There are more than 30 varieties of CAD software available in the market, which come from different software developers. Apart from these, customers also have the option to download freeware and shareware easily available on the Internet. Customers who wish to purchase CAD software should conduct a benchmarking analysis to select the most suitable software from the available options.
CAD software can be compared using different product criteria, such as software cost, developer profile, after-sales technical support, and future upgrades. This can be done using an Excel spreadsheet or other software. Product analysis software is also available as free software, which can be used to compare and select the most cost-effective CAD software.
CAD software systems are also compared based on characteristics such as two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D), CAD or CAD+CAM, operating system compatibility (Windows, UNIX, Solaris, and SunOS), microprocessor requirements (Pentium, Celeron ), hard disk space and RAM memory requirements, and supported formats (IGES, DXF, STL, SLA, Gerber, HPGL, CadKey and APT, CATIA CL, Excellon, Gerber).
Customer reviews can also be used to compare different CAD programs. Reviews are written by CAD software users describing their experiences on different brands made by different software development companies. Various websites are completely dedicated to providing information on CAD software reviews, which can be used to gather information on the advantages and disadvantages of different software programs.
After comparison, different brands of CAD software are rated on a scale of one to five, commonly referred to as a star rating. A rating of four or more indicates that the software is good and can be purchased. Software systems rated below three generally do not have advanced features and may have inherent flaws. Customers who do not have in-depth knowledge about software systems should opt for CAD software that is ranked in the range of four to five.
