NX vs Creo vs SolidWorks, et al

[HerrTick]

SolidWorks, et al let you play.

Creo lets you play doctor.

NX lets you play god.

[martin]

More jokes and memes please, I need to influence my co-workers

[jcapriotti]

I think it depends on what work you do. I used NX for 3-4 years and couldn't wait to get back to SolidWorks. But it was mostly prismatic shapes at a medical company with some surfacing. There were some nice features but the basic stuff (sketching, mates) really stunk in NX, it was just missing a lot. That was a lot of years ago though and I'd love to see it today. I certainly trust Siemens at this point more so than D'@$$'ault.

[martin]

When I first learned the basics of NX and SolidWorks in university about 10 years ago, I preferred SolidWorks for its UI and sketching in particular, with NX 8 - 9 looking like some old-school Win 98 software. But after having used both on and off for some years, NX just feels like a technologically superior product even for simple tasks.

I use SolidWorks in my present job and have enjoyed using it in the past, but I have also worked as a Siemens VAR, so I may have become a bit biased. The designs I do with are not very advanced or anything that can't be done efficiently in SolidWorks, but I just appreciate the granular control NX provides for my design data and how certain functionality is implemented. For example:
- How part attributes/properties can be defined with proper data types (including body/face/edge attributes which don't even exist in SolidWorks as far as I know, they can be very useful for design automation)
- How NX expressions can be used for pretty much any parameter or input field (where SolidWorks' equations have been more limited, like not working for certain patterns)
- How site/user preferences are stored and managed
- How multiple NX versions and custom environments can be installed side-by-side on the same computer without too much hassle
- Better than most at importing neutral formats and effective tools for cleaning geometry (e.g. for purchased parts)
- The predictable performance

Even with the concerns about NX being built on top of an ancient codebase, it (finally) looks modern and seems to be thriving at the moment. Siemens has claimed to have the largest dev team, most patents filed etc. for years. Considering how they control a lot of what makes SolidWorks and others tick (Parasolid, D-Cubed DCM, simulation tools like FLOEFD) does seem to make them the obvious choice if money is no concern. I would love to see an illustration showing these master/muppet relations between CAD vendors and their technology dependencies.

[jcapriotti]

@martin They do have some in depth functions, probably due to their long history and large corporate customers. SolidWorks current equations are far better than they were, and I worked with their dev team giving feedback based on my experience with NX at the time.....I had pushed for Global Variables and feature suppression by equation.

Cost is really their weak point, unless that has changed, last I looked years ago, you had lots of basic modules to buy and could easily get up to 20k. SW and SE it was just simpler and cheaper to get started and has most of the functionality needed for small customers.

[zwei]

My view is most probably biased... but...

Creo by PTC is exactly as its name... P^roduct T^hat C^onfuse

" if you want to get that done you need to stick your elbow in your ear and place your knee behind your back and then do these mouse clicks etc etc" and hope it works; and it might not work this way if you are using windchill etc etc"

Having an issue or looking for a feature that is commonly available in other CAD?

image.png (19.57 KiB) Viewed 17864 times

[HerrTick]

My wife is sleeping with the guy who made that cartoon!

Creo is far and away the most painful user experience. No doubt.

But Creo also has excellent tools that aren't available anywhere else. They were once the best for variable section sweeps. They're the only one with "trajpar" parameter that allows sweep section dimensions to vary by equation in relation to path position. Creo is also the best at connecting engineering math to 3D design.

Creo is in a diner getting breakfast. He orders two eggs: one over-easy and one scrambled. The waitress delivers the food. Creo sends it back, complaining "You scrambled the wrong egg!".

[mike miller]

Creo is far and away the most painful user experience.

Now we know who to blame for this "experience" garbage. I always thought you were a malevolent force.

[john@layketool.com]

I use both Solidworks & NX to design gages & fixtures. I'd much rather have a root canal than try to design anything from scratch with NX. Can it be done, sure but plan on it taking twice as long if not longer than it does in Solidworks. Drafting in Solidworks is hands down the better of the two with much more "automatic" input on features and holes than NX does. Yes NX has hole callouts but only if that feature was created by a pattern rather than a bunch of holes at random created with the hole wizard. Hole tables in NX are practically useless. Linking part properties to notes may be possible but I've yet to figure out how that is done where Solidworks was maybe 10 minutes & could link notes to model properties in the drawing. And all of the useless unneeded mouse picks to do something in NX I'm surprised Seimens doesn't own Logitech. I wish NX would come out of the dark age and not have to be a rocket scientist to make it work efficiently like they are now. Only good thing that NX has in drafting that SW doesn't is I can reattach just about any dimension that becomes detached whether it is one side or both sides where Solidworks method is delete the detached dimension & redo it.
Modeling in NX & SW are pretty similar but trying to figure out where an error is in NX compared to SW takes longer. Also hate the disappearing dialogs in NX that cause additional mouse picks to open it back up again rather than being able to either pin or allow them up till you close them.

