Solidworks
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if your team designs products full-time and needs industry-standard CAD with simulation and PDM.
New check
Comparison
Solidworks vs Discourse
Solidworks and Discourse both land on Depends.
Discourse
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy Discourse if you need a serious, searchable public community or support forum and can pay for hosting or admin it yourself.
| Compare | Solidworks | Discourse |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Full-time mechanical and product designers | Product companies needing a public support forum |
| Who it's not for | Occasional users . subscription cost outpaces rare use | Small teams wanting simple chat . use Discord/Slack |
| Privacy | Multiple 2026 CVEs (desktop RCE, eDrawings buffer overflow, path traversal) plus a reported 2021 breach; patch discipline required.⁸ | Active security program (HackerOne bounty), but multiple 2026 CVEs including XSS and an auth bypass; patch promptly. |
| Support quality | No usable support evidence found | No direct support evidence found |
| Public sentiment | Engineers praise its depth and industry grip, but many gripe about yearly price hikes and how hostile it is to occasional users.¹ | G2 reviewers praise ease of use, while some HN commenters are critical; review volume is modest at 68.13 |
| Biggest gotcha | Users report ~25% yearly subscription increases; costs compound every renewal³ | Outdated self-hosted instances are actively warned about; patch fast or get hit |
Pick Solidworks when
- Full-time mechanical and product designers
- Engineering teams needing simulation plus PDM
- Startups via the SOLIDWORKS startup program
- Hobbyists at the $48 Maker tier
When Solidworks is not a fit
- Occasional users . subscription cost outpaces rare use
- Casual makers wanting simple, cheap tools
- Mac-only teams . desktop CAD is Windows-bound
- Buyers demanding transparent public pricing
Pick Discourse when
- Product companies needing a public support forum
- Open-source projects (free hosting)
- Large searchable communities replacing mailing lists
- Self-hosters with DevOps capacity
When Discourse is not a fit
- Small teams wanting simple chat . use Discord/Slack
- Budget buyers who won't self-host . hosting is pricey
- Anyone without admin capacity to patch and moderate
- Casual communities that don't need forum structure
Sources
- SOLIDWORKS Reviews . G2g2.comreview
review
- SolidWorks 2025 review . Creative Bloqcreativebloq.comreview
- SOLIDWORKS for Makers ($48 hobbyist license)solidworks.comofficial
- SOLIDWORKS Design plans and pricingsolidworks.comofficial
- 2026 SOLIDWORKS Buying Guide . Hawk Ridge Systemshawkridgesys.comofficial
- CVE-2026-3476: SOLIDWORKS Desktop RCE . SentinelOnesentinelone.comsecurity
security
- solidworks.com data breach in 2021 . Breachsensebreachsense.comsecurity
- Companies that use Solidworks . TheirStacktheirstack.comnews
- Onshape as a SOLIDWORKS alternativeonshape.comnews
- Discourse Reviews . G2g2.comreview
- Discourse pricing (official)discourse.orgofficial
- Discourse free plan (official)discourse.orgofficial
- Why is hosting so expensive? . Discourse Metameta.discourse.orgofficial