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On-premise and cloud-based manufacturing design platform that allows individuals and enterprises of all sizes to create and collaborate 2D drafts, 3D designs, CAD models, animations and more.
Engineers, designers, and architects who need to perform quick and accurate calculations for beams, columns, frames, retaining walls, and more.
Ease of 3D design, very user friendly, easy to use tools, quick to generate reports, great for designing small parts like bolts, more visually pleasing than most civil CAD programs.
It can be a bit frustrating to figure out errors in your model as a new user. The problems usually stem from the user input not the software itself though.
I am responsible for setting up the software, licensing and the licensing server for the company. With each new version, I hear the engineers compliments on how upgrades are improving their abilities.
Very unstable as a program (Used it on more than 5 computers with multiple configurations). Its developers focus on adding extra useless features instead of focusing on the program stability.
I appreciate SolidWorks Premium for its robust modeling and simulation features, which help streamline product development. It offers powerful tools for design validation and 3D modeling.
One main problem that arises with SolidWorks is that when other windows are opened or different programs are being run at the same time, the software gives you a bit hard time with functioning.
Great software for 2D/3D modeling with great features. Customer support is good and try to resolve the issues on priotity.
Simulation and analysis part is limited with limited options and the results are not too accurate when as compared to the other softwares.
It is a great tool to allow a small engineering firm to do projects that a large firm can't do cost effectively. With some more basic CAD capabilities it would be even better.
Occasionally I run into an error mainly with the truss and portal frame wizards. But that is probably because I am trying to do something crazy that is not standard.
Rep and the team have been amazingly helpful, any issues are resolved almost instantly, faster than any other commercial calculation software I have used and they actually care.
The fact that it is web based and very much dependent on the speed of the internet connection is a real problem presently.
The software is that it is very robust and I can confidently design just about anything I need for my business.
The learning curb is steep and intimidating to someone who needs answers without taking a semester to figure things out.
Ease of use, great output and options. Great tech support and response.
Where and how to enter some data is at times unclear for first time users or beginners in utilizing the software.
Dev K.: Hi there. I'm Dev with a small company called Studiokumar and I would give SolidWorks Premium a rating of four out of five. I started using SolidWorks Premium to replace a previous product, which was Autodesk Inventor, and Autodesk Inventor is a fine mechanical CAD package, but I found that more and more when I was collaborating with other companies that SolidWorks is essentially the defective standard these days for 3D modeling and mechanical CAD, so it made it a lot easier working with other companies to be using the most mainstream product. I found SolidWorks to be a good choice for my business because it has a lot of the tools for both design modeling as well as analysis, and it also supports all the file formats and vendor specific extensions that I might run into in my work in mechanical design and product engineering. Getting started with SolidWorks was fairly straightforward. It had an installer package, if memory serves, so it was not too much different than installing other desktop software. The total setup time for installing, downloading and getting it going was probably not more than about 30 to 45 minutes, and once it was there, it was pretty easy to get going. There's tutorials and there's a lot of information about SolidWorks works if you're totally new to it in terms of how to use the modeling and mechanical CAD parts of it, but those are pretty standard compared to other types of CAD that you may be familiar with. So not too much that's going to be different or hard to get going with on SolidWorks. In terms of recommendations for other businesses regarding SolidWorks, I think SolidWorks would be a good choice for you if you are looking for a mechanical CAD package. I think it's particularly good if you're looking to work with other companies that might be using similar assets. It's a very common choice and it has a lot of powerful features that are considered standard in mechanical CAD these days. In terms of SolidWorks versus SolidWorks Premium, I think you have to look at the use within your business of whether you're going to need some of the more advanced modeling or analytics features that that includes. For my business and for my work, it made sense, so that's why I ended up using.
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