[Jim Elias]

Opto-mechanical designer here. I have NX and SW licenses

NX just feels like a technologically superior product even for simple tasks.

That's because it is. The notion that NX really only offers added value for industrial-designer "digital sculptors" is nonsense. I don't have those fancy-pants shape-magician licenses, I am 99% stuff you can turn and mill and 98% of that is doable without free-form machining. BUT you need to invest the time to learn how to use NX fully. Not just learning enough to struggle through next week's modeling-and-print job, but really in-depth. And I will be the first one to say that depending on the racket you're in, it might not be worth it from a workload and/or financial POV, because the learning curve is not trivial. SW/SE/IV are fine for lots of things and the added "superiority" of NX might be irrelevant based on the task at hand.

Even with the concerns about NX being built on top of an ancient codebase,

It bends my member every time I read about the "ancient NX codebase." I think this is a red herring. I used to have one of those mobile workstations that compressed my spine and made me put the massive power brick in my checked luggage in order to stay within the airline carry-on weight allowance. NX ran way faster than SW by every measure, as was predictable. Now I have a lightweight "convertible" notebook that runs off a phone charger or even a USB battery for a few hours if needed. NX runs absolutely the same on this new laptop, and if anything, the new releases are often a bit faster -- never slower (!). SW is noticeably sluggish(er), but since I don't use SW all that much, I can live with this as the price for avoiding a slipped disc as I get older. So I would venture that SW is actually the one stacking bloat on an old codebase... whereas the NX interface may superficially not look as race-car as one might expect, but the code is actually being optimized properly.

What is indisputably difficult about NX is the cost. I don't question why NX costs more... one only needs to make a comparison count of crashes to arrive at the conclusion that the software engineering behind NX is very high-caliber and those people earn their pay. But there are capabilities which other systems have included in their basic packages (wall thickness analysis, grouping components, etc.) that are only available in NX with costly additional licenses.

[Ryan-3DS]

Gang-
Ryan here- just to get this out of the way- I work for Dassault Systems. Don't hold that against me. But I have good reasons for doing so. Anyway, this really isn't a good question because you are attempting to compare apples to crab apples. Both are technically apples but they really can't compare taste-wise!

Here's why I say this. NX is a high-end market CAx suite of tools. Creo..we'll go with independent industry analysts' definitions..is a high-end CAD tool. CATIA is a high-end CAx suite of tools.

SOLIDWORKS is a mid-market CAx portfolio of tools. Solid Edge is a mid-market Cax portfolio of tools.

Attempting to compare across the markets gets complicated. We can't just look at the cost of one tool alone. It even gets harder because of the CapEX vs OpEX for licensing these days. And that is only one factor to look at!

My opinion, you need to look at the total cost of ownership of these tools combined with the overall benefits of the systems to the company. It's tough to do..I should know! We don't JUST do CAD anymore. We don't design and manufacture in a bubble. The 3D model is used by many, many more areas of the business. Therefore the value is spread across the organization and that needs to be accounted for.

Willing to listen!

Ryan
Dassault Systmems employee

[SPerman]

Here is where I have a problem.

My problem with Sw isn't that it is a midrange set of tools. It is the attitude that new features are more important than software that doesn't crash regularly. Mid range features shouldn't mean mid range reliability.

Based on others' comments, SE is a midrange set of features, but Siemens still places high priority on the software being robust.

Oh, this was wide open...how about this. That release is called Solid Edge! ;-) Is SE bullet proof? Heck no. But do they address the issues in a timely and respectful manner? Absolutely.

