SOLIDWORKS Review
July 02, 2020
SOLIDWORKS Review
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SOLIDWORKS
I am currently the only person in our company using SOLIDWORKS. We mostly use 2D drawings for our jobs, but with more and more companies going to 3D modeling, it was important for us to be able to decipher what those customers are sending us. SOLIDWORKS has been very handy in that it allows us to not only open individual part files, but we can open an assembly file and see how exactly the parts are going to fit together.
Pros
- Allows you to rotate a 3D part to see any angle you need
- Can easily generate a 2D drawing, showing each face of a part
- You can view entire assemblies from any angle you want
- Dimension based drawing so you can change a dimension without redrawing an entire part
Cons
- It's a little bit complicated when you're used to simple 2D drawings
- The program crashes quite frequently - SAVE OFTEN!
- Updates are tied to a subscription that must remain active
- Especially useful when building complex sheet metal parts, such as hoppers and tanks - saves a lot of time!
- Allows you to view and build 3D parts that you can move to other view points to make construction and manipulation easier
- SOLIDWORKS is a bit expensive and doesn't come with a good way to manipulate the 2D files you can export from it.
I only used Inventor for the 30-day free trial, which admittedly is not enough time to really give it a fair shot, especially since I had almost no 3D drawing experience before I used Inventor. There were two main things that pushed us toward SOLIDWORKS.
First was the support from the community. There are many people using SOLIDWORKS, which was very apparent every time I searched for a SOLIDWORKS issue on Google, I got an answer, usually a lot of them. While there are also a lot of people using Inventor, there didn't seem to be as many results when I looked up an issue or was trying to figure out how to do something. Also, the support from AutoDesk in the form of education (tutorials) seemed to be lacking. I didn't get the feeling AutoDesk wanted to help me get better at using their program so I'd purchase it.
The second reason we chose SOLIDWORKS was the payment plan. You buy SOLIDWORKS and you have it. You must have a subscription to continue getting updates, but you own the original version of the program you bought. With Inventor, it's all subscription-based. If you stop paying the subscription, you lose access to the program.
First was the support from the community. There are many people using SOLIDWORKS, which was very apparent every time I searched for a SOLIDWORKS issue on Google, I got an answer, usually a lot of them. While there are also a lot of people using Inventor, there didn't seem to be as many results when I looked up an issue or was trying to figure out how to do something. Also, the support from AutoDesk in the form of education (tutorials) seemed to be lacking. I didn't get the feeling AutoDesk wanted to help me get better at using their program so I'd purchase it.
The second reason we chose SOLIDWORKS was the payment plan. You buy SOLIDWORKS and you have it. You must have a subscription to continue getting updates, but you own the original version of the program you bought. With Inventor, it's all subscription-based. If you stop paying the subscription, you lose access to the program.
Do you think SOLIDWORKS delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with SOLIDWORKS's feature set?
Yes
Did SOLIDWORKS live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of SOLIDWORKS go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy SOLIDWORKS again?
Yes
Comments
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