Tech-Net’s 9 CAD Systems Ranked
For a while I had this brilliant idea of creating a CAD Olympics. Let me tell you, if you think you have too many friends and need to leave some behind, proposing a CAD Olympics may be the solution you’ve been looking for. So I didn’t move forward with it. There was pretty much no money in it, and I was guaranteed to lose friends when it was done (if it was done right).
If the DOJ ever had some time on its hands and wanted something productive to do, they might consider investigating why the CAD industry works so hard to kill competition. Once you are in a box, you tend to stay in that box for your career. It seems people in one CAD box can’t hear people in any other CAD boxes. There aren’t any Consumer Products reports on CAD software, there aren’t any head-to-head competitions (aside from some mis-guided shoot-outs 20 years ago), and there certainly aren’t any CAD Olympics.
But someone has kind of done a CAD comparison and posted it online. It’s not really detailed, and it might be a little biased, but it’s kind of a comparison. It uses real names and puts products in a real ranking, and talks more than a paragraph about each CAD product.
Their ranking from worst to best is:
1) Catia
2) Pro/Creo
3) NX
4) SolidWorks
5) Inventor
6) Onshape
7) Solid Edge
8) ZW3D
9) IronCAD
As a spoiler, TechNet appears to be a reseller that sells Onshape, ZW and IronCAD. Still, if you’re at all curious, you owe it to yourself to read the write-ups on all of these products.
One thing that I was not surprised by was that Solid Edge found itself so high on the list, in fact at the top of the list of stuff that TechNet doesn’t currently sell. People – and when I say people, I mean everyone including 90% of Solid Edge current customers – underestimate Synchronous Technology. It really solves a lot of problems inherent to history-based design, and the development behind Solid Edge takes their customer’s long-term well-being into account with every change. You might not appreciate this unless you’ve used SolidWorks for a number of years, especially the rendering product(s).
I really did think that NX would be rated better, but ease of use and affordability were part of the calculus. It seems to depend on how large the organization is and what (aside from mechanical design) you need a CAD package to do (cough – PLM).
They listed SolidWorks as mostly an easier to use Pro/E clone. Which is more or less the truth when you look at the range of stuff they listed. And Inventor was ranked higher than SolidWorks, which I don’t agree with, unless you only look at Inventor skin deep as appears to have been the case here. Even so, I thought Fusion would be split out as a separate package, and ranked higher, but it wasn’t.
As an aside, I really hate articles that have semi-current data, and yet don’t have a date at the top. This page has a 30 year anniversary announcement, but that doesn’t seem to be part of the article. So as they are fond of saying, “in an industry where the only constant is change”… (un)dated data is worthless. Anyway, most of this looks relatively relevant.
TechNet had something really confusing to say about Onshape. In one breath they gave all the standard criticisms of a cloud tool, and then say they just signed up to rep Onshape and “it is by far the worse (sic) solution for any serious engineering firm,” which I take it was a partially edited blurb from before they signed the agreement.
To me, I’m most likely to seriously look into Fusion and IronCAD for CAD tools going forward. Mr. Brouwers seems to be also convinced that history-based modeling is a Pro/E relic that needs to retire. And that sounds reasonable to me.
Hi Matt,
I was just sent your article. I was happy to see someone actually reading it and commented.
Sorry on the time frame it was in 2012.
I was hoping to generate some debate. It is my most popular article.
But I found there are only a few of us where 3D CAD is our lives.
Most are now engineers that go to work, do their work and go home. Few even have desktops.
Let me give a few comments.
I still stand by my rankings except for one. I got a copy of SE and now put it behind both SW and Inv.
It is by far the most unintuitive UI I have ever experienced.
Remember the comparison was on basic modeling. Nothing else.
The modeling has not advanced since the beginning. Extruded, revolve, sweep and loft. Most now include some direct edit, sadly, it is not functional in design since it adds a face move in the history. A few face moves and you are lost.
I could have settled on SW, Inv, Creo and Solid Edge since I was representing all of those packages.
You say asked why I put Inv above SW? It is much more conducive to top-down design. I was offered an opportunity to sell it. I just took the included tutorials that started with top-down design. I never could get past part design for the Pro/e paradigm products. Too much work. I cut my teeth on a single model environment that include parts, sub-assemblies and drawings. I found Inv easy to use with top-down design. It also offered primitive shapes. When I was introduced to it they had Fusion direct edit module separate, which I think they have now included direct editing in the program. The UI is weirdly similar to ZW3D.
Even though Inv was a Pro/e paradigm there was a bit more incentive to learn it. I finally got the full concept of the Pro/e paradigm. The planes, the separate parts, sub-assemblies and drawings.
