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I don't really think there is an "industry standard" for this kind of work and solid works is far from the majority.

by MiroF 6y ago

TylerE 6y ago
It's a couple of years out of date, but see this: SolidWorks has >2x the share of any other player. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-share-of-each-major-CAD-software-company https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-share-of-each-major... Back when I was doing CAD work professionaly it was by far the most encountered software. Others have footholds in some industrys (aerospace, automotive) but for "general" product design SW is king.
- chmod775 6y ago
  > SolidWorks has >2x the share of any other player. That's a disingenuous way to interpret that data. Just 23% market share is pretty far from being an industry standard.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    How is it disingenuous? 22.6 / 9.2 = 2.45
- Youden 6y ago
  That Quora post is a wrapper around CNCCookBook's 2015 survey [0], which is quite old. They've done followup surveys [1], the most recent of which was in 2018 [2]. The latest survey shows that Fusion360 is now the most popular package and grew quite rapidly since 2015. FWIW, Fusion360 is also the most popular CAM package [3]. [0]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/results-2015-cad-survey/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/results-2015-cad-survey/ [1]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-manufacturing-trends-surveys-market-research/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-manufacturing-trends-surveys... [2]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2018-cad-survey-results-customer-satisfaction-awards/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2018-cad-survey-resu... [3]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2020-cam-survey-whats-the-most-popular-cam/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2020-cam-survey-what...
robomartin 6y ago
You basic choices today tend to be Solidworks, Fusion360, Autodesk Inventor and in certain industries, Siemens NX. I have experience with all of these, as well as, in the old days, contorting AutoCAD to do 3D and 2D mechanical work. I am going to say I run most of them at expert level, perhaps more so in the case of Solidworks and NX. I would not touch NX unless there was no other choice and I was required to use it. This is the case with a bunch of aerospace and other industries where there might be legitimate cases for using NX. In the choice between Fusion360 and Solidworks, I would likely consider migrating to Fusion360 if they had a way to make it just as local as Solidworks. I haven't had to touch it in about two years, so I don't know if this transition took place at all. The fact that your data is cloud based doesn't sit well with many of the companies I tend to work with. In those cases Solidworks tends to become the go-to option. From my perspective, yes, Solidworks is a standard tool. It is very rare --again, in my world-- to have someone ask for anything other than Solidworks when I ask what format they would prefer. This includes the new breed of private players surrounding the NASA Artemis mission.
- TylerE 6y ago
  No, they doubled down on the whole Fusion cloud thing.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    Yeah, sadly it's a nonstarter for me for anything other than hobby projects. Even at that, since I own Solidworks there's very little incentive to use F360, even though I have it installed and really want to send them money (Solidworks and CAMWorks annual maintenance costs are ridiculous but I have no options).
  - justinclift 6y ago
    For reference, this is where I directly asked about F360 supporting local-only workflow: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-archived/please-support-quot-local-only-quot-files/idi-p/5805646 https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-archiv... Haven't really used it much since then, mostly because of their answer.

I don't really think there is an "industry standard" for this kind of work and solid works is far from the majority.

by MiroF 6y ago

I don't really think there is an "industry standard" for this kind of work and solid works is far from the majority.

It's a couple of years out of date, but see this: SolidWorks has >2x the share of any other player. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-share-of-each-major-CAD-software-company https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-market-share-of-each-major... Back when I was doing CAD work professionaly it was by far the most encountered software. Others have footholds in some industrys (aerospace, automotive) but for "general" product design SW is king.

chmod775 6y ago
> SolidWorks has >2x the share of any other player. That's a disingenuous way to interpret that data. Just 23% market share is pretty far from being an industry standard.
- TylerE 6y ago
  How is it disingenuous? 22.6 / 9.2 = 2.45
Youden 6y ago
That Quora post is a wrapper around CNCCookBook's 2015 survey [0], which is quite old. They've done followup surveys [1], the most recent of which was in 2018 [2]. The latest survey shows that Fusion360 is now the most popular package and grew quite rapidly since 2015. FWIW, Fusion360 is also the most popular CAM package [3]. [0]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/results-2015-cad-survey/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/results-2015-cad-survey/ [1]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-manufacturing-trends-surveys-market-research/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-manufacturing-trends-surveys... [2]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2018-cad-survey-results-customer-satisfaction-awards/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2018-cad-survey-resu... [3]: https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2020-cam-survey-whats-the-most-popular-cam/ https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnccookbook-2020-cam-survey-what...

robomartin 6y ago

You basic choices today tend to be Solidworks, Fusion360, Autodesk Inventor and in certain industries, Siemens NX. I have experience with all of these, as well as, in the old days, contorting AutoCAD to do 3D and 2D mechanical work. I am going to say I run most of them at expert level, perhaps more so in the case of Solidworks and NX. I would not touch NX unless there was no other choice and I was required to use it. This is the case with a bunch of aerospace and other industries where there might be legitimate cases for using NX. In the choice between Fusion360 and Solidworks, I would likely consider migrating to Fusion360 if they had a way to make it just as local as Solidworks. I haven't had to touch it in about two years, so I don't know if this transition took place at all. The fact that your data is cloud based doesn't sit well with many of the companies I tend to work with. In those cases Solidworks tends to become the go-to option. From my perspective, yes, Solidworks is a standard tool. It is very rare --again, in my world-- to have someone ask for anything other than Solidworks when I ask what format they would prefer. This includes the new breed of private players surrounding the NASA Artemis mission.

TylerE 6y ago
No, they doubled down on the whole Fusion cloud thing.
- robomartin 6y ago
  Yeah, sadly it's a nonstarter for me for anything other than hobby projects. Even at that, since I own Solidworks there's very little incentive to use F360, even though I have it installed and really want to send them money (Solidworks and CAMWorks annual maintenance costs are ridiculous but I have no options).
- justinclift 6y ago
  For reference, this is where I directly asked about F360 supporting local-only workflow: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-archived/please-support-quot-local-only-quot-files/idi-p/5805646 https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation-archiv... Haven't really used it much since then, mostly because of their answer.