TrustRadius Insights for SOLIDWORKS are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Recommendations
Users of Solidworks have made several recommendations based on their experiences with the software. The most common recommendations include evaluating other products to consider their benefits, especially for CAD software. Users also recommend utilizing Solidworks for 3D design work, highlighting its user-friendly interface and easy learning curve for new users. Additionally, users praise Solidworks for its active community and available support resources, which they recommend taking advantage of. Overall, these recommendations emphasize the importance of exploring different options, leveraging community support, and considering Solidworks for 3D design purposes.
SOLIDWORKS is used at my institution in order to help 3d model complex objects or new designs that are being conceptualized. For example, my formula hybrid team has used SOLIDWORKS for the past 7 years in order to design entire race cars from scratch and model every single part that is used on the car.
Pros
User Interface
Accessibility
Creating Drawings
Ease of Use
Cons
Battery Consumption
Time taken to Start
File Sharing
Likelihood to Recommend
SOLIDWORKS is really well suited for engineering design work and making sure that different parts work well together and don't interfere with one another. SOLIDWORKS does not like working with very small and repeated parts that require very minute changes, such as a meshes or microchips. It is very much suited to working on larger designs composed of smaller parts.
To Design different products having multiple Configurations and high number if components which needs to be assemble further in the later stage and have high complexity of assembly. We use complete features for designing, maintaining Bill of Material, Configuration Matrix, Assembly, Material properties, To make 2D Drawings out of it and many more features.
Pros
Isolate feature
Configuration Matrix
Material Properties Selection
Assembly
Cons
Bill of Material
Material Properties like Weight and Volume
Self Verification of Design
Design for Manufacturability Integration
Web Version of SOLIDWORKS
Mobile Version of SOLIDWORKS
Integration with Sharepoint or onedrive for data
Likelihood to Recommend
Ah! For the Configuration maintenance of the product in which lot of configuration are available, SOLIDWORKS is the best to use and switch between those configuration and the plus point is if you update one area, other will automatically update. The worst is Bill of Material feature and the integration with other cloud application like one drive etc. and they should provide the web version for the licensed one as to access few files while not on workstation.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Research & Development (Hospital & Health Care company, 10,001+ employees)
We use it to design our new products. We mainly use Sheet metal / Large assemblies and plastic part modeling
Pros
Large community
Cons
Program Stability (Very Unstable)
User Interface is dated and impractical
Every new version introduces many new bugs and makes the program even slower
Insufficient official support despite the large cost of the program
Very Slow
Text Editor is dated and impractical
Solidworks Corp does not support customers
Likelihood to Recommend
It is one of the most unstable programs I have ever used. Despite having been using it on high-end PCs, the program gets slower with every new version and becomes even more unstable with every service pack. The user interface is dated and impractical. For example, there are separate buttons to perform a Boss-extrusion and a Cut-extrusion, where one could do the job (like in AutoDesk Inventor).
Text editor does not allow you to perform tricky tasks. Overall the program is very slow and crashes very often.
I use SOLIDWORKS to make prototypes and create actual drawings related to machine developments.
Pros
Easy to model ideas due to user-friendly interface and multitasking tools.
Can save work with many available formats which can be referred to many other compatible software and devices.
Lots of learning and helping materials are readily available when issues are raised.
Cons
Needs to be lightweight in order to run on low performance machines with out sticking.
Needs to improve 2D drawing tools to be more user friendly.
Needs to improve inbuilt rendering software to be more realistic.
Likelihood to Recommend
Designing 3D models of working prototypes of a machine, this is excellent. By starting from parts modeling, it provides the ability to assemble and analyze the model. It provides options to convert drawings directly from 3D models.
If we need only to make 2D drawings, this is not the best but for 3D, excellent.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering (Apparel & Fashion company, 10,001+ employees)
I first used SOLIDWORKS nearly 20 years ago (!!) while earning my engineering degree, and then later in my engineering consulting work. After a break of a few years, I've returned to using SOLIDWORKS for personal/entrepreneurial use, primarily for 3D printing of custom parts for radio-controlled aircraft.
The highly intuitive, visual UI and seamless backend integration into my 3D printing workflow, meant that alongside my familiarity from my earlier career, it was the obvious choice.
Pros
Highly visual and intuitive UI--my 10-year-old son can use it to create complex designs!
Has very wide integration of CAD to all the other things you'd use CAD for (fluid dynamics, stress testing, CNC, 3D printing).
It has very useful presentation modes to be able to present working concepts.
Cons
Resource hungry (but then you should expect that!)
So full-featured that sometimes it's a little confusing
Community support is vibrant, but could benefit from more structure.
Likelihood to Recommend
In my mind, whilst it's understandably expensive (for the commercial versions), SOLIDWORKS is the leading CAD software on the market. I would recommend it for all engineering students, anyone who wants to be able to quickly prototype an idea and then test it out (whether that is visually or via integration with CFD/stress testing software). This is the real deal.