I found Inv, like other Pro/e clones to be just too much work. But with my new level of knowledge I decided to tackle SW to add it to my design service arsenal I started top-down design and I failed miserably. I imported an existing assembly and started creating my new parts. I really don’t blame the program; I blame my lack of experience. I could not face working in such a convoluted environment.
As for Onshape I was excited about it. I gave them a presentation of IronCAD. When it was released I was ready to get on board. But there was no way to sell it and make any money. I was not impressed with its Pro/e constrained sketching design paradigm. You could see it was designed to attract the SW users not to advance 3D CAD. I quickly saw that having your IP on their server was not conducive with good business practices. There were no native files you could store locally. I do think the concept would be the perfect cloud-based document control system.
I was selling CADKEY for 22 years and they went direct in 2009! I would still be selling it.
I was introduced to IronCAD in 1998. It was and still is the very best conceptual design program with its single model environment, the only integrated history/direct edit design system and drag and drop intellishapes from standard and custom catalogs.
I settled on IronCAD for many reasons. It is really the next generation 3D even though it was released in 1998.
When I lost CADKEY I picked up ZW3D. You should look into it. It is basically using the Pro/e paradigm of constrained sketching, separate parts and sub-assemblies. But it has a highly functional multi-object environment and integrated drawings. Which makes it incredible for single projects; all in one file.
Now both IC and ZW can have externally related parts.
I have done many ZW/IC comparison lessons with all of the popular programs.
You can see them here.
3D Modeling Techniques Defined
http://tecnetinc.com/Modeling%20Techniques%20Introduction.html
You may enjoy my article and follow up articles on the introduction of 3D CAD into engineering. My career is the history of 3D CAD.
The 1980’s – 3D CAD – The Beginning
http://tecnetinc.com/The%201980's%20-%203D%20CAD%20-%20The%20Beginning.html
Thanks for the great write-up!
Joe Brouwer
Joe – Thanks for the reply, even if it’s 9 years late! Your reply somehow fell into my spam trap, and I didn’t see it until today, so it’s been there for almost 2 weeks. Sorry about that.
Actually my commentary on your article is also one of my most popular. I agree with your evaluation of Onshape. It could have been a lot more. I think they were interested in pushing the boundaries with centralized CAD control, not with CAD functionality, and yeah, they were hoping to prey on SW user loyalty. I see what you mean about the SE interface, but it also has an integrated history/direct workflow, and it allows top down without all of the constraints that SW imposes. I also agree that top down in SW is very complex, and there is a lot to know before you get going to make sure you don’t fall into one of many top down traps.
I have toyed around with Ironcad a little, and will probably do a little more when I get some time. Thanks for the comment and for the extra links! I’ll definitely check them out.
Huh, so Onshape wants to resuscitate the out dated Reseller business model. How many out there just love paying for Service Packs and expensive Training from the commission sales people? It’s 2018, not 1993 man. Sorry gotta go, my Pager just went off.
I absolutely love IronCAD, for specific design purposes. Machine design and plant layout are one of them. Although it does work for consumer products, I wouldn’t use it for complex surfacing. IronCAD is as underestimated in the CAD world as Synchronous Technology. Seemlessly switching between ACIS and Parasolid to model any challenge; no one else does this besides IronCAD. It makes for great interoperability as well. And their direct edit features (with the Tri-ball) are as close to Synchronous as anyone has ever gotten, and IronCAD had it before Solid Edge.
I completely agree that CATIA ranks last.
Inventor is worse than any other “mid-range” CAD package. How it ranked better than Solidworks I do not know. I do wish they would have split up Fusion 360 because I do like it. They took a novel approach to a few standard design tasks, to which I consider an improvement over the legacy way of modeling. But I expected more from a drafting package created by Autodesk.
OnShape ranks high if potential is a consideration. Obviously the file management aspect is great. The branching and merging is great. The modeling is so-so. The drawings are terrible. But, the way they developed their API with the ability to create custom features as robust as built-in features. Amazing!
You can’t ignore the bias that can exist in such a ranking when done by a reseller. But, generally speaking, this isn’t too bad a list based on my experience.
I tried using Fusion 360, but I really didn’t like the sketch tools! And especially the dimensioning tool. It appears that you cannot use the dimensions used to create the sketch and have to dimension an entire drawing one by one…yuch!
Fusion 360, at my new job, we’re committed to begin a trial project with it in 2019. We would save thousands of dollars per year if we switched from SOLIDWORKS. Money talks, BS walks.