# SolidWorks Simulation Reviews **Vendor:** Solidworks **Category:** [Simulation & CAE Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/simulation-cae) **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 60 ## About SolidWorks Simulation SolidWorks Simulation is a comprehensive suite of analysis tools integrated within the SolidWorks CAD environment, enabling engineers and designers to virtually test and validate their designs under real-world conditions. By simulating physical behaviors such as stress, strain, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics, users can identify potential issues early in the design process, reducing the need for costly physical prototypes and accelerating time to market. Key Features and Functionality: - Structural Analysis: Evaluate the strength and durability of components and assemblies under various loading conditions to ensure product reliability. - Thermal Analysis: Simulate heat transfer and thermal effects to optimize product performance in varying temperature environments. - Fluid Flow Analysis: Analyze fluid dynamics to assess the impact of liquid and gas flows on product design and functionality. - Motion Analysis: Study the movement of assemblies to predict mechanical behavior and identify potential operational issues. - Fatigue Analysis: Predict product lifespan by assessing how repeated loading and unloading cycles affect material integrity over time. - Optimization Tools: Automatically refine designs to meet specified performance criteria, enhancing efficiency and innovation. Primary Value and Problem Solving: SolidWorks Simulation empowers users to make informed design decisions by providing accurate, real-time insights into product performance. This proactive approach minimizes the risk of design flaws, reduces development costs, and shortens the product development cycle. By integrating simulation directly into the design process, SolidWorks Simulation helps ensure that products meet quality standards and perform as intended in real-world applications. ## SolidWorks Simulation Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users appreciate the **ease of use** of SolidWorks Simulation, allowing quick and effective analysis for all levels of expertise. (4 reviews) - Users value the **intuitive interface** of SolidWorks Simulation, finding it easy to learn and operate effectively. (2 reviews) - Users appreciate the **fast learning curve** of SolidWorks Simulation, enabling beginners to efficiently perform analyses with ease. (2 reviews) - Users value the **accuracy of results** in SolidWorks Simulation, enhancing clarity in various simulations for beginners. (1 reviews) - Users value the **ease of testing assemblies and components** in SolidWorks Simulation for reliable performance insights. (1 reviews) - Users value the **helpful customer support** of SolidWorks Simulation, assisting them effectively with feedback and queries. (1 reviews) - Design Usability (1 reviews) - Ease of Learning (1 reviews) - Features (1 reviews) - Interface Ease-of-Use (1 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find **missing features** in SolidWorks Simulation, limiting its effectiveness for more complex analyses and professional needs. (2 reviews) - Users find some features **confusing** , which can complicate their experience with SolidWorks Simulation. (1 reviews) - Users highlight the **export issues** in SolidWorks Simulation, hindering effective use for complex analyses and larger models. (1 reviews) - Users report significant **file handling issues** in SolidWorks Simulation, complicating their use and analysis experience. (1 reviews) - Users feel the **lack of features** in SolidWorks Simulation limits professional control and model options for fluid dynamics. (1 reviews) - Users find **meshing issues** restrictive, limiting control for professionals and lacking turbulence models for flow problems. (1 reviews) - Performance Issues (1 reviews) - Poor Customer Support (1 reviews) - Simulation Issues (1 reviews) - Slow Simulation (1 reviews) ## SolidWorks Simulation Reviews ### 1. Easy to use and good for simple simulation. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Anuj M. | Product Design and Development Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 06, 2024 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** It's work quickly with provide accurate result. Helpful to quick evaluate our product design for it's reliability **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** Very few simulation modules available. Waiting for future updates for new simulation modules. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use static and thermal simulation problems for our clients product design ### 2. Easy to Use for Engineering Students Learning Simulations **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 21, 2026 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** The ease of use as an engineering student still in the process of learning. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** It could be a bit clearer on what’s necessary before running a simulation. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** As an engineering student it helps me prove my designs work. ### 3. Looks nice, feels unreliable. **Rating:** 1.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Maarten G. | Simulation engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 01, 2024 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** Fast learning curve. Intuitive interface allows even a novice user, with the right background, to effectively run a straightforward analysis, by generating a mesh and applying loads and constraints quickly. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** Unfortunately, this list is a very long. In my opinion the software is underdeveloped in many ways. I would rate it "fair" or "mediocre" when using it as a tool for basic analysis only (not more than a few parts, mostly linear analysis with maybe a bit of semi-linear contacts and some geometric nonlinearity). It gets worse if you, or someone in your organisation, actually believed the marketing and expects the software to be suitable for analyses featuring the advertised capabilities. Much worse. You may be able to analyse a shell, to use cyclic symmetry, or to considere geometric nonleanearity. But don't expect to combine any of those features in one analysis. If you're attempting plasticity or hyperelasticity, you should hire a priest to pray for the solver to converge. Don't expect the solver to run on more than one CPU core. If you plan to postprocess a larger problem, cancel your other appointments for the day. Don't contact customer support, it's a waste of time. And if you ever find yourself analysing composites with this software, please don't despair: life is too precious to lose and there is better software out there! **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** Weight reduction, strenght verification. ### 4. User-Friendly and Easy, Though Some Features Need Clarity **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Airlines/Aviation | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 04, 2025 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** I really appreciate how user-friendly it is. It's so easy to use. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** Some features are still a bit confusing, but overall it's good. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** Meshing ### 5. Solidworks is a great tool to use when using solidworks 3d cad **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** frank W. | Plant superintendent, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 01, 2024 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** Gives us the ability to test out differnet components and assemblies in solid works to see if the will perform as intended and have the ability to last for many cycles of operation. eay to use. cuctomer support has benn very helpfull with all feedback we needed. We use it on a daily basis with every new design we make or any changes **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** i have not found anything unhelpfull as this time. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** It helps use design better products and visualizes for the customer the out come of the product. ### 6. Way to simulation **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Saurabh s. | Analysis Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2024 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** It's easy to use and understand even for the beginner and has a good interpretation of results. Solidworks does the meshing and contact setting work automatically in most of the cases that's really good thing for a beginner. It has great tools to perform all kind of simulation either it's a static dynamic thermal or flow problem. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** In Solidworks simulation user doesn't has the control over meshing so it's not really good for the professionals and also the for the flow problem's it doesn't have all the turbulence models. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's solving all kind of cae and cfd problems and it has the benefit that for using this tool user doesn't need much of fundamental knowledge. ### 7. Limited simulation software perfect for initial FEA **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Design | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 21, 2023 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** It's simplicity and integration directly in Solidworks it a huge plus. Other FEA have a complicated setup and rather complex solver settings. SW Simulation reduces the time to get an design product in CAD. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** Solidworks Simulation is not optimised for solving speed, but rather for simplicity and less time initialising the simulation setup. Also, you have little flexibility with solver settings and the solvers are not the most accurate variants. Boundary conditions are also limited. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solidworks reduces the CAD design time and ultimately the time to marked of a hardware product, by providing an integrated, easy to setup FEA simulation plugin. ### 8. Quick finite element studies to check gut feelings **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Robbert K. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 25, 2023 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** - Intregrated with Solidworks CAD - Easy to set up a study - Many types of studies (not only stiffness/strength) **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** - Expensive for small companies - Harder to check for convergence/accuracy than other FE packages **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** Simple stiffness/stress simulations to confirm or deny 'gut feeling' engineering decisions. Simple flow calculation for cooling. ### 9. SOLID WORKS SIMULATION **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** santosh k. | MECHANICAL ENGINEER, Design, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2023 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** Solid Work simulation helps to reduce the effort of modification of the model in Solid Works to get simulation as both are the same platform, so there is no need for file conversions. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** As extra price needed to take the Solidwork Simulation and as we are mainly using Ansysy for Simulation it is not know to many as the training modules for this is not available need to give free training along with software. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** Solid work simulations help to know if the model withstands the applied loads or if the stresses induced are with in the limits or not can be understood by using this software. ### 10. Solid works Design Engineer Mechanical **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Santosh Kumar D. | Design Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2023 **What do you like best about SolidWorks Simulation?** It is some easier than the other analysis softwares. It is quite easy to to no need of file formats. After modelling directly we can acess to analysis. More efficiently like other softwares. **What do you dislike about SolidWorks Simulation?** The results were done what different from the analysis of other softwares. Meshing and elements types are different to compare with other analysis. **What problems is SolidWorks Simulation solving and how is that benefiting you?** Easy to get the stress, Bending and deformation values easier than in theoretical values by manual calculations. Just by giving inputs of constrains and loads gives results ## SolidWorks Simulation Discussions - [What is the use of Solidworks software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-use-of-solidworks-software) - 2 comments - [Is solidworks simulation free?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-solidworks-simulation-free) - 1 comment - [View SolidWorks Simulation pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/solidworks-solidworks-simulation/reviews/solidworks-simulation-review-5339804?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-23+10%3A14%3A28+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=1eee5c98-71ea-4364-b7aa-00f093fbe7fb&secure%5Btoken%5D=89c7a032bf94e9afaec1d47fc993cf24586c99d320789cd2281500465f9d14d5&format=llm_user) ## SolidWorks Simulation Features **Design** - 3D/solid modeling Tools - Drawing Tools - Editing Tools - Rendering tools **Tools - Mechanical Computer-aided Design (MCAD)** - 3D/solid modeling Tools - Rendering Tools - Drawing Tools - Editing Tools - Text Editing Tools **Tools** - Fluid analysis - Finite element analysis - Multibody dynamics **File Options - Mechanical Computer-aided Design (MCAD)** - Export Files - Import Files - File Interoperability - Backwards compatibility - File size **Work** - Discrete event modeling - Continuous event modeling - Mechanical event simulation - Manufacturing process simulation - Integrate **Customization - Mechanical Computer-aided Design (MCAD)** - Custom Commands - Custom Scripts - Custom Menus - Custom Interface **Environment** - Hardware support - Task - Manage Multiple Profiles - Command Clarity **Environment - Mechanical Computer-aided Design (MCAD)** - Hardware support - Task-based interfaces - Manage Multiple Profiles - Command Clarity ## Top SolidWorks Simulation Alternatives - [Inventor](https://www.g2.com/products/inventor/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (423 reviews) - [Designcenter NX](https://www.g2.com/products/designcenter-nx/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (520 reviews) - [Autodesk Fusion](https://www.g2.com/products/autodesk-fusion/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (509 reviews)