# Cradle Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Cradle the right Requirements Management solution for you? Explore 27 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/78756/Cradle/reviews --- Cradle 4.4 (27) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of Cradle Ease of use 3.8 Customer Service 4.8 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 27 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Sarah K. Independent Business Owner Aviation & Aerospace Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Customers In Mind" August 30, 2018 5.0 I’m extremely impressed with the tool. I even enjoy having the capability to work in a sandbox area for practice. Training to excellent! Pros The developers kept the customer in mind when creating the tool. The user interface is very accommodating and easy to use. Capability to collaborate with other tools very helpful and a top requirement when choosing the right tool. The customer service is excellent! Always available and willing to work with the customer to the needs. Cons I have not run into any cons. I’m impressed with the tool. Review Source Response from 3SL August 31, 2018 Dear Ms Koctar Thank you very much for your very kind remarks about Cradle and particularly our support team! We are delighted that you have been pleased with Cradle over your years of using it and hope that when you need a RM / SE / MBSE / ALM tool, that you will once again rely on Cradle and 3SL! With best wishes Mark VR Verified Reviewer Transformation Development Manager Hospital & Health Care Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Requirements Engineering Software - could not manage without it" August 30, 2018 4.0 From the initial engagement with the staff at 3SL through implementation and support we have been well supported. The few gaps we found for our particular use of have been filled as an enhancement, initially for us, but then will become part of the core product. A very responsive organisation. The flexibility of its metamodel (Schema) has allowed us to extend our use well beyond traditional Requirements Engineering. Where will Cradle take us next? Pros Designed to manage engineering and operational requirements first. Will handle software requirements as well, but I like the fact that it uses terms recognised by civil, mechanical, electrical, marine, aerospace, automotive, nuclear engineers. Second important plus point is its graphical capability. To be able to show how a requirement links to a process or an organisation brings the whole subject of RE to life making it so much simpler to ensure users can record all their requirements and that they can verify that they have been met. Cons The user interface is very traditional and is ready for a facelift. It works well for requirements engineers but is not as intuitive as would be needed for infrequent access and use by business users. Review Source Response from 3SL August 31, 2018 Dear Sir / Madam Thank you for your kind remarks about Cradle and, in particular, our support team! These are very much appreciated. We are delighted that Cradle is delivering real benefits to you and that our enhancements have filled the gaps in Cradle's functionality! If you have a favourite style of UI - let us know! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL TW Thomas W. Senior System Engineer Entertainment Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Cradle Life" August 29, 2018 3.0 I have been working with Cradle for the past 12 years and have not found a SE tool with Cradles functionality. Other tools do not allow you to follow the complete System Engineering Process from Modeling all the way to retirement. Pros Modeling, Requirement Management, Click and Drag objects. Can support almost any SE task. Full SE life-cycle support capabilities. Cons Performance, Web Access, Older looking, Proprietary Database, Difficult to integrate with other systems. Sometimes that amount of functionality makes it hard to remember how to use the system unless you are in it every day. Review Source Response from 3SL August 30, 2018 Dear Mr Wieckowski Thank you for your kind remarks about Cradle. As a long-time user of Cradle, we apprecaite your remarks and your suggestions for improvements. We hope that you will find that our next release in a few months' time will answer these suggestions! We all forget some of Cradle's features from time to time - there are so many of them! Please consider searching the product's on-line help, contacting our support team, or browse our blog at: https://www.threesl.com/blog/ With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL FS Frank S. Engineer Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Usage and Administration of CRADLE" August 30, 2018 5.0 I think its a perfect tool to implement a process for requirements engineering at least to the level we are using it. (We don't do any modelling os far, also no systems engineering.) Pros It covers almost every task you may encounter during requirements management process. If you get used to the interface it is very flexible and can easily be adopted to specific needs. The text format of the Cradle export files allows a lot of additional (specific) data processing. Cons Actually I'm missing privileges to restrict link management (especially deleting a link). For people typically working with Microsoft Office application, the usage of CRADLE requires a change in mindset (but this may also be a 'Pros'). The upgrade process is really challenging for our IT. The direct connection of server and client version leads to a 1-day shutdown of CRADLE and parallel distributing of the clients to a lot of computers. The Document Publisher is really hard to use. Template definition requires a lot of effert and experiments until it is running. The publishing process is too time consuming. Review Source Response from 3SL August 31, 2018 Dear Mr Schindhelm Thank you for your review of Cradle and your kind remarks! We can help you with automated distribution and installation of Cradle clients. You can limit the ability to delete links in thr user-defined link rules - please contact me for details. I agree that configuring templates to publish documents can be complicated. I know that you have some exceptionally complex documents to produce - which is why we built some templates for you! You are welcome to add some MBSE to you Cradle system at any time - please contact me for details! