing detailed information on components (colors, paddings, sizes etc.)
• ease of finding information
• possibility of going to previous versions of the design guideline

Incentivized

• Alfresco Process Services and Alfresco Application Development Framework integration makes for best functionality/application of ECM.
• Use case alignment - Marketing content and documentation of specific business requirements and user stories being available as reference material/documentation.
• Integration with multiple silos for content.

Incentivized

• Being used to 2-key and 3-key commands from the keyboard, it would be nice if this was more robust in Solid Edge. The capability of programming keystroke commands exists in Solid Edge, but it would be more user friendly in that regard.
• Editing hatches can be a challenge.
• I'm not a fan of the ribbon bar, but that seems to be a feature across software platforms in Windows.

Incentivized

• when opening a component image (which opens a new page where the detailed information like paddings and colors are shown), the zoom can only be done by buttons, I'd prefer to be able to use my mouse scroll and for vertical / horizontal scrolling to do ctrl+scroll or ctrl+shift+scroll or something like that

Incentivized

As per the current market and the line of products that are available for content and document management system, Alfresco is a very good option compared to other systems in terms of features and cost. Plus the community support is great. Also since the product is open source, it can be extended or understood in a better way.

Incentivized

The UI is very intuitive, most of our users figure out how to use the platform by themselves, so there's not much training needed.

You can upload files by using the web drag and drop, WebDAV, FTP, and more.

Most of the platform already works as-is so you can just deploy it using Docker and it's mostly ready to go.

Incentivized

As mentioned previously, Siemens Solid Edge is not the most user-friendly of products at all. It requires intense training to make sure that the basics are understood, and after that, there are numerous other training interventions needed to be able to perform expert-level CAD functions. The GUI is not intuitive, as many other packages are, and the features built-in are not well defined. The process to use many of these features is counter-intuitive and requires a mind-shift.

Incentivized

I am not big fan of Alfresco Content Services' support; it works on its own speed and sometimes it becomes challenging to achieve business needs. However, I appreciate regular delivery of security patches and updates

Incentivized

I have been involved with support and training of Solid Edge for 24 years. Given that I based my business model on support, and have been successful for all these years, I know excellent support. Siemens support for Solid Edge, "GTAC", is the definition of support for a product in every aspect.

Process was relatively smooth and overall, downtime minimal. MSI was very responsive to our needs and made the transition easier than it otherwise might have been.

Incentivized

All software has some pros and some cons. Alfresco has some good pluses, and suits our environment very well. It fit perfectly in the place that we are working on. That is why we decided to go with this software. Overall, the kind of content management that needs to be done in an organization is what would determine which software to use.

Incentivized

FreeCAD is often better than Solid Edge 2021 when converting files, but I hope this changes with 2023 NX is overall more powerful, but that is to be expected (and you cant add it above because it is too short for whatever reason).

Incentivized

I have used and still use Sketch and Zeplin too, but they serve other purposes for us. Sketch is used to design the components themselves and they are then exported to Zeroheight where they are showcased and enriched with textual information. Zeplin is used to design application pages, and again the components are exported to Zeplin from Sketch. But Zeroheight is mainly used for the development of the components themselves as well as a documentation for our design guideline in general. It is also used by us for design tokens and patterns, as well as other information on the design guideline, so if someone wants to understand the "why" of a design decision, the explanation can be usually found in Zeroheight too.

Incentivized

• Instant document lookup - No paper files to mail which saves in all areas of postage, truck delivery, physical storage warehouse space, printing, etc
• No longer losing important documents - Previously with paper files things would go missing and those could be costly reports/assessments.
• Ability to secure documents and provide access to only those who should be allowed to see that content

Incentivized

• It took about 20 hours of use to get the basics of Synchronous Technology, and with just a basic competency I was able to make useful changes to the design. One of those changes was impossible to do our other CAD program.
• My use lately has mostly been on personal time and self-driven, so learning other aspects and features of Solid Edge has been slower. Creating a drawing for a part required a few hours to learn and do the first time, but luckily there were YouTube videos for examples. With practice, I would expect the time to reflect what it takes in SolidWorks (about 30 minutes).

Incentivized

• increased quality, as less misunderstandings or communication problems occur
• increased speed of development, as it is a single source of truth for us. The developer can rely on the information in Zeroheight being correct so that he doesn't have to iterate his code again and again.

Incentivized