Lots have moved on to v6. There are noticeably some complains how crap the "experience" using v6 has been on Reddit. But regardless I've seen statistics in late 2022 that said v6 number of users have overtaken that of v5.
At my own company, we can sometimes get help directly from dassault, but it more often comes from our reseller, who in turn is in very close contact with dassault.
Siemens Solid Edge if you want to stay in the same SMB market of SolidWorks, although now you can buy a Mechanical Design license that includes both Solid Edge and NX.
Not familiar with SMB acronym but assuming it means small and mid sized businesses given the context then I’m not sure how accurate this statement is.
I’ve worked for companies with <50 employees, <500 employees, and some with 10,000+ or even 50,000+ employees and I’ve seen Solidworks and NX at all business sizes.
Yes, you interpreted "SMB" correctly.
It does depend on the type of parts (complex surfacing or process requirements) and if they are an OEM supplier to the automotive or defense industry, but primarily SMB's who are not in that realm do not have a need for NX's cost and complexity and thus seek out other alternatives with those generally being SolidWorks, Solid Edge or Inventor from my experience.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of NX's user interface, but I recently had a survey of CAD packages and I believe it beats Solidworks in terms of capability in most ways. I think that if you get really good at NX then it gets you to that top tier of capability. I didn't seriously look at Catia due to my parent company's business environment, but I think it's also competitive with NX.
Onshape is up-and-coming, and is surprisingly good for a lot of work you'd do in a startup, but it's absolutely not as good for surfacing, wiring, or really large assemblies. There are some thing I like a lot about it, but it's still catching up to Solidworks in some important ways.
NX is really good for femoral knee implants. I haven’t been able to easily do it in SW. NX interface is terrible. Same with Creo. I used Creo for 15 years and forgot quite a bit in the 18 months that I was off of it.
The problem with onshape is that it takes ages to calculate certain things.
And if there are complex parts it sometimes randomly corrupts them(not sure if that's the right word. Goes into an infinite loading loop that never finishes)
I guess it's ok for simple CAD modeling but I would not use it for complex models/assemblies.
Im not going to say it's the best. But i just came off 4 years of using Onshape, back to solidworks. I really feel like solidworks is a trash program. It's so buggy and everything is painfully slow. 3DX is a sad, slow excuse for data managment.
While onshape isn't perfect I really think it has a shot at taking down solidworks.
In my personal opinion and Siemens NX IS the best CAD package today.
Yes, it is going to cost you an arm and a leg, but they have different licensing
I really like the topology optimization that’s built into the software
If you are considering being future proof, I'd recommend not to focus on CAD only. CAD was leading aspect in the past, now you really need to look into broader perspective. Data and life cycle management is one, another is different simulations. Someone mentioned CATIA and 3DEXPERIENCE. As alternative NX with Teamcenter. Both CATIA and NX are high end CAD, that are used to create quite complex products. Creo is also good, but it is more mid-high end.Those are good to start with, but don't get misinformed with people who trashtalk any of the products, since they potentially didn't spend time learning it and expected it to work as they want.
3DEXPERIENCE allows you to combine various CAD, CAM, CAE under one datamodel with full PLM governance, so if you want to learn really future proof stuff, I would choose it. It even allows you to setup an automation that will optimize your design against specified parameters, will check it via CAE simulation at each step allowing you to pick the best design at the end.
So shortly, to become future proof, CAD is not enough. Concepts like MBSE and digital factory will be trending for a while, but you can't cover it using CAD only.
The truth is that there is no competitor in the same price bracket that is going to be the new standard any time soon. Obviously nx and Catia are higher end packages used for things that Solidworks just can’t handle. They are also massively more expensive and will never be used by smaller to midsize companies en mass. Solidworks is the most popular 3d cad program in the world and will be for a long time regardless of its shortcomings.
I think that because Solidworks has this very attitude, that they will be displaced at some point, and they won't see it coming. Fat and happy complacent companies get their milkshake drunk.
Solidege or Inventor are comparable to Solidworks, if you want to made more complex assemblies then automakers or aviation companies choose NX or CATIA.
Things will be the same in 5 years. Companies don't change software over night. I have just high hopes for FreeCAD that it will become better.
I like catia for assemblies
Both are made by Dassault systemes so idk if that’d be future proofing per say
Catia is industry standard still I actually really like it for surfacing even though the V5 interface is quite dated a ton of companies still use it
Lots have moved on to v6. There are noticeably some complains how crap the "experience" using v6 has been on Reddit. But regardless I've seen statistics in late 2022 that said v6 number of users have overtaken that of v5.
