Likelihood to Recommend 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. Read full review Blender is still behind Zbrush when it comes to production quality. But ZBrush is a bit on the expensive side. But again, I've used it for 20 years. So the $100s of spent back then have paid off many times over by now. Just something to consider when purchasing, though.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Intuitive UI design. Advanced sculpting capabilities. Integration with other 3D software. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Difficult and messy UI Not well-suited for renders Not suitable for animation and rigging Expensive Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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).
Read full review Even though it's 4x as old, ZBrush is still better in my opinion. Plus, I'm just so used to it by now after 20 years.
Blender will indeed become better over time and the leading industry standard soon, but for now, ZBrush is still better for me for sure. Love it!
Read full review Return on Investment 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). Read full review a single tool to quickly and effectively create 3D objects. Highly detailed 3D models allow us to create a range of highly detailed NFT 3D art collections for our clients. Setting up licenses across an entire team can become costly. Read full review ScreenShots