[Frank_Oostendorp]

@Ryan-3DS
"Willing to listen!"
Well, there is a TTL, with hundreds of valuable entries, that is neglected, imho. Only 10 out of these ideas are taken to the next level. The number of users reading and voting is unbelievable. Dassault could start promoting the TTL in a serious way.
The old/existing ER, SR and SPR database is a bit clumsy, and has a huge amount of double entries, caused by malfunctioning classification and indexing. The new SWYM 3DExperience ER, SR and SPR registration shows even worse indexing.
The habit of Dassault to introduce new bugs, re-introduce bugs, create half baked new features etc. in combination with reduced testing of the software, introduces problems for the users, who assume a tool of 7K purchase and 1,8K a year subscription is a serious tool. I think many users get the feeling the tool is not for professional use, many users feel disregarded by the Dassault approach of changing running agreements.
So it might be hard, but it could be better to invest a bit more, to get a serious professional tool, you can rely on, for many years.

[bnemec]

Gang-
Ryan here- just to get this out of the way- I work for Dassault Systems. Don't hold that against me. But I have good reasons for doing so. Anyway, this really isn't a good question because you are attempting to compare apples to crab apples. Both are technically apples but they really can't compare taste-wise!

Here's why I say this. NX is a high-end market CAx suite of tools. Creo..we'll go with independent industry analysts' definitions..is a high-end CAD tool. CATIA is a high-end CAx suite of tools.

SOLIDWORKS is a mid-market CAx portfolio of tools. Solid Edge is a mid-market Cax portfolio of tools.

Attempting to compare across the markets gets complicated. We can't just look at the cost of one tool alone. It even gets harder because of the CapEX vs OpEX for licensing these days. And that is only one factor to look at!

My opinion, you need to look at the total cost of ownership of these tools combined with the overall benefits of the systems to the company. It's tough to do..I should know! We don't JUST do CAD anymore. We don't design and manufacture in a bubble. The 3D model is used by many, many more areas of the business. Therefore the value is spread across the organization and that needs to be accounted for.

Willing to listen!

Ryan
Dassault Systmems employee

It's a fair question as many have asked and need help decoding the propaganda that's out there. As you mentioned, all things considered, not just what they can do from a modeling standpoint, then it's a fair comparison. I look at it from that macro level. Maybe a crappy metaphor but take motor vehicles: "What's better? Subaru Outback, Honda Civic, Tesla, Toyota Tundra, Ford F350, Dodge Ram, Chevy Suburban, Willys Jeep, 351 Pete or a Freightliner Cascadia?" That's kinda like trying to compare all the CAD systems on the market. Now people don't ask that about vehicles because it's kinda obvious you're not going to pull a '53 van with a Civic and probably not going to take the Willys to work every day. Price points vary as much as intended usage.

I'm curious about that "good reason".

[Ryan-3DS]

Hey Ben,
The technology that is the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is truly different than any offering in the market today. 3DS is not a CAD or PLM company, they are a science-based software company. There is soo much to offer on the Platform. Everything from Big Data Analytics to, yes CAD, PDM and PLM to supply chain management. Heck combine the offerings for data analytics and supply chain management and you have a new business application. It is a "true" platform. I am defining that as a tool that has a lot of base tools that are used to perform many different functions or used as lego blocks to build business processes. It's so much fun here! Every day is something new.

[Ryan-3DS]

Here is where I have a problem.

My problem with Sw isn't that it is a midrange set of tools. It is the attitude that new features are more important than software that doesn't crash regularly. Mid range features shouldn't mean mid range reliability.

Based on others' comments, SE is a midrange set of features, but Siemens still places high priority on the software being robust.

I can't argue Siemens' points at all. I'm more focused on the CATIA and platform (business and collaboration side) than on SW at the moment.

[Ryan-3DS]

@Ryan-3DS
... many users feel disregarded by the Dassault approach of changing running agreements.

You will find the whole industry has or is moving to subscriptions. Autodesk, PTC, Siemens, 3DS..

[SPerman]

Hey Ben,
The technology that is the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is truly different than any offering in the market today. 3DS is not a CAD or PLM company, they are a science-based software company. There is soo much to offer on the Platform. Everything from Big Data Analytics to, yes CAD, PDM and PLM to supply chain management. Heck combine the offerings for data analytics and supply chain management and you have a new business application. It is a "true" platform. I am defining that as a tool that has a lot of base tools that are used to perform many different functions or used as lego blocks to build business processes. It's so much fun here! Every day is something new.

Somebody drank the Kool Aid.

[jcapriotti]

You will find the whole industry has or is moving to subscriptions. Autodesk, PTC, Siemens, 3DS..

For SaaS it makes sense.....for desktop software, it's a cash grab, customer lock-in strategy from companies that have mature products and markets and can't figure out how to sell more software. Imagine if all cars could only be bought on lease. I'd prefer if software companies wouldn't go the way of sleazy car salesmen but I guess sales is sales.

