Fusion 360 & SolidWorks

[Maha Nadarasa]

Some of you familiar with Fusion 360. What is the different between these two? Because Fusion 360 subscription is very cheap compared with SWX.

[mike miller]

Some of you familiar with Fusion 360. What is the different between these two? Because Fusion 360 subscription is very cheep compared with SWX.

It is a very different ballgame, Inventor vs. SWX would be a more fair comparison. Here are a few good links from @matt to read.

https://dezignstuff.com/software-to-wat ... usion-360/

https://dezignstuff.com/fusion-360-what-is-it/

https://dezignstuff.com/terms-of-servic ... omparison/

My biggest concerns with Fusion are:

• Autodesk's reputation for hosing customers (even worse than Dassault's).

• Default file storage is cloud-based. Yes, you can remember to download files manually, but they still control your data by default. "Hostage" comes to mind here.

• Program stability due to weekly updates, whether you want them or not.

• Relatively light weight software and few expert users. (They all move to IV.)

[jcapriotti]

It's cheap now to get people on board but I'd expect it to be more in line with their other offerings as time goes on. Inventor is $2190 annually so if Fusion 360 eventually replaces it, why would it cost that much less?

For comparison, Onshape starts at $1500 annually

[MJuric]

It's cheap now to get people on board but I'd expect it to be more in line with their other offerings as time goes on. Inventor is $2190 annually so if Fusion 360 eventually replaces it, why would it cost that much less?

For comparison, Onshape starts at $1500 annually

Do you think Fusion 360 is supposed to replace Inventor? I tend to think that Autodesk is simultaneously developing both to meet the needs of two different groups of people. Small business/Hobbiests will be using F360 and Complex small business design and larger business will be using IV.

F360 will the "Gateway drug" for people to start out on and many will end up moving to IV.

More than likely IV will take on some of the developments of F360 and F360 will take on some of the developments of IV.

[jcapriotti]

Perusing the Inventor forums seems to show IV users upset that they aren't getting many updates and Fusion is. I guess us SolidWorks users could claim the same though.

[MJuric]

Perusing the Inventor forums seems to show IV users upset that they aren't getting many updates and Fusion is. I guess us SolidWorks users could claim the same though.

IV is a more mature product and you wouldn't expect it to have as many updates as a new product like Fusion. IV users are just like SW users. They see company resources going someplace else and want it to go to fixing their issues instead.

I would suspect that over some time frame you will see IV with a "Cloud" option and more than likely in some form that already exists. I think every CAD program on the market will at some point offer this to a varying degree.

IV is only a little over 20 years old. IV replaced MDT. Sure at some point I think IV will be replaced by something but I tend to think Autodesk will do a better job at it than SW is. In my opinion they did a better job the first time than SW is right now. MDT was replaced by IV but you got IV with your MDT subscription. That allowed you, at your own leisure, to install and play with IV with each new release. That's what I did. At some point I realized that IV had progressed far enough that it was a better choice than MDT or 2D options and off I went.

I tend to believe that if F360 was going to replace IV that they would do a similar approach and F360 would be coming with IV, not sure that is the case or not.

[mike miller]

Just an example of conFusion's screwed-up business model: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-3 ... -p/8343494

Quotes (my emphasis added):

A frustrated user:

It seems like like getting 4 tries to learn generative design is not enough, and being forced to pay per study might force people to not use the software that they are already paying for. I think having the option to also solve studies locally makes the most sense. I know many people that jumped on the new subscription for Fusion 360 including myself because of the Generative Design. Is there a reason to not have the option to solve locally?

Pay per study? Cue:.....what the...?!?!

From an AD employee:

Generative design, however is a completely different story. One of the Expert Elites studied this subject tin depth and wrote a very good post that I cannot find at the moment. But the essence of the story was that running GD locally is pretty much useless as it requires large computational resources.

Not true. Solid Edge does this all the time.

[zxys001]

Some of you familiar with Fusion 360. What is the different between these two? Because Fusion 360 subscription is very cheap compared with SWX.

Maha, I'd suggest you get the free license and try it out.... you might like it.

IMHO... since it comes from aDe$k (they are huge and have a lot of $$$).. and how they have marketed it to startup's, univ's and makers,.. if you like using it and if you see this around your interest or markets you want to be part of,.. it's worth applying your time.

[Maha Nadarasa]

@ zxys001

Are you familiar with Fusion 360?

[zxys001]

@ zxys001

Are you familiar with Fusion 360?

I am not a 360 user.
Although, I play with it, I know the basics and have had it installed/updated since the beginning.. "but" I typically only use it to open, view and translate.
I had mainly used it to see what they did with "T-Splines" (a subd modeling software which was a addon to Rhino3D)
and,.. I wanted to see for myself what the hype was about.
Now.. after many years, I see it as a potential.... "but"... I have a adversity with them as a company... that is, I personally do NOT like or want to throw my $$$$ at ade$k. They eff'd me, and many others, out out thou$and$ of u$d years ago. It's personal.

Now.. if it was not personal or if I was starting fresh, I'd consider using it.

[mike miller]

Seems like AD decided to finally give Inventor the ability to use configurations......?? They call it "model states".
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor ... p/10236778

It's about time.

[Arthur NY]

Direct for The Horses mouth....there is NO plan to due away with IV with F360. Especially considering that F360 is going in a more additive/CNC manufacturing way than IV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGYPagFaALg&t=4s

I dislike AD as much as the next guy for a whole host of reasons. I think it makes NO sense for anyone to try and compare F360 to SW. They're in different lanes....

[zxys001]

Direct for The Horses mouth....there is NO plan to due away with IV with F360. Especially considering that F360 is going in a more additive/CNC manufacturing way than IV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGYPagFaALg&t=4s

I dislike AD as much as the next guy for a whole host of reasons. I think it makes NO sense for anyone to try and compare F360 to SW. They're in different lanes....

IMHO.. ade$k has always been about Crystal Clear Vagueness.

[mbiasotti]

@Maha Nadarasa - Hi Maha, you should try to get ahold of Ed Eaton. Ed did an entire project on Fusion 360 and I'm sure he'd have a lot to say about it compared to SolidWorks. I used Fusion about 5 years ago on and off. It has a very slick GUI and I like a lot of things about it including Tsplines built-in but my biggest negative was that its geometric kernel is very lax and there are a lot of things that you can do with it that are not geometrically realistic or accurate - and/or it just won't do it. It is not as refined for Mechanical engineering and lacks a lot of the maturity of tools and functions that SW has amassed over the years.

[Maha Nadarasa]

@mbiasotti

Thanks for the detail explanation.

I am not aware about Ed Eaton. I am a subscriber of SWX. It has killed all my links by disabling the old form. It is disappointing. Therefore, I am contemplating to shift to new design software. That is why I want to know about Fusion 360.

[Roasted By John]

Maha...

I am starting to use Fusion 360 and probably will be forced to go full bore in the near future. I don't think that there is any comparison between the two, of what both software programs can do.

For the simple stuff, it works great but and is easy to use. Below is the first "from scratch" part that I did..

All I can say is.... The Solidworks forum will be back, you will be able to get to the old posts, but it will be a while till they are sorted and easy to get to, don't jump ship, yet. Especially don't jump into the Fusion 360 "Dingy"

[Maha Nadarasa]

@Roasted By John

Thanks for the information.

[Frederick_Law]

Seems like AD decided to finally give Inventor the ability to use configurations......?? They call it "model states".
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor ... p/10236778

It's about time.

And SW still can't use equation everywhere

Their config was iPart, iAssembly. Probably add Model State on top for easier usage.