SOLIDWORKS Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Reviews & Insights

Score8.4 out of 10

430 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

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 Reviews

7 Reviews

Professional, Scientific, and Technical ServicesInformation Technology & Services1Design6

SOLIDWORKS Review

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

April 8, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SOLIDWORKS is being used to design skid mounted, pre-piped, water systems - for labs, manufacturing companies, and industrial buildings. Not only is it used to just design the skid frame, which we send to an outside welding company, but actually all of the components that make it up. It helps drastically which manufacturing and knowing how parts fit in addition to being able to show customers what they'll be receiving. As a small company only I use it.

Pros

Generate bill of materials that can be sent to Microsoft Excel
It has a very user friendly interface
It gives the ability to visually depict a design

Cons

Large assembly load time could be improved
Importing .dwg files is fairly clunky
File management without having to buy an add-on program

Likelihood to Recommend

SOLIDWORKS is well suited for any company that designs and manufactures basically anything. It is not the cheapest option and it is not the most expensive one either but it definitely has its uses with an experienced user. From basic sheet metal parts that need to be cut and welded or bent to complex thousand-part assemblies it allows visualization of an idea or product.

I know for building construction there are better suited, more specific computer applications that work far better.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Design company, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

SOLIDWORKS for manufacturing ease

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

February 27, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (Information Technology and Services company, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

SOLIDWORKS Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 17, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SOLIDWORKS is used across out whole organization. It is used for design, FEA, rendering, and visualization purposes. In the design group, we use it to create, edit, and share parts and assemblies across a wide range of applications, including consumer goods, machinery, devices, etc.

Pros

The collaborative work environment is a cool and useful feature where groups of people can work on the same model at the same time, and SOLIDWORKS ensures that you don't overwrite each other's work.
The ease and amount of customization options are very useful for creating a personalized and intuitive user interface, whether SOLIDWORKS is your native CAD package or not.
It is very easy to quickly edit a model you have already created. The software allows sketch and feature editing without having to take the time to actually enter the sketch/feature environment.
The use of configurations and configurations-specific dimensions in the same sketch is very useful for creating different forms of the same part

Cons

SOLIDWORKS gets very slow when using large assemblies, parts with many features, and sketches with many fully-defined entities.
Saving can become extremely slow when there are STL files inserted into your part file. Has taken up to 10 minutes to save one part file. However, using the Save As option and giving the same part a new name will reduce save time by 10x. Seems to be some room for improvement here.
When using the loft command without guide curves, there are two orbs that can be moved to determine how the profile twists from one face of the loft to the other(s). However, you cannot constrain these points and they can change position in different configurations. These points should be able to be constrained.

Likelihood to Recommend

SOLIDWORKS is well suited for creating fully-define, parametric parts. SOLIDWORKS makes it easy to quickly edit your parts, which can be done on the fly during meetings. It is well suited for a collaborative environment, as well as for creating complex, working assemblies. SOLIDWORKS is less appropriate for complex surface modeling and non-parametric applications.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Design company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

SolidWorks 2001-2018 experience

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

July 5, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SolidWorks was used in my company since inception and I was using the software since 2002. As a mainstream 3D parametric software design tool it really made a huge difference in productivity and versatility in design process and drafting. Year after year customer-driven changes and improvements aligned with my advancements in career and my company's penetration to the markets. It is a must-have type of software in today's industry.

Pros

3D modeling.
Assemblies.
Drawing updates.
Integration for parts, assemblies and drawings.

Cons

Some software stability.
Version conversion to earlier releases for file exchange.
Subscription value for the money.

Likelihood to Recommend

Pros:

As a mainstream design tool for the mechanical industry, it is a top tier option
Collaboration with other users
File format flexibility for data exchange
Various industry-driven tools for design
Design for manufacturing driven

Cons:

Civil engineering applications very limited
Not suitable for design by code application, especially if FEA modules are used.
Strangely, does not collaborate well or at all with Catia even as a part of the same company

Nebojsa Popovic

Director in Engineering at RYG Engineering Services Ltd (Design, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

17 years of experience

SOLIDWORKS, the right choice for now and later

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 4, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a trusted SOLIDWORKS gold partner, we used SOLIDWORKS every day to check the performance of our software in the SOLIDWORKS environment. SOLIDWORKS is a great company with an excellent product. Our plug-in works with other similar MCAD packages, but SOLIDWORKS has the easiest interface to use with seamless product updates. From past company experience, SOLIDWORKS provided an excellent MCAD experience.