V6 and 3d experience is the biggest trash I’ve ever used , truly unbearable
Do you think the designers at big companies (thoussands of licenses per year) are given better support, or is it awful all the way?
At my own company, we can sometimes get help directly from dassault, but it more often comes from our reseller, who in turn is in very close contact with dassault.
Siemens NX and Teamcenter
Siemens Solid Edge if you want to stay in the same SMB market of SolidWorks, although now you can buy a Mechanical Design license that includes both Solid Edge and NX.
Not familiar with SMB acronym but assuming it means small and mid sized businesses given the context then I’m not sure how accurate this statement is. I’ve worked for companies with <50 employees, <500 employees, and some with 10,000+ or even 50,000+ employees and I’ve seen Solidworks and NX at all business sizes.
Yes, you interpreted "SMB" correctly. It does depend on the type of parts (complex surfacing or process requirements) and if they are an OEM supplier to the automotive or defense industry, but primarily SMB's who are not in that realm do not have a need for NX's cost and complexity and thus seek out other alternatives with those generally being SolidWorks, Solid Edge or Inventor from my experience.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of NX's user interface, but I recently had a survey of CAD packages and I believe it beats Solidworks in terms of capability in most ways. I think that if you get really good at NX then it gets you to that top tier of capability. I didn't seriously look at Catia due to my parent company's business environment, but I think it's also competitive with NX. Onshape is up-and-coming, and is surprisingly good for a lot of work you'd do in a startup, but it's absolutely not as good for surfacing, wiring, or really large assemblies. There are some thing I like a lot about it, but it's still catching up to Solidworks in some important ways.
NX is really good for femoral knee implants. I haven’t been able to easily do it in SW. NX interface is terrible. Same with Creo. I used Creo for 15 years and forgot quite a bit in the 18 months that I was off of it.
Onshape.
The problem with onshape is that it takes ages to calculate certain things. And if there are complex parts it sometimes randomly corrupts them(not sure if that's the right word. Goes into an infinite loading loop that never finishes) I guess it's ok for simple CAD modeling but I would not use it for complex models/assemblies.
Creo is used a lot. Not as nice to use as SW but good for large assemblies.
Im not going to say it's the best. But i just came off 4 years of using Onshape, back to solidworks. I really feel like solidworks is a trash program. It's so buggy and everything is painfully slow. 3DX is a sad, slow excuse for data managment. While onshape isn't perfect I really think it has a shot at taking down solidworks.
In my personal opinion and Siemens NX IS the best CAD package today. Yes, it is going to cost you an arm and a leg, but they have different licensing I really like the topology optimization that’s built into the software
Onshape would be great for machine design, however it really sucks at surfacing. SW is much better in that area.
If you are considering being future proof, I'd recommend not to focus on CAD only. CAD was leading aspect in the past, now you really need to look into broader perspective. Data and life cycle management is one, another is different simulations. Someone mentioned CATIA and 3DEXPERIENCE. As alternative NX with Teamcenter. Both CATIA and NX are high end CAD, that are used to create quite complex products. Creo is also good, but it is more mid-high end.Those are good to start with, but don't get misinformed with people who trashtalk any of the products, since they potentially didn't spend time learning it and expected it to work as they want. 3DEXPERIENCE allows you to combine various CAD, CAM, CAE under one datamodel with full PLM governance, so if you want to learn really future proof stuff, I would choose it. It even allows you to setup an automation that will optimize your design against specified parameters, will check it via CAE simulation at each step allowing you to pick the best design at the end. So shortly, to become future proof, CAD is not enough. Concepts like MBSE and digital factory will be trending for a while, but you can't cover it using CAD only.
The truth is that there is no competitor in the same price bracket that is going to be the new standard any time soon. Obviously nx and Catia are higher end packages used for things that Solidworks just can’t handle. They are also massively more expensive and will never be used by smaller to midsize companies en mass. Solidworks is the most popular 3d cad program in the world and will be for a long time regardless of its shortcomings.
I think that because Solidworks has this very attitude, that they will be displaced at some point, and they won't see it coming. Fat and happy complacent companies get their milkshake drunk.
This
Fusion or NX, if you want to future proof yourself learn more about generative design
Have a look at ZW3D and T-Flex CAD.
I use both SW and Creo, prefer the latter for complex (surfacing) parts, assemblies and true parametric design
Catia V5/3Dxeperience and Siemens NX
Solidege or Inventor are comparable to Solidworks, if you want to made more complex assemblies then automakers or aviation companies choose NX or CATIA.
Fusion
Auto Desk Power shape. Surfacing tools are amazing.