VU
Verified User
Strategist in Finance and Accounting (Airlines/Aviation company, 1001-5000 employees)
The Engineering department is using SOLIDWORKS. It is effortless to use, user-friendly and fast you can do a lot of things in it. Complex assemblies are easy to make, user-defined drawing paper, good quality rendering, realistic simulation, suitable for designing small parts, for 3D print, realistic-looking rendering, materials, scene, animation (motion) is good, and decent report of simulation.
Pros
Focus on ease of use allows the user to produce a 3D design in a fastest and easiest way.
Provides a seamless and integrated workflow
Create, validate, manage, and transform ideas to produce an excellent product design.
Cons
It can be slow, sometimes gets stuck while processing multiple parts.
Its time consuming to form an object from different parts.
File import from other software can be tricky and does not work very well.
Likelihood to Recommend
With SOLIDWORKS files can be shared with different clients.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Information Technology (Information Technology and Services company, 10,001+ employees)
It is being used across the whole organization. Each department has access to it through EPDM and we can access all files each department has created using the shared folder. We use it to 3D model our parts. We also will create an engineering print from each 3D file so that our company has a standard print that they can use to build our parts.
Pros
Great at 3D modeling.
Great with FEA analysis.
Cons
Formatting has always been an issue for me.
Creating a mid-plane has always been frustrating.
Likelihood to Recommend
Solidworks is well suited if you want to create a 3D model or a part of an assembly. Every powerful and has a lot of custom features. It is less appropriate for creating threads on bolts and screws. They have a function that creates the image of a thread on a bolt, but it is not an actual thread cut into the part. They need to have some type of auto thread cutting function.
I am using Solidworks for my Ph.D. research. I have used it to make 3D models for various things which I 3D print later on and test in the laboratories at Iowa State University. I have used Solidworks for making 3D models of poles and transmission towers.
Pros
It has very good graphical user interface and thus is very user friendly.
It offers a lot of options to create your models and for each option, there are examples and suggestions as to how these options work.
It can be easily integrated with any finite element software and allows the user to print the model which can be used for testing in labs.
It enables the user to make very complex 3D parts with minimum effort. There are a lot of tutorials also available for the software.
Cons
I would want Solidworks to add a library within itself where users can see examples and solve their problem.
While working with very heavy models, the software becomes slow and leads to unnecessary lag while moving around the model.
It should allow a person to easily integrate their models with models from other users.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is very good for making complex 3D models. I have used it for making numerous models of welds and connections. I would want a better explanation for the various options that are listed in the software.
SOLIDWORKS is used in two main avenues. First, we use SOLIDWORKS for rapid prototyping. Typically a model is designed and modeled within 3 hours or less and then sent to the Fab Lab where it is either 3D printed or carved on a CNC machine. These prototyping models are useful for user feedback and other validation tests. The turnaround is quick, so the models are not always 100% accurate...and sometimes key components of the product are left out if the area of focus is testing another part.
The second avenue of use would be the real product development in which the model is prepared for full-fledge manufacturing. The manufacture ready models could be used for injection molded parts, laser jet parts, CNC'd parts, a few other types of manufacturing, or a combination of them. These types of models typically take a day to a few weeks and are sometimes passed between designer and engineer. Depending on the project, it may be necessary to utilize some of SolidWorks internal simulation tools, which help ensure that the product is ready for manufacturing without any foreseeable problems.
Pros
SOLIDWORKS is definitely leading the way in the simulation realm (stress test, draft, etc). The simulations give a lot more detail compared to other CAD programs that I've used in the past.
SOLIDWORKS is an evolution of one of the longest standing CAD products on the market. The huge knowledge base and user base is a huge plus when it comes to advanced modeling issues and concerns.
SOLIDWORKS is intuitive enough that "new" employees can pick it up in a fairly short amount of training....especially to grasp the key concepts and be able to inspect or look at already produced models.
SOLIDWORKS as a whole has been utilizing modern cloud technologies to allow users to run more simulations and get more done while data and processing are done behind the scenes. Something that is extremely important when it comes to machine bandwidth and the ability to get a lot done at once.
Cons
I wish SOLIDWORKS would start an overall of the UI. It's familiar...but it's old and clunky. I use Fusion 360 for personal use and love the modern look and intuitiveness that it brings along with it.
Native image rendering is not good. Have to use a third-party program such as KeyShot.
Very ergonomic or organic shapes can be hard to produce. There is no "sculpt" environment as offered in Fusion 360.
Likelihood to Recommend
Overall, SOLIDWORKS is a powerhouse of tools that can be used for product development and engineering products. It's familiar, reliable, and can tackle just about any project within the consumer goods industry. If you're looking to develop packaging, physical goods, furniture, etc... then SOLIDWORKS is really the industry standard. If you're looking to do architectural or other civil-engineering related projects then you'll want to check out some other products (probably Autodesk products). You'll also find SOLIDWORKS has limitation when it comes to soft-consumer goods...including clothing and footwear. If you're looking to do soft goods then I would suggest finding a software package that is specific to your needs.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Product Management (Consumer Goods company, 10,001+ employees)
