SolidWorksvs
Inventor
Inventor: Autodesk's parametric CAD software competing on simulation, surfacing, and sheet metal design for mechanical engineering.
SolidWorks
Parametric desktop 3D CAD from Dassault Systemes, now sold as named-user subscription on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform
As of 1 September 2026, SolidWorks starts at $2820/year. The mechanical CAD package most machine shops, fixture designers and product engineers in the mid-market already know. Softwr lists it under Manufacturing. SolidWorks is made by Dassault Systèmes, launched in 1981, available on Windows.
Overview
What SolidWorks does
SOLIDWORKS is history-based parametric 3D CAD for mechanical design: parts, assemblies and 2D drawings, with dedicated tools for sheet metal, weldments, moulds and surfacing, plus drawing automation, design checks and a very large ecosystem of supplier part libraries and third-party add-ins. It runs natively on Windows only. The commercially important change is the delivery model. Dassault now sells SOLIDWORKS through its own online store as 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, a named-user subscription in which the desktop application is bundled with cloud data management and collaboration on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The store lists Standard at 2,820 USD per year, Professional at 3,456 USD per year and Premium at 4,716 USD per year, each per user excluding local tax, with quarterly terms at 846, 1,038 and 1,416 USD respectively. The browser-based cloud modeller SOLIDWORKS xDesign is listed at 2,580 USD per year or 810 USD per quarter. Perpetual licences have not been formally withdrawn, but they are not sold in the online store: they come from resellers, and a perpetual licence still needs a paid annual subscription service contract to receive version upgrades and support, so the long-run cost gap is narrower than the sticker prices suggest. There are two cheap doors in. 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers costs 48 USD per year or 15 USD per month, restricted to personal use with sales of no more than 2,000 USD a year and producing watermarked files usable only on Maker licences. A student edition exists through the education programme. Buyers are mechanical design teams in manufacturing, machine building and consumer products. The trade-off is lock-in: the file format, the add-in ecosystem and now the cloud platform all pull in the same direction.
What people use it for
- Product design
- Engineering analysis
- Manufacturing documentation
- Prototyping
- Quality control
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about SolidWorks.
- The desktop application is Windows only, so Mac and Linux users need a virtual machine, a Windows workstation or the separate cloud xDesign product at 2,580 USD a year.
- Perpetual licences are no longer sold through the vendor online store and come only through resellers, and a perpetual licence still needs a paid annual service contract to get upgrades and support, so buying once and paying nothing again is not really on offer.
- Named-user subscription is per person rather than floating, so an organisation where several engineers each use CAD occasionally pays full seats for part-time use unless it negotiates otherwise.
- History-based parametric modelling breaks noisily: a change high in the feature tree can cascade rebuild errors through an assembly, which is a real productivity cost compared with direct modelling tools.
- Large assemblies stress single-threaded desktop performance, and teams routinely resort to configurations, simplified representations and expensive workstations rather than the software scaling on its own.
- The Maker licence watermarks its files so they can only be opened on other Maker licences, which means hobby work cannot be carried into a commercial seat later without exporting to neutral formats and losing the feature history.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of SolidWorks
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- SolidWorksvsFusion 360
Fusion 360: Cloud-based CAD platform from Autodesk offering parametric modeling, simulation, and lower pricing than SolidWorks with subscription model.
- SolidWorksvsAutoCAD
AutoCAD: Autodesk's foundational CAD platform widely used for 2D drafting and 3D design across mechanical and other engineering disciplines.
Pricing
What SolidWorks costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Standard
$2,820 /yr
- 235 USD per month billed annually, or 846 USD per quarter
- Per named user, excluding local tax
- Part and assembly modelling and 2D drawings
- Sheet metal, weldment and mould tools
- Cloud file storage, versioning and mark-up
- Augmented and virtual reality viewing
3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Professional
$3,456 /yr
- 288 USD per month billed annually, or 1,038 USD per quarter
- Everything in Standard
- Intelligent CAD libraries of standard fasteners
- Photorealistic rendering and animation
- Automatic manufacturing cost analysis
- CAD standards and drawing checking
3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Premium
$4,716 /yr
- 393 USD per month billed annually, or 1,416 USD per quarter
- Everything in Professional
- Linear static analysis for parts and assemblies
- Time-based motion analysis
- Electrical harness, piping, tubing and duct routing
- Surface flattening
SOLIDWORKS xDesign
$2,580 /yr
- 810 USD per quarter
- Browser-based cloud modelling, no local install
- Runs on Mac, Chromebook and tablets as well as Windows
- Cloud storage and collaboration included
3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers
$48 /yr
- 15 USD per month as an alternative to the yearly price
- Personal and non-commercial use only
- Sales from your projects capped at 2,000 USD a year
- Files are watermarked and open only on Maker licences
- Desktop or cloud xDesign package, both include learning content
Capabilities
Features
3D solid modeling
Assembly design
Technical drawings
Simulation
Rendering
PDM systems
Integration with PDM systems
ERP systems
Integration with ERP systems
CAM software
Integration with CAM software
PLM platforms
Integration with PLM platforms
Enterprise security
Enterprise security security feature
Data vault
Data vault security feature
Access controls
Access controls security feature
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Can you still buy a SOLIDWORKS perpetual licence?