Pros

SOLIDWORKS is easy to pick up. The interface is clean, consistent and intuitive.
SOLIDWORKS has a great partner program, so CAE software vendors can integrate specialized tools into the CAD platform.
SOLIDWORKS is long-standing. This has become the default MCAD tool for many industries and professionals.

Cons

The surfacing could be improved, and that's the reason I have used Rhino3D for this specialized purpose.
Other programs, such as Rhino3D, have allowed for backward compatibility, where SOLIDWORKS has not allowed this.
An online version of SOLIDWORKS, such as what Onshape did, would be very helpful for many designers for collaboration.

Likelihood to Recommend

For detailed and accurate component design and mechanical assembly, SOLIDWORKS is an excellent choice. SOLIDWORKS has a tremendous reach and is applicable for every industry, making it a great choice for the mechanical engineer and designer early in their career. SOLIDWORKS' surface could use improvement to make it the best all-around MCAD tool.

Bob Householder

Mechanical Engineer in Engineering at Zemax, LLC (Design, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

15 years of experience

View profile

First Class Design Software

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 11, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Up until 2007, I used SOLIDWORKS to design industrial equipment in the glass industry. We used it throughout the engineering group (about 10 designers). I used it for R&D including simulation work (FEA and Motion). I currently own a suite of SOLIDWORKS for my personal business (APECS LLC). I use it for small design projects. I currently use Autodesk Inventor in my full-time position with a company in the water treatment industry.

Pros

For starters, it is easy to learn compared to other solid modeling software platforms. SolidWorks has great learning tools and an easy to follow interface.
The Weldment design environment is very robust and flexible.
Working with model configurations is much easier to manage than other software platforms.
FeatureWorks makes easy work of importing CAD geometry from other modeling packages. It recognizes the features and provides a feature-based model, unlike other programs that simply allow you to import block geometry without access to the model base features.

Cons

More flexible options for renting or leasing the software.
Provide small firms with older versions of the software with credits toward software upgrades. The current system penalizes those who have chosen not to upgrade over time. Many small firms can't afford to do so as often.

Likelihood to Recommend

SOLIDWORKS is well suited for general design environments. It may be limited in situations where more advanced modeling is required, such as complex surfacing modeling. I do not engage in that type of design work so I can't speak for its limitations.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Design company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

19 years of experience

Opinion on SOLIDWORKS for product design

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 1, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm gonna refer mainly to my previous job since now I only use SolidWorks for personal matters. I worked in a product design company so we used SolidWorks as a tool in the projects. It was the main resource to develop the product, from the first stages of creation through to the final product.

Pros

It has the precision required for manufacturing that is necessary so that you can guarantee that the product can be produced in the end.
SolidWorks makes it possible to visualize how the product is going to look in the end.
It is intuitive, so you don't waste time looking for resources or tools in the program.
It gives feedbacks about errors in the parts so that you can review and correct them.

Cons

The rendering function "Photoview" could be improved in terms of realism.
The metal sheet resources are not so intuitive and could be improved. I often get stuck in some errors that I can't figure out the solution or the cause.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is more appropriate to model parts, products, and make assemblies (even the more complex ones). I do not recommend using it to model constructions or bigger spaces.

Verified User

Contributor in Research & Development (Design company, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

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SOLIDWORKS Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 17, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

The collaborative work environment is a cool and useful feature where groups of people can work on the same model at the same time, and SOLIDWORKS ensures that you don't overwrite each other's work.
The ease and amount of customization options are very useful for creating a personalized and intuitive user interface, whether SOLIDWORKS is your native CAD package or not.
It is very easy to quickly edit a model you have already created. The software allows sketch and feature editing without having to take the time to actually enter the sketch/feature environment.
The use of configurations and configurations-specific dimensions in the same sketch is very useful for creating different forms of the same part

Cons

SOLIDWORKS gets very slow when using large assemblies, parts with many features, and sketches with many fully-defined entities.
Saving can become extremely slow when there are STL files inserted into your part file. Has taken up to 10 minutes to save one part file. However, using the Save As option and giving the same part a new name will reduce save time by 10x. Seems to be some room for improvement here.
When using the loft command without guide curves, there are two orbs that can be moved to determine how the profile twists from one face of the loft to the other(s). However, you cannot constrain these points and they can change position in different configurations. These points should be able to be constrained.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Design company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience