I hate cloud-based stuff (Fusion360/Onshape). (4) Is IronCAD a cloud-based software? Again I would not buy it if it is. SpaceClaim, which my colleague Josh Mings referred to as the company slapping the history out 3D modeling, was founded in 2005 by industry big-wig Mike Payne, who also helped start up PTC and SolidWorks. (3) Is IronCAD a subscription-based software? I would not buy it if it is. SpaceClaim introduced direct modeling to the masses with the introduction of SpaceClaim 2007 Professional back in 2007.
I definitely want a full package in case I need some of the features in the future. (2) Is the "Design Collaboration Suite" a full version? I know there are some different IronCAD versions (Inovate, Draft and Compose) and each has it's own limitations. Not a superduper machine but good enough for most of my work. I use a Microsoft Surface Book 2 laptop now with the nVidia 1060 graphic card as a main CAD PC. Is there any critical improvement during these 3 years that I really need to pursue, or will I be ok with the 2016 one? Some fancy new features might be handy but I don't need them if I'm not ganna use them. (1) How do you compare the IronCAD 2016 with the new IronCAD 2019? I know a 3-yr difference will not be small, but for a normal user I care more about the stability, graphic efficiency and user experience in daily-life functionalities. I found a online dealer selling IronCAD Design Collaboration Suite 2016 for only USD $499 which is really a good deal to me. After some research I found IronCAD might be a good alternative.īut the IronCAD 2019 version is still too expensive to afford (around AUD $6500). Most of the designers around me here in Australia use Solidworks but it's way too expensive to me. I always want to learn another parametric, mechanics-oriented CAD software. I'm a 12-yr 3D designer and my mail tools are Spaceclaim, Solidthinking Evolve, Sketchup and ZBrush.