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PTC Creo

Score6.9 out of 10

66 Reviews and Ratings

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What is PTC Creo?

PTC offers Creo, the company's line of computer-aided design (CAD) products that support the product lifecycle management (PLM) process with 2D and 3D design kits (Creo Elements and Creo Direct), an augmented reality module, Creo Illustrate for technical illustrations, Creo Sketch, Creo Schematics and Creo View for diagramming and sharing information, Creo simulate for running simulations, and other modules.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features PTC Creo has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 66 ratings of PTC Creo's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Parametric Design

    Enables users to define and modify design parameters, allowing for faster iteration and design changes.

    Category average: 7.6

  • Rendering and Visualization

    Allows users to create realistic images and visualizations of their designs, including the ability to apply materials, textures, and lighting effects.

    Category average: 6.7

  • Collaboration and Sharing

    Provides tools for sharing and collaborating on designs with others in real-time, including the ability to track changes and manage design revisions.

    Category average: 7.1

Areas for Improvement

  • Compatibility with other software and formats

    Allows users to import and export designs in various file formats, ensuring compatibility with other software and stakeholder requirements.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Documentation and Annotation

    Allows users to create detailed technical drawings, including the ability to add dimensions, annotations, and symbols.

    Category average: 7.2

  • 2D Drafting

    Provides tools for creating and editing 2D drawings, including the ability to add dimensions, annotations, and symbols.

    Category average: 8.3

Reviews

What users are saying about PTC Creo.
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PTC Creo 9: good on some things, bad on a lot of others...

Verified User
Engineer in Research & Development (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm a PTC Creo 9 user since 2008 (it was called Wildfire, back then). In my experience, it's hard to use, doesn't remember most of the settings (i.e. if I need to save something on a specific folder, everytime I'll have to give file type, complete folder etc...), doesn't have autosave, doesn't show a clear message when it has problem saving, doesn't show a message about files not saved if it's replacing a file (i.e. if you change an attribute, it will replace the file that you have on screen and if you didn't saved it before you basically lose the work), it's slow and hard to draw in 2D. In my experience, sometimes it feels connections between *.drw files and files that doesn't exist anymore and can't be removed, sometimes it gives errors so generic that you don't even know where to start. It doesn't have multiprocessor ability (it has just regeneration multiprocessor). I feel it's like a CAD locked in the nineties and proud of it. It's not user-friendly. In my opinion, it's a CAD that doesn't help you, YOU have to remember a lot of things to avoid problems and do a lot of things again and again to work with it. I feel it's basically working against you.
PRO TIP: If it starts regenerating and it's taking some time, don't click continuously mouse buttons or keys, or it will crash.

Pros

  • In my opinion, make you lose time
  • In my opinion, make you lose patience
  • In my opinion, make you lose sanity

Cons

  • No autosave
  • No clear message if it has problems saving the file
  • Not so easy to use
  • In my experience, has a lot of things missing that other CAD already have in years
  • In my experience, it's extremely easy to lose work/time

Return on Investment

  • In my opinion, it make it easy to waste time

Other Software Used

AutoCAD LT

PTC Creo Review

Anurag Chaudhary
Product Design/Development Engineer in Engineering at JTEKT India Limited (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use PTC Creo in our organization for Product Design and development purposes. We use PTC Creo for 2D drawing creation to 3D, various value addition, value engineering activities, reverse engineering & so on. PTC Creo helped us in the development of lead time reduction.

Pros

  • Product Design
  • 2D Drafting
  • Computer-aided manufacturing
  • Product management

Cons

  • Need to improve when we deals with heavy assemblies, it got stuck
  • Need improvement in sheet metal design
  • Improvement required in rendering

Most Important Features

  • Solid design
  • Drafting using 3D

Return on Investment

  • Lead-time reduction
  • Profit increase

PTC Creo is a collaborative designer's dream!

Incentivized
Isaac CogdillView profile
Manufacturing Engineer (Forging) in Manufacturing at Federal-Mogul Powertrain (Global Valvetrain) (5001-10,000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Part import from 3rd party models like fasteners and machine components is super fast.
  • Deriving new parts from another part's geometry is nice when using PTC Creo's parametric relations features.
  • Revising models and drawings while retaining the old version is great when using PTC Creo.

Cons

  • The STL model output is not always as smooth as some other software usually can do.
  • There are not many 3D full solid file type export options that are not exported as surface-only.
  • Importing sketches is kind of difficult sometimes depending on how the source sketches are drawn.

Most Important Features

  • The model organization
  • Part references that are used to create new parts from existing ones.
  • The ability to share floating module licenses between users who aren't on the software at the same time.

Return on Investment

  • Our design time is greatly reduced by using PTC Creo.
  • Our model/drawing organization is much better with PTC Creo.
  • The revision history save us lots of when comparing old/new designs.

Alternatives Considered

SOLIDWORKS, AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Fusion 360

Other Software Used

AutoCAD, Autodesk Fusion 360, PTC Windchill

Texas Consulting Firm's Take on PTC Creo

Incentivized
Randy SpeedView profile
President in Engineering at Speed Consulting, LLC (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • PTC Creo is based on a single database for product definition
  • PTC Creo is designed to anticipate your intentions
  • PTC Creo is supported by a diverse user base from diverse industries, encouraging cross-pollination of design approaches

Cons

  • PTC Creo could grow a help-line staff of highly experienced individuals to aid the existing knowledge base article searchers. It would include experts with deep knowledge of certain Creo modules (SMEs) and provide help staff a go to for deeper levels of help when it is needed.

Most Important Features

  • Fast and easy FEA simulation, including many nonlinear capabilities
  • Associative geometry where the finite elements map directly to the geometry. The simulation model does not usually require remeshing when geometry changes, and if it does, the remapping is automatic.
  • Design sensitivity and optimization capabilities--that is the ability to quickly sweep geometric features through to learn its effects on stiffness or stress, for example.

Return on Investment

  • Having PTC Creo as our primary tool positions us as forward thinking and creative in the eyes of our clients.
  • PTC Creo constantly evolves in the ability to increase our productivity; new capabilities and features are added, which reduce our level of effort for some tasks.

Alternatives Considered

CATIA, Siemens NX and Simcenter Femap

Other Software Used

CATIA, Simcenter Femap

Best 3D Parametric Software

Verified User
Team Lead in Engineering (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use PTC Creo to develop Agricultural Machinery products from concept to prototype using Part, Assembly, and Drawing Modules. PTC Creo helps to make imagination into virtual reality and the final prototype

Pros

  • Handle Heavy Assemblies with out any lag
  • Advance Assemblies
  • Kinematic and dynamic
  • User friendly

Cons

  • Feral Error need to improve due to sudden our whole work goes waste
  • Auto-Save Feature

Most Important Features

  • In the Analysis tab- Measure which contains Distance, Length, Angle, Diameter, Area, Volume, etc,. Which helps a lot while reviewing
  • Global Interference- Pair Clearance
  • Sheet metal module

Return on Investment

  • It reduces the time for development of prototypes
  • Most likely we can provide the dimensions in the sketch which we need to give in drawing which reduces drawing development time also
  • With 3D annotate we review easily

Other Software Used

AutoCAD LT, Teamcenter