

That said, we’d still have to give SolidWorks the slight edge for brand new users learning how to do relatively simple tasks. The learning curve for both packages has significantly decreased over the years. However, after three major revisions, Creo is now much more user-friendly than Pro/E used to be. SolidWorks used to have a massive advantage here. Creo provides more customization and key mapping for advanced user efficiency.Creo provides better management of external references.Creo is faster and much more stable with larger assemblies.Creo provides more simulation and analytics tools in an integrated environment.Creo allows for more control over design.However, we will compare CATIA and Creo in a future post.įor the sake of completeness, here are a few key differences between Creo and SolidWorks: CATIA has a relatively small market share outside France and most of the questions we get from customers are around Creo versus SolidWorks. CATIA is Dassault’s high-end design package and it is totally separate and distinct from the lower-end SolidWorks product line. Dassault Systèmes, a French company, manufactures both CATIA and Solidworks. Creo is top-of-the-line.Ī more apt comparison in terms of feature-sets would be with CATIA. It’s really not fair to compare the two head-to-head.

However, SolidWorks’ claim about their feature set was misleading (and still is) as the products are not really comparable for high-end industrial design.īut this is all ancient history, how does SolidWorks compare to PTC Creo today? Feature setĬreo is simply a more robust and capable package than SolidWorks. The launch strategy worked and SolidWorks exploded onto the marketplace. At the time, Pro/ENGINEER did cost significantly more and it was significantly harder to learn.

SolidWorks claimed that SolidWorks was easier to use and could do 80% of what Pro/ENGINEER could for 20% of the price. When SolidWorks first hit the scene, it was brilliantly positioned to compete with Pro/ENGINEER (now known as Creo). In fact, it’s one of the top questions we get from customers and prospects.Īs a PTC reseller, we’re obviously biased, but we’ve been around since 2001 and have worked with every CAD product on the market so I think we can bring some useful perspective to this debate. We often get asked about the differences between SolidWorks and PTC Creo.
