Alibre Design

Pros: Very competitive costing. If you've used CAD before, then the transition to Alibre should be straightforward. Updates are seamless. Maintenance package is worthwhile, and again, at a competitive cost.

Cons: We've had the system for over 3 years now, and it has run pretty 100% ok. We do get the odd lock up, maybe 2 or 3 times a month max, but a restart fixes it. Apart from that, it's very good.

Pros: Ease of use for 3D modeling and drawing. Cost effective with great solutions for every budget and need. Great customer support and rapid learning curve (I transitioned from AutoCAD and Pro E). Have been using since 2014 to support mechanical design, product development and even building "fly through" venue models to support a music based charity. Most capable product that punches way above it's weight from a cost perspective.

Cons: Zero complaints. Does exactly what I need! I don't really have any complaints about this product..

Pros: Well I was an AutoCad and Inventor user for 30 years, and watched the price go up every year, some updates did not really change too much to justify the price increase. Then came the subscription license, that was the last straw. I immediately began looking for a perpetual license software. I found Alibre Experrt Design and decided to try, and after a short learning curve I am now comfortable with the software. Tech support is one of the best! They reply quickly and always are able to solve the problem. They have replied even on holiday weekends! You will never get that kind of service from Autodesk! Another bonus is the PDM document manager, it works very well!

Cons: I do miss the parts library that Autodesk Inventor came with out of the box. I do sometimes have trouble figuring out why a constraint will not work, but that is always a user caused problem. I don't really have a Con list.

Pros: I've used many CAD systems over the past 30 years. Alibre is by far one of the best mechanical design packages out there. It's ease of use, features, and value are unmatched. I use other CAD systems as well but given the choice of tool to work with I always pick Alibre.

Cons: It would be nice to have mesh editing tools to drive scan data in a design file. I'd love to have an integrated CAM plugin live Visualmill in Alibre.

Pros: Alibre Design Expert provides great features in a competitive value for money package. The addition of PDM has provided a central location for the storage of all design files and part libraries. The continuous development and release of new features (as well as bug fixes) again offered in a value for money annual maintenance package. Meshcam Pro for Alibre provides an entry level CAM capability which is suitable for my hobbyist workshop without costing a fortune. The Import of PCB step files form my PCB Design Package allows verification of fitment and interfaces well with mechanical design. the ability to colour components now makes this even more realistic. The ability to produce 2D Drawings for system assembly which can be included together in the PDM with the 3D Design files.

Cons: On occasion integrated packages get dropped or no-longer work with new versions (This happened with the integrated CAM Package). The made me nervous about purchasing the Meshcam Pro for Alibre, however it continues to work with the latest releases.

Pros: Alibre Design Pro/Expert is software that respects its users. With pricing options for every budget, friendly upgrade options, and nearly every tool the other guys have, Alibre is a no-brainer. It's easy to use, doesn't send your data to the cloud, and doesn't send your data to AI for machine learning. In a world where we're all getting sick of subscriptions, online-only software, forced cloud storage, and AI learning, Alibre is a huge breath of fresh air.

Cons: Windows only right now, but they're working on fixing that! With v29, Alibre intends to remove their Windows dependencies and consider other operating systems in the future!

Pros: Perpetual license, cost and fully featured. Ease of drawing, extruding and creating fully functional 3D designs.

Cons: Occasional glitches on radii or chamfers, which I can eventually get them where I want them, just have to do them individually most of the time. Automatically created threads, seem to not work correctly either.

Pros: i like the fact its a software purchase, not subscription based. also its very customizable with most functions being able to be assigned to any buttons or keys

Cons: cant open a step/stl file for modification. have to find software to convert into a usable file type

Pros: I've been an Alibre user for well over 10 years and really enjoy the power and intuitive interface of the product. I use the 3D modelling and assembly a lot and find it allows me to design and engineer more quickly and accurately than some other CAD programs.

Cons: Sometimes the motion in the assemblies get corrupted or disconnected pretty easily and I have to go back and either completely reassemble or spend quite a bit of time repairing and issue.

Pros: I will start with I am a hobbyist. I have a 3d printer and didn't want to rely on everyone else doing the work for something I needed. I am also a person that hates subscription services. 3D Atom allows me a program that is nice to work in and I OWN my copy of it. I am able to wrap my head around the process of working in it and I like the work flow.

Cons: The one complaint I have is the tutorials that I can find. I really need more detailed use demonstrations. I'm not sure that is a great way of saying it, but I have a little bit of a hard time following them. I am still able to figure out what you are showing me and again, I am happy with your product.

Pros: Not at all the steep learning curve I've come to expect from complex design software. Alibre really is a breeze to use. It is in daily use for general mechanical design, 2D workshop drawings, and an ever growing number of 3D printing jobs. There is nothing it cannot do for us. We are a tiny design and manufacturing operation so keeping control of expenditure is extremely important. Alibre's licensing options are perfect for this. There's masses of "how to..." videos on YT and elsewhere, one is never at a loss how to do something.

Cons: This is a tough one - there's not really anything to dislike. I found it difficult to set up defaults (dimension styles, set to use millimetres etc.) and get them to persist between drawing sessions.

Pros: Alibre Design was easy to learn, coming from SolidWorks, which I use at my day job. Alibre's pricing and licensing policy are very fair, and offer the best bang-for-buck, of all of the 3D CAD programs that I looked into, for my hobby and small business use. I started with Alibre Atom, and after a year of use, liked it well enough to upgrade to Alibre Design Pro; I only had to pay the difference in price between Atom and Design Pro, to get the upgrade package, again very fair, essentially getting credit for the Atom package I had bought a year before. I like that the license is perpetual, and the fact that the service update subscription is optional, which helps control the cost. Overall, I find Alibre Design Pro to be very usable and capable 3D design software.

