SolidWorks is the leading standard in 3D parametric solid modeling!
Updated April 30, 2021
SolidWorks is the leading standard in 3D parametric solid modeling!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SOLIDWORKS
We use SolidWorks as our primary CAD application throughout the organization including both our engineering and production (CNC programing) departments.
- Top of the line parametric solid modeling
- Intuitive interface
- Expansive feature set
- Excellent handling of both large and small design projects.
- Fantastic support network
- Stable and reliable
- Solidworks is continually improving its product, however, more focus could be put into traditional drawings as opposed to MBD.
- Crashes can at times happen without warning or symptoms.
- The newer focus on cloud-based applications is a bit late to the game and needs some work to bring it up to enterprise-class.
- The ROI of SolidWorks occurred for our company likely within the first 6-12 months of its adoption (13 years ago). These days, it's hard to imagine running our business without it as it is the foundation for all of the products we manufacture.
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 company that has a decade's worth of background in 2D CAD. This means that I feel that SolidWorks generally has a more naturally intuitive approach to 3D CAD in its interface. Onshape did initially offer a very attractive alternative being a cloud-based solution, however, upon deeper evaluation, it just hadn't quite reached the level of an enterprise-class solution that a company like mine needed. The new forays into cloud-based solutions from Dassault do have the potential to get there since they have SolidWorks at its core, but I still believe that a desktop-based CAD suite, and especially a localized server-based data management solution to be the best for most users today.
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
Using SOLIDWORKS
10 - Engineering & design, production management, and CNC programing.
1 - I support SolidWorks to all of our inhouse users.
- 3D CAD
- Data Management
- CNC Programing
- Expansion of data management solutions outside of the engineering department.