Not from the vendor online store, which sells only term subscriptions. Perpetual licences remain available through resellers, but they still require a paid annual subscription service contract for upgrades and support.
How much does SOLIDWORKS cost per year?
The 3DS store lists Standard at 2,820 USD, Professional at 3,456 USD and Premium at 4,716 USD per named user per year, excluding local tax. Quarterly terms are 846, 1,038 and 1,416 USD.
What is the difference between desktop SOLIDWORKS and the 3DEXPERIENCE cloud tiers?
The desktop application still does the modelling and installs locally on Windows. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform adds cloud storage, versioning, mark-up and shared review around it. SOLIDWORKS xDesign is the separate browser-native modeller at 2,580 USD a year, and it runs on Mac and Chromebook.
Is there a cheap version for hobbyists?
Yes. 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers is 48 USD a year or 15 USD a month, limited to personal use with project sales under 2,000 USD a year, and its files are watermarked for Maker licences only.
Does SOLIDWORKS run on a Mac?
Not natively. Use the browser-based xDesign, or run the desktop application in a Windows virtual machine.
Behind it
Who makes SolidWorks
- Company
- Dassault Systèmes
- Based in
- Vélizy-Villacoublay, France
Timeline
SolidWorks over time
Keep looking
Where to go from SolidWorks
- SolidWorks alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- SolidWorks pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- SolidWorks badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Manufacturing softwareThe full category
- Best Manufacturing softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Manufacturing software for
Compare SolidWorks with
- Fusion 360
- Fulcrum
- Tulip
- MachineMetrics
- Fictiv
- Aras Innovator
- AVEVA System Platform
- Materialise Magics
- Seeq
- Propel
- PTC Windchill
- Rockwell FactoryTalk
- Flow Software
- Formlabs PreForm
- GENESIS Version 11
- GrabCAD Print
- Guidewheel
- JobBOSS²
Other Manufacturing software
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Pricing on request12 researched notesPLM, quality and product information management built on the Salesforce platform
Pricing on request12 researched notesEnterprise PLM for regulated hardware, priced entirely by negotiation
Pricing on request12 researched notesRockwell Automation software portfolio for HMI, historian, analytics and industrial data
Pricing on request12 researched notesManufacturing KPI and OEE calculation engine with published list prices, licensed by measure count
From $11,390/one-time12 researched notesFree print preparation software that only drives Formlabs printers, because the money is in hardware and resin
Free plan11 researched notesIconics SCADA and visualisation under Mitsubishi Electric, now sold with unlimited tag licensing
Pricing on request12 researched notesStratasys print preparation, free in Standard form and 5,000 US dollars a year for Pro
Free, then $5,000/yr12 researched notesMachine monitoring from a clamp on the power cord, so equipment age and protocol stop mattering
Pricing on request12 researched notesECI shop control system formed by merging JobBOSS and E2 Shop System into one product line
Pricing on request12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for SolidWorks, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on SolidWorks
SolidWorks alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
SolidWorks pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare SolidWorks
Put it head to head with anything we hold
SolidWorks badge
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Best Manufacturing software alternatives
Vibration analysis, dynamic balancing and wireless monitoring sold from a public online store
One-time purchase
Manufacturing KPI and OEE calculation engine with published list prices, licensed by measure count
One-time purchase
Enterprise asset management suite licensed by a shared pool of AppPoints rather than by named user
Per year by AppPoint pool
Machine health monitoring sold as a per-machine annual service including sensors, installation and analyst diagnostics
quoteIconics SCADA and visualisation under Mitsubishi Electric, now sold with unlimited tag licensing
quoteSupervisory HMI and SCADA platform, formerly sold as Wonderware System Platform
quote
Distributed control system and process automation platform for continuous and hybrid process plants
quote