Cons: Like any software, there are occasional minor quirks, and there have been rare crashes to the desktop. I will say Alibre support was very responsive about one repeatable bug in the Loft dialog that I reported, but it took a while for them to reproduce it on their end, even after a number of emails back and forth. A fix should be coming in the next service release. I would really like to see Alibre offer a "Finder's Fee" for reporting reproducible bugs; this would help make Alibre a better product, by soliciting and utilizing very specific user feedback. A suitable "Finder's Fee" incentive could be a free year's worth of service updates, for each bug reported.

Pros: I like Alibre because: Easy to learn, help is always there, fits my needs 100% and allows several options to export files. I would love to export a DXF file format but I guess you cannot have it all for what I can afford to pay.

Cons: Some of the instruction videos are going too fast. They do not go into detail enough. I took me a while and several times watching the videos before I got how to apply constrains.

Pros: It's a simple software without subscription, one of the few software you still own. Do everything you need!

Cons: Some of the simple tasks in Alibre can be hard, but you can do most very effectively and each update bring more QoL stuff !

Pros: Affordable design package with a reasonable array of functionality. Specifically the ability to work with EZ-CAM.

Cons: A rather unique user interface that takes a bit of effort to become comfortable with. Looking forward to exploring this design tool.

Pros: I believe Alibre gives excellent value for the expense. I’m a hobbyist so I don’t use Alibre every day and I don’t use it for my livelihood. That being said, I design, and then build, complex models of historically significant engines and Alibre allows me to do this with sophisticated tools and with a tool base where, if I haven’t used the product for a while, I’d need to relearn complex procedures to use it.

Cons: Alibre allows me to design my models, and then ‘operate’ the mechanics and check clearances of crankshafts, connecting rods, pistons, etc. as the parts move. This is great, however, when the level of sub-assemblies gets deep, Alibre won’t allow the parts in the sub-assemblies to move as they should- which limits the ability to check the clearances, etc.

Pros: Can install it on my machine, easy to setup and they have great getting started tutorials for the beginner 3D modeler! I really like their pricing structure, subscription based or one time based with option to pay for upgrades as needed. Plus, I was able to write my own plugin to tightly integrate it to Orca Slicer for 3d printer. Customer support has been awesome and very responsive when I've reached out to them.

Cons: Not much! Sometimes it crashes when I'm applying fillets on lots of edges and faces but always back up and running quickly. Do wish the community was bigger or just more well known, as it's a hidden gem it seems. Also wish they had a 2d parametric only version... though I can use just a simple sketch for simplistic scenarios.

Pros: There are a number of things which make Alibre a great choice. First is that one purchases a license and does not have to subscribe to a service with a monthly or annual fee. Second, having Alibre transferable among computers means that I can have it at home and then transfer the license to my laptop for travel, and then back to my home computer again upon my return. Third, and most important, is Alibre was very easy to learn. In a very short period of time I was making models which I could then 3D print. The tutorials are excellent with examples.

Cons: I'm sure there are some cons to Alibre which could be identified by a more sophisticated user but for my applications I have not found anything which I was not able to do.

Pros: It is incredibly powerful software available at an affordable price. We use it for its solid model design capabilities and also to reveal X/Y coordinates needed to construct CNC machining programs.

Cons: The software-resident and online "help" feature is too rigid and finding solutions to specific issues involves lots of guessing and lots of lost time. Support via email is good, but not real-time, when users are at an impasse and need immediate resolution before being able to move forward with the task at hand.

Pros: it has helped alot with our 3d rendering of products so our workers can see the end result Gordon in new zealand has been a massive help with support and different ways to design things

Cons: some of the sheet metal options could have some different features such as with lofting been able to move where the join will be more information on 3d tube drawings when compounding angles and rools are required

Pros: Great tool, compatibility with step files, has handled everything I needed to do, and is very close to the package I use at work. Enjoying the new tools added with this update and look forward to new innovations from the development team. So far, lacks nothing, still experimenting with the pdm (vault) feature, seems like a good setup for alike parts and assemblies, and it gives a form of parametrics to deal with similar part profiles. The value to me for a complete 3d design solution, is very attractive and , like I said, export capabilities to other design platforms allows me to create E-drawing models for customers to view. Never had a support issue, basically, hit the ground running. Assemblies are easy to create, and I can import parts from virtually any source. I would like to explore more of the toolbox capabilities, see what that is capable of doing. What a great package!!

Cons: The rendering is very limited, would like to manipulate color palette, light sources, and have realistic texturing capabilities.

Pros: Being able to make changes early in the chain and they update through. Being able to color. Mutiple view options.

Cons: Many crashes that shut down the program. Unable to define a radius size in a sketch before picking the lines. Unable to intersect a line to a curve or two curves. difficulty getting the program to accept fillets - I spend more time trying to get the fillets to work than drawing the parts. The program says the sketch has no errors, but then refuses to extrude the sketch and does not give an indication of what the problem is. Frequent errors introduced extra lines when mirroring a sketch - hard to clean up. When doing a "save as," it defaults to the last saved file rather than the file it came from, so many drawings end up in unrelated projects/files rather than the project file. I find trying to do 3D sketchin almost imposible.