There is a reason for it:
The manufacturing industry is really conservative when it comes to software. Solidworks has been the industry standard for a long time and that prompts adoption the same way Adobe products have been the standard for the visual creative industry.
Solidworks is whitout a doubt the most powerful suite of CAD tools available if money is of no concern. With licenses for the full suite totaling near $100k. They were also the first to seamlessly integrate injection moulding simulation simulation workflows for designing plastic parts.
All of this is hardly relevant for the hobbyist or maker comunities, but it does explain why so many people in the industry tend to touch Solidworks at some point in time.
I absolutely love Solidworks, but it is hardly the most powerful program if money is no concern. Not even close. It’s bigger brother, CATIA is far more powerful but costs way the fuck more and is a mess in terms of interface and usability.
And I have no idea where you got $100k out of, but that’s ridiculously off. There are a ton of modules to pick from and yearly licensing fees, but a base package starts at roughly $3k and goes up to around $15k.
CATIA is also developed by Dassault Systèmes, yes. But I have never seen it used outside of highly niche markets.
My original comment is based on my experience in mass-scale manufacturing and inudstrial design, which is a market absolutelty dominated by Solidworks.
For an individual user $100k might be much, but that is not a situation where Solidworks makes financial sense unless you run a really successful small business.
If you’re a design team working on anything made out of plastic for the consumer market, you’re probably going to want something like the following:
Concurrent licences of Solidworks, $4k to $8k each
Solidworks Simulation Premium, $11k
Solidworks Plastics Premium, $22k
Some form of PDM system, $2.5k
Maintenance subscription for all the above, ~15k yearly (or just be happy with a perpetual licence and no updates)
And most resellers are going to charge you implementation fees for setting things up properly, so unless you have a capable IT department you’re likely looking at well over $50k before taxes just to get up and running.
$100k is definitely not a huge stretch if you’re using Solidworks in a business environment.
Yeah, well we all make bad decisions once in a while.
Still doesn’t explain why no Solidworks community seeing as how it’s the most used CAD program.
If you look at the community its empty.
You could…just make a solid works community, there isn’t even a reason to be jerk about freecad you’re not obligated to use it.
I’d be curious to see numbers Vs Fusion360.
F360 is at under 7%. Of course the chart that I found is a few years old.
There is a reason for it: The manufacturing industry is really conservative when it comes to software. Solidworks has been the industry standard for a long time and that prompts adoption the same way Adobe products have been the standard for the visual creative industry.
Solidworks is whitout a doubt the most powerful suite of CAD tools available if money is of no concern. With licenses for the full suite totaling near $100k. They were also the first to seamlessly integrate injection moulding simulation simulation workflows for designing plastic parts.
All of this is hardly relevant for the hobbyist or maker comunities, but it does explain why so many people in the industry tend to touch Solidworks at some point in time.
Whole lots of wrong information there.
I absolutely love Solidworks, but it is hardly the most powerful program if money is no concern. Not even close. It’s bigger brother, CATIA is far more powerful but costs way the fuck more and is a mess in terms of interface and usability.
And I have no idea where you got $100k out of, but that’s ridiculously off. There are a ton of modules to pick from and yearly licensing fees, but a base package starts at roughly $3k and goes up to around $15k.
CATIA is also developed by Dassault Systèmes, yes. But I have never seen it used outside of highly niche markets.
My original comment is based on my experience in mass-scale manufacturing and inudstrial design, which is a market absolutelty dominated by Solidworks.
For an individual user $100k might be much, but that is not a situation where Solidworks makes financial sense unless you run a really successful small business.
If you’re a design team working on anything made out of plastic for the consumer market, you’re probably going to want something like the following:
$100k is definitely not a huge stretch if you’re using Solidworks in a business environment.
It is? I thought Fusion 360 was.