TrustRadius Insights for Solid Edge are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Rendering Feature Efficiency: Users have consistently praised the quick and efficient rendering feature in Solid Edge, noting its significant impact on enhancing the visual representation of designs. This capability has streamlined their design process and allowed for more realistic presentations of their projects.
Compatibility with Peripherals: Customers have expressed high value for Solid Edge's compatibility with multiple peripherals, emphasizing its convenience across various setups and configurations. The seamless integration with different devices has enabled users to work efficiently without facing any technical constraints.
Ease of Tool Utilization: Reviewers have found the tools in Solid Edge to be remarkably easy to use, which has greatly contributed to a seamless design experience for them. The intuitive nature of the software's tools has empowered users to navigate through complex design tasks effortlessly and achieve desired outcomes effectively.
We use Solid Edge to create new designs and customize existing designs. We work with remote teams that can work on same projects remotely. Solid Edge licence management can be improved to support stand alone computers and multiple users. Like many other start ups we work remotely and don't use internet network to run a licence server. For that we need for each computer a standalone licence to run the software.
Pros
Team share center
mechanical design
rendering
FEM analysis
Cons
Licence management
Not having MAC compatibility
Likelihood to Recommend
Suited for a design needs and remote working conditions. Not suited for small startups without servers
So we were given a challenge in a student-run BEST/EBEC challenge. It was Siemens' sponsored challenge. First, I used Solid Edge to win the local round held at Erlangen, and then we got the chance to participate in the regional round held at TU Delft, Netherlands. We used Solid Edge software to design the task requirements given to us at the time of the challenge.
Pros
Generative Design tool box
Other CAD Designs compatibility
User-friendly
Cons
Some times it crashes very easily
Likelihood to Recommend
It's best suited in areas where you need to design something in a light environment.
We use Solid Edge to create parts and assemblies of our logistics solutions. Our main issue is the performance of large assemblies in combination with our PDM solution. Simplified parts do not help because then the parts are even slower to download and take longer to open.
Pros
It's easy and intuitive to use.
You can customize a lot to your needs.
Cons
It's hard or sometimes impossible to undo certain operations.
Documents get "dirty" even if you just change the view.
Likelihood to Recommend
For simple steel construction, it is great. When you want to do other stuff like electrical wiring, factory planning, etc. it's not great, and the solution you can buy does not fit our needs so we need to develop our own.
I train people in Solid Edge as the basis of my business. I also use Edge to do occasional design work for my customers, as well as use it to support users remotely.
Pros
Allows designers to work as they choose and not have to acclimate their work for the product's requirements. This results in productive use of Edge, thus an ROI for the company.
Manage large (high count of components) assemblies very well. Users spend little to no time trying to overcome speed issue with respect to assemblies.
Synchronous Design! This highly productive design process is unique to Edge and very addictive
Cons
School/university exposure and saturation is low, students getting hired out of school are unaware of Edge.
Market perception: competitors win the popularity contest in the CAD world. Yet, Edge is by far the functional king of the industry.
Likelihood to Recommend
Sheet metal is way efficient easy to use. The advanced plastic design is strong but relatively unknown. The built-in data management is a great solution for all companies.
I am using Solid Edge to open and work with AutoCAD (.dwg) files from clients, which I review and modify as needed. I use the 2D version of SolidEdge along with other CAD software to accomplish this work.
Pros
Solid Edge handles DWG files well. It doesn't seem to have as much trouble as some other CAD programs opening and translating DWG files.
Solid Edge runs smoothly, and I suspect this has to do with the quality of the software rather than the hardware I am using. Some other CAD programs have trouble with larger files.
The intelligent cursor feature is powerful and intuitive. The software 'guesses' if, for example, you are trying to draw a horizontal line rather than a line at some angle. Its intelligent snaps are similarly powerful and useful.
Cons
Being used to 2-key and 3-key commands from the keyboard, it would be nice if this was more robust in Solid Edge. The capability of programming keystroke commands exists in Solid Edge, but it would be more user friendly in that regard.
Editing hatches can be a challenge.
I'm not a fan of the ribbon bar, but that seems to be a feature across software platforms in Windows.
Likelihood to Recommend
It seems especially well suited for sheet metal design. The weld symbol macro is really nice, as are the smart dimensions.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Engineering (Construction company, 1-10 employees)
I occasionally use Solid Edge on personal time. Sometimes I'm at home and want to turn an idea into a 3D model. Sometimes I had a particularly difficult part/assembly edit at work (where we use SolidWorks) and I want to see how much faster and easier it would have been in Solid Edge. I'm hoping to find enough benefits to using Solid Edge that my work will consider adopting it as our primary CAD platform. At a previous workplace, I used Solid Edge to import and work with dumb solids. It did a great job of optimizing the parts and assemblies for moldability, and would speed up the engineering process of designing parts and molds for plastic injection molding.
Pros
Faster and easier changes to parts and assemblies. A feature can easily be moved, resized, deleted, etc. independently of features created afterward.
Very effective tools to work with parts and assemblies from other CAD programs. The same technology that improves edits to parts and assemblies also speeds up handling files that might come up as dumb solids.
Better performance, especially with large assemblies. Opening the same files in other CAD programs are slower and clunkier.
Cons
The user interface isn't quite as intuitive. It might simply be I learned SolidWorks first, but some of the steps of doing something seem backward.
Solid Edge doesn't have anything I feel is comparable to my favorite SolidWorks add-in, HSMXpress
I've never gotten the fastener library to work right.
Likelihood to Recommend
Any project where the design might have unexpected changes is exactly what Solid Edge is made for. When (not if) those unexpected changes are required by the customer, or supplier change, or a manufacturability issue, you can make the accommodations with less time and trouble. The biggest scenario I've found Solid Edge less appropriate for is with a group that is already comfortable with another CAD program and hesitant to try something else. I'm personally fond of HSM for CAD/CAM, and not familiar with CNC programming on Solid Edge.
Solid Edge is being used by our mechanical engineering group. It's simple to learn. We've had SolidWorks designers pick it up in a few hours. The synchronous technology makes this product a very efficient tool for designers. The integrated FEA saves us time. We also have a distributed team and the built-in data manager works great via Google Drive. The team loves the zero latency since the files are on their individual PCs rather than a server or strictly online.
Pros
Synchronous technology with design intent is a powerful design aid. We've found it so much faster to design this way.
Built-in data manager gives us the ability to have all our Solid Edge files on our PC and have it synced to all others on our team. Files lock as they should and the speed couldn't be better.
Support is great. The community group has the most answers to the "how do I" questions.
Cons
At some point, I'd like to see an online version of Solid Edge so we don't have to have workstations to run the program.
It would be nice to have a simple way to make a monolithic (one part) part from an assembly while being able to hide interior features without having to manually alter the part file.
Threads on screws are an image rather than modeled. This is nice as it saves on file size in an assembly, but some times I need to see the threads. It would be nice to have a way to model the threads easily if needed.
Likelihood to Recommend
Perfect for single users, students or large organizations. Siemens owns the Parasolid kernel, so that helps keep the price down. The other companies for 3D CAD have to license the Parasolid kernel from Siemens so that adds to their cost structure. I found Siemens Solid Edge to be the perfect cost/performance for us.