[Glenn Schroeder]

@Ryan-3DS
"Willing to listen!"
Well, there is a TTL, with hundreds of valuable entries, that is neglected, imho. Only 10 out of these ideas are taken to the next level. The number of users reading and voting is unbelievable. Dassault could start promoting the TTL in a serious way.

As you know if you're familiar with my posts, I haven't drank any Dassault Kool-aid, but that statement isn't correct, or I misunderstand what you're saying. There have been a number of my idea submissions that didn't get a lot of traction but were still implemented. The enhancement this year that allows us to set a display style for Detail Views in the drawing template is just the most recent.

[Frank_Oostendorp]

As you know if you're familiar with my posts, I haven't drank any Dassault Kool-aid, but that statement isn't correct, or I misunderstand what you're saying. There have been a number of my idea submissions that didn't get a lot of traction but were still implemented. The enhancement this year that allows us to set a display style for Detail Views in the drawing template is just the most recent.

Yes, some ideas far from the top ten are used by Dassault to correct or improve the software. But if you take the time, and search in the existing ER/SR/SPR database, you will find entries of many years ago that are equal to some of the new top ten items. For me, I have been pushing correct implementation of ISO standards for over 15 years. One of them is now partial, half correct, implemented in SolidWorks 2023. I also have put these issues in the top ten list, a couple of times, without getting a lot of traction as wel. So hard to tell what entry has resulted in the implementation. Just have to be patient, I guess.

[KennyG]

For SaaS it makes sense.....for desktop software, it's a cash grab, customer lock-in strategy from companies that have mature products and markets and can't figure out how to sell more software. Imagine if all cars could only be bought on lease. I'd prefer if software companies wouldn't go the way of sleazy car salesmen but I guess sales is sales.

Jason, I'm not liking this direction either, but if I buy and keep business critical software on maintenance which is what I do, then it really is no different than subscription for me. It's when an app goes EOL and we are transitioning to a new one that gets tricky as we would still need to pay for the legacy app during transition and forget keeping it to work with old stuff.

On the other hand, we keep excess perpetual licenses because they were purchased, and we don't want to lose them as we may need them in the next year or two. If we were on subscription and didn't need say 5 licenses, those would be dropped until we needed them back. Just did that with some Autodesk seats.

So, I guess there are pluses and minuses, but at the end of the day, it's set up so the house always wins!

[jcapriotti]

Jason, I'm not liking this direction either, but if I buy and keep business critical software on maintenance which is what I do, then it really is no different than subscription for me. It's when an app goes EOL and we are transitioning to a new one that gets tricky as we would still need to pay for the legacy app during transition and forget keeping it to work with old stuff.

On the other hand, we keep excess perpetual licenses because they were purchased, and we don't want to lose them as we may need them in the next year or two. If we were on subscription and didn't need say 5 licenses, those would be dropped until we needed them back. Just did that with some Autodesk seats.

So, I guess there are pluses and minuses, but at the end of the day, it's set up so the house always wins!

That's the case here. As we transition some Inventor users to SolidWorks. We had floating IV licenses that we had to upgrade to a more current version thus losing the older perpetual floating license and now we have named user licenses. These cost us more since now every user that may need the software must have a license. Really stinks for the casual user. I'm hoping SolidWorks doesn't go through route as we have 150 users installed but only 50 licenses.

[bnemec]

Hey Ben,
The technology that is the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is truly different than any offering in the market today. 3DS is not a CAD or PLM company, they are a science-based software company. There is soo much to offer on the Platform. Everything from Big Data Analytics to, yes CAD, PDM and PLM to supply chain management. Heck combine the offerings for data analytics and supply chain management and you have a new business application. It is a "true" platform. I am defining that as a tool that has a lot of base tools that are used to perform many different functions or used as lego blocks to build business processes. It's so much fun here! Every day is something new.

This is a new twist on "putting all of your eggs in one basket". In this case it's someone else's basket. Someone I would hire to manage the baskets and I still need to get my eggs in their baskets unless I also lease their chickens. Once my eggs are in their baskets, I need to lease their sorting and inspecting equipment as the eggs are no longer compatible with any other system. The owner of the baskets claims how much this will save me and how secure and robust their baskets are. But the egg basketing business is larger than my laying operation by an order of magnitude or three, so if they happen to have a SNAFU and drop the baskets containing my eggs or the system that inspects the eggs gives inaccurate results, I don't have a leg to stand on and there's no hope of restitution. I'm just left with the egg basketing service bill and all my eggs are still in someone else's basket that I paid for.

No thanks.

[Jim Elias]

"When I was a small boy at school a lecturer used to come once a term and deliver excellent lectures on famous battles of the past, such as Blenheim, Austerlitz, etc. He was fond of quoting Napoleon’s maxim ‘An army marches on its stomach’, and at the end of his lecture he would suddenly turn to us and demand, ‘What’s the most important thing in the world?’ We were expected to shout ‘Food!’ and if we did not do so he was disappointed.

Obviously he was right in a way. A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into; the other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of time they come afterwards."

-- George Orwell

CAD is what keeps my bank account in the black, and by analogy, is what I care about first and foremost. All that after-the-CAD stuff, as fine as it all is and as necessary as it shows itself to be in later stages, doesn't pay off for me and the occupied-to-empty-space ratio in my refrigerator anywhere near as much as better, faster, more stable CAD does. (Now "better" is open to interpretation but "faster" and "more stable" aren't.)

I would advance that especially for the "mid-market" user, it is all about "in point of time."

[Ry-guy]

This is a new twist on "putting all of your eggs in one basket".

No thanks.

Boy, oh boy..you better have a talk with Microsoft, Adobe, SAP to some extent, Salesforce, etc. They are all based on the same business platform strategy!

[SPerman]

The difference between DSS and the companies you listed (that I am familiar with) is they have no real competition. They can force their business strategy on the user because there is no alternative. That is not true in the CAD workspace.

I guess time will tell. If Siemens loses all of their customers to "The Platform" then DSS got it right.

[bnemec]

Boy, oh boy..you better have a talk with Microsoft, Adobe, SAP to some extent, Salesforce, etc. They are all based on the same business platform strategy!

I don't know that they're all >based< on the same strategy; they started out filling a demand of some software tool, but they are all moving to data domination. Also, you missed Google (in competition with MS in some ways). To use any of their "Platforms" the user must put their data on the respective Platform. They're all doing the same thing; they're all trying to get all the users' data on their servers so it's not on the competition's servers. Logical only way to get ALL of it is try to do EVERYTHING. When will 3DX add an office suite? SAP has competition in their field too, I think.

[john@layketool.com]

The one issue I have with the subscription online based software is the constant need they seem to have in doing updates. It always seems like when they send out an update to the program, there is no way to drop back should that update break something that worked before. Some places have to test an update for several weeks to months before they can accept the newer version and with not having that option and forcing the updates out to everyone can be an issue. Plus there needs to be a way to save any files you've created locally without having to worry about a cloud storage failing or internet going down & not being able to access those files.

[DavidWS]

Some of my information is outdated, as I haven't used NX now for over 4 years, but my experience was this:

I used both NX (12-~2020) CAM and SolidWorks (2013 at the time, now using 2023) at work… I do 95% of my modelling in SolidWorks just because it’s much faster and more intuitive, and (at the time I was using NX) it was 6 versions old!

SolidWorks has been designed from the ground up as a Windows based system, so it complies with all windows UI standards like copy and paste, drag and drop, and the other tasks that we take for granted in Windows software.

Siemens NX, on the other hand, was born in the days when Windows was still in its infancy and standard desktop computers were not powerful enough to handle this complex and feature-rich software.

Because of this, NX, albeit feature rich and in some/many ways more capable than SolidWorks, is a drag to use because of the outdated and seemingly cobbled together interface.

Most key NX features don’t follow standard windows conventions (although with NX 12 they seem to be trying), and simple things we take for granted in SolidWorks are quite frankly a real PITA in NX…

Just a few examples:
Operations in NX CAM (and other areas as well) are not allowed to have spaces in them, or over 32 characters.
Copy and paste, and even delete need to be selected with RMB instead of CTRL-C/CTRL-V like we’re used to in Windows
Geometric constraints, and the sketcher environment is not even remotely as fluid or intuitive as in SolidWorks
Many features in NX seem to be written using different UI standards/conventions, and can be quite awkward when trying to complete simple tasks (but it seems Siemens is working on trying to make it better)

On the other hand, and also very importantly, NX can handle extremely large, complex, and complete models, such as automobiles, trains, planes, and ships, with hundreds or even thousands of engineers working concurrently on the product… It can produce and modify Class A automotive surfaces beautifully down to the last knot. In this aspect, I would say NX is in line with the big 3 CAD systems such as Pro-E and Catia

In the end, both tools are extremely capable, but also suited to different uses…

[SPerman]

To me, the comparison comes down to this:

Solidworks crashes on me daily, doing very simple things. NX almost never crashed on me.

[Jim Elias]

To me, the comparison comes down to this:

Solidworks crashes on me daily, doing very simple things. NX almost never crashed on me.

Yep to that. And I don't agree with some 95% of the criticisms levelled at NX by SW-centric users. Most of the time, they aren't using efficient NX practice because coming from SW, you really do need to re-train your head around the workflow that NX can allow you, and develop a feel for e.g. when editing a sketch without rollback (which you can't even do in SW) will serve better than editing it with rollback. This isn't a "sketcher un-intuitiveness", but rather an added choice. Work with it often enough and which way to go, becomes second nature... and not having this choice (i.e. when you do your next SW job) becomes the PITA.

I'll also just remark again that the "obsolete user interface" thing really doesn't hold water. There's some reason why NX runs much quicker on even cheapo generic home-and-office hardware, than SW runs on the latest super-duper-nuclear-Quadro-bank-breaker, and I'm sure that efficient coding has a lot to do with it.

[KennyG]

Yep to that. And I don't agree with some 95% of the criticisms levelled at NX by SW-centric users. Most of the time, they aren't using efficient NX practice because coming from SW, you really do need to re-train your head around the workflow that NX can allow you, and develop a feel for e.g. when editing a sketch without rollback (which you can't even do in SW) will serve better than editing it with rollback. This isn't a "sketcher un-intuitiveness", but rather an added choice. Work with it often enough and which way to go, becomes second nature... and not having this choice (i.e. when you do your next SW job) becomes the PITA.

I'll also just remark again that the "obsolete user interface" thing really doesn't hold water. There's some reason why NX runs much quicker on even cheapo generic home-and-office hardware, than SW runs on the latest super-duper-nuclear-Quadro-bank-breaker, and I'm sure that efficient coding has a lot to do with it.

And I believe NX is in the process of a UI makeover to modernize, make it consistent, and align with the other Siemens products (guessing they didn't 100% complete it in 2306).

[Glenn Schroeder]

SW is the only one I've used, but I've been using it since 2009. As most of you know I'm not shy about pointing out problems with it, but I go weeks without a crash. I'm not trying to minimize someone else's experience, but I can't help but wonder why some people have frequent crashes and I rarely have them (though they can be pretty spectacular when they do happen; see viewtopic.php?p=29895#p29895). PDM might be one possibility, since I don't use it.

[JSculley]

SW is the only one I've used, but I've been using it since 2009. As most of you know I'm not shy about pointing out problems with it, but I go weeks without a crash. I'm not trying to minimize someone else's experience, but I can't help but wonder why some people have frequent crashes and I rarely have them (though they can be pretty spectacular when they do happen; see viewtopic.php?p=29895#p29895). PDM might be one possibility, since I don't use it.

The type of work being done has a lot to do with frequency of crashes. How large are your assemblies? How complicated are your models? If you aren't doing anything mildly complex, SOLIDWORKS will typically behave.

[Glenn Schroeder]

The type of work being done has a lot to do with frequency of crashes. How large are your assemblies? How complicated are your models? If you aren't doing anything mildly complex, SOLIDWORKS will typically behave.

That also probably has a lot to do with it. My Parts aren't typically very complex. Assemblies run around 7,000 KB, and Drawings around 10,000.

[Jim Elias]

A typical SW day for me is 3 crashes. I've never had the feeling that I was doing anything particularly complex CAD-wise when they happened.

But the crashes aren't really the deal-breaker for me. The main thing that makes SW never my first choice is the lack of speed. SW is simply slow. I am not an Inventor or SE user, maybe they aren't any better -- would be interesting if someone would give them a comparison.

[SPerman]

Some of my crashes have occurred when working on an assembly with the parts being driven by a master model. I'm assuming those relationships, although only from part to master part, are enough to cause SW to crash.

Other times there is no reasonable explanation. Saving a drawing, or some other seemingly innocuous action and SW disappears.

Then there's the times "Solidworks is busy" so I waste 30 minutes hoping it will come back, only to have to kill the process and start over.

I am using PDM, so that adds a level of complexity. I also from time to time, when working in an assembly, will do a "Save as copy and open" to create a new part similar to the one I am saving. That has a higher probability of crashing, but it might be 10 minutes later when I go to save the assembly.

[Jim Elias]

Oh and don't get me started on how generally left-behind-in-the-dust SW drafting is. Every so often I see a post saying something like "you can't beat SW drafting" and I am at a loss to understand why anyone would think so.

[Jim Elias]

And I believe NX is in the process of a UI makeover to modernize, make it consistent, and align with the other Siemens products (guessing they didn't 100% complete it in 2306).

yes, 2306 has some new icon arrangements, but it's still pretty far from a makeover.

In any case, I don't think the UI needs a makeover. If they want to unify the UI appearance across their products, great, but the NX UI isn't not modern.

[Glenn Schroeder]

. . . But the crashes aren't really the deal-breaker for me. The main thing that makes SW never my first choice is the lack of speed. SW is simply slow. I am not an Inventor or SE user, maybe they aren't any better -- would be interesting if someone would give them a comparison.

Again, I'm not defending the software, but I rarely have to wait on it when I'm working, and all my files are on a network drive. Is it possible that you're working on a network drive with a poor connection, or your computer could use more horsepower? And please understand that I'm trying to help, not automatically blaming the user.

[bnemec]

A typical SW day for me is 3 crashes. I've never had the feeling that I was doing anything particularly complex CAD-wise when they happened.

But the crashes aren't really the deal-breaker for me. The main thing that makes SW never my first choice is the lack of speed. SW is simply slow. I am not an Inventor or SE user, maybe they aren't any better -- would be interesting if someone would give them a comparison.

Coming from using Solid Edge for a few years:
- modeling (sldprt): I don't know that I notice a difference for most of our stuff. My complaints are still mostly around unlearning the SE UI. Configurations might be better than part families in SE, depending on usage.
- assemblies: SW is slower for what we model. We have looked into the speed pack and other things, but there's overhead involved that we believe is not worth the increase. What we need to do is create simplified versions of some injection molded type parts or perhaps make use of freeze bar. Still evaluating options as time permits. Virtual Components is a neat thing that SE doesn't have, it allows adding material at assembly without extra files to manage.
- drawings: IMO SW's implementation of 2D drawings from 3D models is ridiculous compared to Solid Edge. Not to start an endless argument just stating our observation of ~20 users switching from SE to SW. Several new employees had years of SW experience and only a couple years in Solid Edge. I feel that some of the unfavorable performance/behavior of SW drafting environment is because they chose to have the GUI selecting actual 3D elements in the drawing views where Solid Edge the user is selecting the 2D elements that have been projected from the 3D model. In Edge selecting a line does not give me a feature name, I'm selecting a line or an arc. Many tasks are simpler and cleaner in SE drafting than SW. I will say that exploded views are better in SW though. Can't have everything.

[SPerman]

What we need to do is create simplified versions of some injection molded type parts or perhaps make use of freeze bar.

Solidworks gets very unhappy when the freeze bar isn't at the end of the tree. It will cause you endless headaches. (I can't remember the specific circumstances.) I would recommend creating a configuration with those features suppressed.

[mattpeneguy]

Solidworks gets very unhappy when the freeze bar isn't at the end of the tree. It will cause you endless headaches. (I can't remember the specific circumstances.) I would recommend creating a configuration with those features suppressed.

Why do we have to spend so much of our day trying to keep SW happy? I'm sure there's a wife joke there, but I'm not going there.

[bnemec]

Solidworks gets very unhappy when the freeze bar isn't at the end of the tree. It will cause you endless headaches. (I can't remember the specific circumstances.) I would recommend creating a configuration with those features suppressed.

We're both talking about the Orange/Yellow bar right? You mean endless headaches if it isn't at the top of the tree?

[SPerman]

Sorry. I was referring to the roll back bar. My mistake.

[Jim Elias]

Again, I'm not defending the software, but I rarely have to wait on it when I'm working, and all my files are on a network drive. Is it possible that you're working on a network drive with a poor connection, or your computer could use more horsepower? And please understand that I'm trying to help, not automatically blaming the user.

Horsepower is the crux. SW clearly needs way more horsepower than NX for no extra (or less) buck-bang, despite NX being the "high-end" package.

I've been working with SW since SW97. I did my first NX gig in the mid-2000s, and was handed a Dell Latitude laptop from a stack that also served the sales pool. Coming from the SW world, I thought -- typical CAD-ignorant IT department. Which they might have been, but the truth was that they really had all the knowledge they needed -- all the engineers in that company were getting the same laptops, and there was never any reason to complain because NX ran on them fine, indeed faster than SW ran on my own "mobile" workstation (yes, that sucker was HEAVY). Anyhoo, that experience kicked off my suspicions that all was not well in SW-land, and that the constant SW-focus on having appropriate hardware was all smokescreen for other more basic issues. In the years following, I have always observed the same thing with each new computer I've gotten -- NX way faster than SW.