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL VR Verified Reviewer Methods and Tools Engineer Oil & Energy Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A very valuable and customizable RM Tool" August 30, 2018 5.0 Pros CRADLE is a very mature solution, pefectly suitable for large scale requirements engineering projects. It can perfectly be adapted to any business model, process, allowing very specific customization (using an API for interface developments interacting with the tools database). Data access control can be tailored to match a projects organization, data configuration management is very precisely ensured. A wide range of file formats is proposed for interfaces with the external world (for imports, exports, or as attachments) 3SL Team offers a very good support and service when required. Cons The interface of the client could be considered as a bit stark and old fashioned. (we did not worked with web interfaces) Unfortunately, only one baseline can be open at a time, validated alternatives could only be managed using distinct objects. User experience for Verification & Validation process (using workflows) could be enhanced (reviews by validator is to be preferably done using XLS exports) Source document import using Doc Loader (Word format) can be a difficult experience for docs with complex structure, and could allow more possibilities (table patterns) Review Source Response from 3SL September 6, 2018 Dear Sir / Madam Thank you very much for your review of Cradle and for your kind remarks. We will be pleased to discuss any details that you may have for improvements to the UI, the loading of source documents and the CM system. We are, however, pleased that the workflow mechanism provides the degree of control that you need to ensure traceability and integrity of your project data. Please contact me directly at your convenience! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL SW Stephen W. Project Engineering Manager Design Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Excellent Requirements Management Tool" August 31, 2018 4.0 I have been very impressed with Cradle, import and export of data is more robust and much more deterministic over my previous RM tool. The ability to perform analysis from source requirements through to verification steps and make edits in the same view is very powerful. The further my project has developed the value of Cradle has become very apparent, even for small projects where a spreadsheet in the past may have been used, we will use Cradle. Pros The software is highly flexible and once you understand how to setup the items you can use the tool for many aspects of a project at various stages of the project life-cycle. Outstanding linkage and traceability features, nested views is a very powerful and simple method to carry out detailed traces. Great Customer support. Cons Being a flexible tool it can take a bit of time to get used to particularly in you have come from other RM tools that work in a particular way. I recommend getting training on the tool if you need to get going on a project straight away. Once you understand the basic principles it becomes easy to use. Some elements of the user interface could do with improvement especially around the layout of forms but this is only minor and does not impact of the capability of the Cradle. Review Source Response from 3SL August 31, 2018 Dear Mr Walton Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your encouraging remarks about using Cradle and extending its use across your process. I am particularly pleased that you have been able to load your data easily and see real benefits from using Cradle's traceability, unique indirect (transitive) cross referencing and nested tables! As ever, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL and our local partner at any time - we are always ready to help! With best wishes Mark Alberto B. Sr. Systems Engineer-GCP Aircraft Systems Airlines/Aviation Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Cradle As a Transformative Tool" September 5, 2018 5.0 Design data for in flight entertainment software and hardware. Integrated ground station-satellite-aircraft connectivity networking and architecture. Pros Ease of configuration management for large groups of design data. Ease of training new users. The degree that an administrator can enact global database schema changes with no error. The ease with which the schema for item types can be defined. The ability to feed simulation using design data and schedules as well as DRM (design reference mission) Idef architecture. The tool suite presents a single integrated environment to link design architecture, requirements, and specifications in a conguration controlled database. Cons export to Excel and WORD required significant post production cleanup or scripting. Review Source Response from 3SL September 6, 2018 Dear Mr Blanco Thank you very much for your review of Cradle and your kind remarks. We will be pleased to discuss your needs for publishing to Excel and Word at your convenience! Please contact support@threesl.com and let's work these issues! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL Dmiriy M. Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Review from Russia for best regards to Cradle" August 28, 2018 5.0 When developing a large volume of requirements (a large project), it is very difficult to track their interrelation. When making changes in requirements it is difficult to track other objects in the project they are concerned with. May be errors. I develop requirements and publish them in Word documents for my team. Due to the convenient possibility of tracing requirements in Cradle, changes in requirements and publication of changes are very simple and error-free. Pros The Cradle allows you to present complex things and objects very simply . The software helps to structure thinking process in the design of complex systems. The Cradle is avelible adaptable for any project ( software design, submarine design , etc.) Cons It would be difficult for me to deal with the program myself. Review Source Response from 3SL August 31, 2018 Dear Mr Makarov Thank you for your very kind remarks about Cradle, we are very pleased that it is providing a benefit to you and your colleagues! Both 3SL and our colleagues in Russia will do everything that we can to ensure that Cradle continues to meet your needs! With best wishes Mark Bernard C. Consultant Management Consulting Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Tools to easy manage requirements, configuration and documentation for systems" September 30, 2018 4.0 Once configured, it has very simplified the complex systems definition (including sysml design), taking care of the different roles in the organisation. Pros Provide all you need to manage your system requirements, configuration and documentation during all its life cycle. Cons Because of its very large functionalities and organisation support, needs time to configure and administrate. Review Source Alexey S. Head of Software department Airlines/Aviation Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Pilot using 3SL Cradle in a simple airborne project" September 1, 2018 4.0 Cradle helped us made our exterior light project in short time without sufficient problems. Russian support team from Saturs is great. Pros It's flexible. Cradle API allows to access projects database using C language library. It helps to integrate different tools like change management system with requirement management system (Cradle). Cradle has very customizable templates to import and export requirements from/to Word documents. Cradle has both Windows and Linux client and server applications. Cons It makes use special tricks to use common parts of requirements as separate project. It's no trivial. Review Source Response from 3SL September 3, 2018 Dear Mr Savin Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your very positive assessment of Cradle and, in particular, our colleagues in Russia! We are very pleased that you are being successful in your use of Cradle, and we are delighted that you would be likely to recommend Cradle to other people! With best wishes Mark SK Samson K. Senior Business Analyst Government Administration Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Business Analyst" September 14, 2018 4.0 Cradle is great to work with. Having multiple people editing a set of requirement at the same time was one of the reason we procured Cradle. Cradle can show all links to/from an object(item) and relationships between many object modules. Hence, Cradle can show a full end to end traceability. Pros Cradle supports the full system lifecycle. Cradle has integrated modelling (for full MBSE), supporting any number of fully integrated and cross referenced process, analysis, architecture and design models, all linked to all other project data. Cradle supports a variety of modelling notations, including SASD, IDEF, UML, FFBD, PFD, ADARTS and others. Cons Wait time of uploading data and for baselining. However, I believe this is due to the size of our database. Review Source Response from 3SL September 18, 2018 Dear Mr Kuyinnu Thank you for your very kind remarks about Cradle! We are pleased that you have found Cradle helpful within the UK Government's Home Office and will continue to support you, and the other programmes in the Home Office who use Cradle, to the best of our ability. With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL AK Andreas K. Engineer for verification and validation Railroad Manufacture Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Highly configurable tool" September 4, 2018 5.0 In comparison to other makes of software tools, Cradle is highly configurable and can be adapted to the particular requirements of each individual project. Cradle works well in practice only if solid requirements management processes are defined. The ease of use (see corresponding question 'Ease of Use') can be improved by creating user defined start pages with the relevant tools. (Note: In our company Cradle is mainly used as a requirements management tool.) Pros \- defined workflow - change recording mechanism - managing of large projects because of practically unlimited scalability Cons \- higher administrative effort if there are no preconfigured projects templates Review Source Response from 3SL September 5, 2018 Dear Mr Kamenev Thank you for your review of Cradle! We are very pleased that Cradle creates real benefits for you and your colleagues. We completely agree that the most important step to use a tool is to have a clearly defined process for the tool to support. We know that you and your colleagues have created such a process and you can now use it to produce benefits for your projects! Thank you for your use of Cradle! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL CB Craig B. Senior software engineer Automotive Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Cradle soft" September 27, 2018 5.0 We use Cradle to manage and analyse the requirements for software for an automotive application that falls within the scope of ISO26262. We have found it to work very well in this role and has been a huge help in the management of the requirements of this system. Pros I find Cradle neatly integrates the requirements capture, analysis and software design in a way that it easy to use and requires little upfront extra effort to yield the benefits of access and traceability required in a safety related application. Cons There seem to be some perfromance isues with large data bases, but I suspect this is due to scaling of our server, which really requires updating Review Source Response from 3SL September 28, 2018 Dear Mr Bowlas Thank you very much for your review of Cradle and for your very kind remarks. We are delighted that Cradle is providing rel benefit to you and your colleagues! We will strive to be worthy of your continuing support over the coming years and thank you for your support of 3SL and Cradle! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL RS Richard S. MD Telecommunications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "CRADLE" November 3, 2018 5.0 I have used CRADLE for several years now for several systems engineering projects. CRADLE has enabled comprehensive requirements collection and total management of projects with all project information accessible through one tool. I have also used CRADLE to collect and manage research information. Pros CRADLE is a full featured Systems Engineering tool. Its most attractive feature for me is its flexibility. While it comes with a default database this database structure and the links are completely configureable. Cons CRADLE is comprehensive and takes time to learn to use it to best advantage. Review Source AS Alexandr S. CIO Telecommunications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "3SL Cradle review" August 31, 2018 5.0 On the main work I use the Cradle Enterprise for the inventory of information assets - human resources, hardware resources, information resources, software, service catalog. Cradle helps a lot! In self-employment with pleasure I use Cradle SE-pro version for requirements development, business process modeling. In addition, there is a project in which a part of the model COBIT5 Pros Simplicity, flexibility, capabilities, power and friendly support Cons Poor web interface. No mobile app. Licensing policy for the Enterprise version Review Source Response from 3SL September 3, 2018 Dear Mr Steklyanov Thank yoiu for your review of Cradle and your positive comments! We hope that the Enterprise Architecture parts of Cradle modelling will be of interest to you, especially with the new capabilities that we will release soon! You should also see some improvements our support for Web Services! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL RH Rob H. Systems Engineer Aviation & Aerospace Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Cradle user of 10+ years" August 31, 2018 4.0 We have a very large multi-project database with close to a hundred thousand records. Cradle gives us effective control and traceability Pros Simple query creation Customisable welcome screen by user / team Lack of need for programming for complex queries Cons Lack of keyboard shortcut customisation Difficulty of control of some layouts Review Source Response from 3SL September 3, 2018 Dear Mr Hayward Thank you for your review of Cradle! As a user of Cradle for many, many, years and as someone with one of the largest Cradle databases, we greatly value your opinions, feedback and your continued support of 3SL and Cradle! We continue to value the feedback that you have provided over the years, and hope that you will continue to be pleased with our responses. With best regards Mark BL Braimah L. Senior Business Analyst Government Administration Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A Must Have Requirements Tool" September 3, 2018 4.0 We manage large numbers of requirements to assure traceability and supplier delivery and the Cradle tool has been invaluable. Pros A very effective tool for managing requirements, particularly large numbers of requirements. Cons Formal training with designed courses and a certification path will ensure users get the very best from the tool. Currently most of the learning is done on the job, within the UK. Review Source Response from 3SL September 6, 2018 Dear Mr Lat Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your kind words. It has been an honour to work with yu and your Government colleagues. We hope that Cradle will continue to bring benefits to the various programmes where it is being used! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL SB Steffen B. Project Engineer Oil & Energy Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The software is a very good tool to manage requirements and dependencies related to your process," June 14, 2017 4.0 Controlled requirements and other information objects. Structured information all over the project. Scale and customize able during a running project. High quality of formal documents, Pros Possible to setup up and customize an own process. Easy to show, describe and trace all kind of different dependencies. Cradle comes with a many reporting, queries and metric tools and a powerful document publishing engine compatible to MS WORD. The document designer is easy to use. Cons Depending on the amount of the stored information and the number of used items in the database the software slows down executing a query or the document publishing process. CRADLE needs a longer training period to get familiar with the software and the functions. Review Source Response from 3SL June 14, 2017 Dear Steffen Thank you for your review of Cradle and your kind remarks about our product. Both I and the 3SL team will do everything that we can to help you to get the best from Cradle and to ensure that it runs as quickly as possible for you. So please don't hesitate to get in touch! With best wishes Mark DR Daniel R. FP Design Engineer Aviation & Aerospace Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Excellent and getting Better" August 29, 2018 5.0 We are currently in the process of realising the benefits but we foresee a reduction in repeated errors and an improved ability to reduce the Pros Highly configurable and the ability to use key code commands has allowed us to integrate it with other tools. Also once a simple problem has been identified it is quickly remedied by the support team. Cons It feels sometimes that simple features are not available in the software meaning we have to be creative in the setup, however we are using CRADLE in an unusual way within the business. Review Source Response from 3SL August 30, 2018 Dear Mr Ramsden Thank you for your kind remarks about Cradle and its use within Aero Gearbox International! We hope that your current work with Cradle will soon realise the benefits that you anticipate and that we will have the opportunity to serve AGI for many years to come! With best wishes Mark DC Don C. Systems Engineer Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Used for massive project with over 5000 users across several states." June 3, 2017 5.0 Strict application of system engineering principles Pros Solid foundation with several high-quality interfaces to standard software packages. Easily maintained and distributed across several engineering disciplines. Cons To use the most powerful features, there is a learning curve. This learning curve is mitigated through excellent customer support. Review Source Response from 3SL June 3, 2017 Dear Mr Clark Thank you very much for your kind review of Cradle. Both we in the UK and our US colleagues value LM as a Cradle user and will continue to do all that we can to make our contribution to your (yes, VERY large!) project! With best wishes Mark DR Derek R. Program and Engineering Manager Defense & Space Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Simply brilliant. " August 29, 2018 5.0 The more I use Cradle the more impressed I become. I see the productivity gains from replacing multiple tools with one very flexible and powerful tool. Support has been outstanding and I have nothing but high praise. Pros Cradle is very flexible so that you can employ it for whatever your system engineering process is. Very simple to learn to use and very powerful. Cons I would like some safety model diagrams (e.g. fault trees) but on a scale of like versus things that could be different it is 99.99% like and 0.01% different. Review Source Response from 3SL August 30, 2018 Dear Derek Thank you for your review and for your very kind remarks. The 3SL team is delighted that Cradle has met your need and brought real benefits! The idea of adding fault trees is a very interesting one, and could combine nicely with some new MBSE capabilities to link models into ALL other RM and SE that we hope to announce soon! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL YF Yike F. Systems Enigneer Automotive Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Cradle Review" August 29, 2018 3.0 I like Cradle, as it can be customised to the needs of individual organisation. However, the data migration takes a bit effort and it's not easy to keep the integrity of original data. Pros The high level of customisation possibility. The clear user interface. The quick customer support response. The good and efficient help page content. Cons The integration with other tools takes a bit effort The SysML modelling part can be improved further. The data migration can cause some problem. Review Source Response from 3SL August 30, 2018 Dear Ms Fang Thank you for your kind remarks about Cradle! We will continue to support you in your data exchange needs and hope that you will like what we will soon offer in our next release! You can find what I hope will be some helpful 'hints and tips' in our 3SL blog here: https://www.threesl.com/blog/ With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL AL Alexey L. Product development manager Automotive Used the software for: 2+ years ### "well-done and useful product" August 31, 2018 5.0 SW and HW/SW projects in vehicle fleets management and car electronics. Pros This SW carries huge experience in SE. Works as the template and instruction guide when building a project. Cons Usual proprety: the initial stage of project settings and other preparations consumes much resources and remains hidden when considering the project results. Mostly compensated with high flexibility and long lifetime of the project template set once. Review Source Response from 3SL September 4, 2018 Dear Mr Logoshin Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your positive comments! We hope that you have completed the tailoring of Cradle to your process and that you will continue to get the benefits of Cradle's integration of requirements, modelling, architecture, test and validation across your entire SE process! With best wishes Mark MS Martin S. Consultant Financial Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Items meaning is defined by the context. Cradle knows it best." June 13, 2017 5.0 Provides very efficient management of complex structures Pros Easy configuration of item type relationships. Customization of views and queries. Tree view drill down of items and relationships. Metrics and dash boards. Cons Not easy to interact with Cradle from outside. I am using single user Pro edition and I would like to use Cradle as a configuration management tool for other applications. For example product parts management ... Review Source Response from 3SL June 13, 2017 Dear Mr Stepanek Thank you very much for your kind remarks about 3SL and Cradle! These remarks are very much appreciated! We hope that Cradle will continue to be helpful to you! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL BR Boris R. Director Software Development Aviation & Aerospace Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Cradle for ground-based aviation systems" September 4, 2018 4.0 The problem to be solved is to develop requirements for ground-based meteorological observation system in aviation domain. Existing challenge was to maintain traceablility with MS Word/Excel, and this problem was solved using Cradle. Pros Highly structural definition of development artefacts (requirements, test, diagrams etc.) model with well-defined association rules. Frame concept and its customization features. Cons GUI ergonomics lack customization capabilities, especially font sizes and accessibility-related matters. Fully-functional web interface would be preferrable. Review Source Response from 3SL September 5, 2018 Dear Mr Resnick Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your positive comments! We are pleased that Cradle is helpful for your projects! You may wish to explore the UI customisation from (a) process/phase hierarchy and (b) custom start pages and (c) custom view commands and (d) preferences to hide or disable parts of the UI and (e) ability to set a larger font size for the UI. Both I and our colleagues in Russia will be pleased to help you! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL