Which is better? Solidwork/ Autodesk Inventor?

Which is better? Solidwork/ Autodesk Inventor?

8 Answers

Very much the same to my experience. The easy answer would be: The software YOU know the best. I like both :-)

Seeing as Inventor has copied SolidWorks to a large extent, I would imagine the experience would be similar. You'll find people on either side of the fence.

You should be more specific about what "better" means. Do you mean user-friendly, cost, support, large assemblies, surface modeling, add-ons availability, etc???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I have used them both for a few years (Solidworks at home and inventor at school) and i find Solidworks to be much more convenient.

if you are working with bigger assemblies and large files, Solidworks is the way to go since inventor doesn't use multi-threading. multi-threading is when a program divides all the processing load on to each core off your processor (i would say you have at least 4 cores on your workstation since you seem to use some sort of CAD software). so if you have 4 cores then inventor would only use 1 of the cores leaving 3 cores without work which makes inventor really laggy and for me crashes occur frequently( I use it on a Macbook air with Bootcamp). Solidworks use all of your cores up to 16 cores i think (above is really rare) which means it loads much faster and is much more stable. Autodesk is working on including multi-threading but so far only Inventor studio has it, so in maybe 3-5 years it will be available across all the features.

Now if you are rendering much and want some really neat images on your model, again Solidworks is the way to go, Inventor doesn't even come near the quality off the solidworks rendering enviroment and while inventor has "IBL-enviroments" (a 3D enviroment like a desert on which you can put your model)
you cant render in them which make them pretty much useless, Solidworks has a large variety of those enviroments in better resolution. inventor has like 5-7 while Solidworks has much more than 50 and you can download more.

now as far as the user interface goes, inventor looks better (more modern, clean and so on) but Solidworks is much smarter and they could be compared to Windows vs Mac, Mac looks better but Windows is much more functional and open and there is so many ways to do things while in Mac you are pretty much locked.

I could go on typing for hours about the things Solidworks is better at but i think you get the drift.

I used to use Inventor and recently switched to SolidWorks (change of company). At start I didn't like SolidWorks so much, however after some time I think I like it more. I find it has better surfacing tools and features.

However, they are both very similar, and both have advantages and disadvantages over one another.

sw for conceptual design

inventor for manufacturing detailing design

I using solidworks for fun, I comfortable with SW, can I earn by that? I mean by solidwork skills.

i use inventor

Yo manejo Inventor.

Ambos me parecen buenos, un consejo es si te quedas con Inventor o Solidwork dedícate siempre a un solo programa y estudia a fondo hay mucho camino que recorrer.
En el camino verás los resultados

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