So if the "outdated UI" of NX is a contributing factor in this, then I would advise SW -- go retro.

I continue to pay my SW maintenance, as there continues to be the occasional client who demands SW-native deliverables in the latest release (and is willing to pay the extra hours), but dropping it is a repeated temptation.

[Jim Elias]

Coming from using Solid Edge for a few years:
- modeling (sldprt): I don't know that I notice a difference for most of our stuff. My complaints are still mostly around unlearning the SE UI. Configurations might be better than part families in SE, depending on usage.
- assemblies: SW is slower for what we model. We have looked into the speed pack and other things, but there's overhead involved that we believe is not worth the increase. What we need to do is create simplified versions of some injection molded type parts or perhaps make use of freeze bar. Still evaluating options as time permits. Virtual Components is a neat thing that SE doesn't have, it allows adding material at assembly without extra files to manage.
- drawings: IMO SW's implementation of 2D drawings from 3D models is ridiculous compared to Solid Edge. Not to start an endless argument just stating our observation of ~20 users switching from SE to SW. Several new employees had years of SW experience and only a couple years in Solid Edge. I feel that some of the unfavorable performance/behavior of SW drafting environment is because they chose to have the GUI selecting actual 3D elements in the drawing views where Solid Edge the user is selecting the 2D elements that have been projected from the 3D model. In Edge selecting a line does not give me a feature name, I'm selecting a line or an arc. Many tasks are simpler and cleaner in SE drafting than SW. I will say that exploded views are better in SW though. Can't have everything.

Yes, I miss configurations and virtual components on occasion. And then I stop missing them as soon as I'm working in SW and something around switching configurations causes SW to crash. Configurations also have their limitations regarding "smartness", I have had issues where references inexplicably go dangling, etc. I guess that in the process of re-calculating from one configuration to another, object IDs are getting newly generated even when the object itself isn't changing its type or topology.

NX also uses quasi-2D terminology when doing picks or hovers in drafting. Never really thought about this before.

[mp3-250]

I learn 3D modelling with unigraphics v17 casted and molded parts.
Left my job with NX8 and moldwizard to land in japan and went straight to SW 2014 SP5. then I tried out of despair 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 with SW simulation professional.

A disaster.

all the hype evaporated in a few days.
random crashes, most of them on trivial things and the UI (had at least two commands that didn't work at all triggering a crash SPR certified).
SW has sme nice gimmick, but it is SLOW and get even slower the more you proceed with the design.
At some point I had a 1000+ feature Injected part that was unworkable: I exported and re Imported the parasolid data to finish the design, cutting and adding portions as there were no more parameters.
NX direct modelling and associative non-associative commands would do wonders in that situation.
And wave geometry linker!
Surface commands in SW are completely illogical compared to NX.

2d drawings were so slow at sme point I just stopped drawing them and trying to convince my boss to let me use the 3d model with a laptop at the production line.

Simulation had a lot of other issues, like that tIme I lost some Gb of thermal simulation data because the model lost the link with the simulation cwr file when I switched a configuration. (critical bug, handed the data and SW engineers were unable to recover them)

fast forward today I was thrown at a SW cad admin position with PDM.
another can of worm I have extensively commented here.
I put it in simple terms: how can I trust a software that shows randomly a WRONG configuration dialog in the admin panel? I should add that since I do not trust SW I double checked the dialog, but SW outsmarted me requiring a triple check to reset the erroneous dialog back to the correct form...accidents like this let you wonder many many things about the quality of the software.

Since SW licenses parasolid and the sketcher from siemens they probably cannot use them at the lowest level and rely on some slower interface, but nevertheless SW has not to invest time to develop and mantain the cad kernel so we should expect some effort in software QA and test instead...

[Glenn Schroeder]

. . . I did my first NX gig in the mid-2000s, and was handed a Dell Latitude laptop from a stack that also served the sales pool. Coming from the SW world, I thought -- typical CAD-ignorant IT department.

I feel your pain. The first time I reached out to your IT department to spec me a new computer (I do my own now and just tell them what to order, but back then I didn't know any better) I specifically told them what I needed it for, foolishly thinking they'd research what I needed.

They sent me the specs for a generic laptop that they'd order for someone who just needed it to get on the web, and maybe use Windows Office.