SolidWorks eDrawings
Sketching software
CAD software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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$3,456 per year
Free TrialFree version
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What is SolidWorks eDrawings
SOLIDWORKS eDrawings is a CAD viewing and lightweight collaboration tool used to view, measure, and share 2D drawings and 3D models without requiring a full CAD authoring license. It targets engineering, manufacturing, and stakeholder review workflows where recipients need to inspect designs, add markup, and communicate feedback. The product focuses on read-only visualization, review, and distribution of CAD content, including support for SOLIDWORKS-native formats and common exchange formats.
Lightweight CAD viewing
It provides a dedicated viewer for 2D and 3D CAD content that is simpler to deploy and use than full CAD authoring tools. This fits review scenarios where users need to inspect geometry, rotate assemblies, and check basic properties without editing models. It helps extend access to design data across non-CAD roles such as purchasing, manufacturing, and management.
Markup and review workflows
It supports review-oriented features such as annotations/markup and sharing of review files for feedback cycles. This enables asynchronous collaboration when stakeholders do not have the originating CAD system. The focus on review reduces friction compared with exchanging native CAD files for every comment round.
Strong SOLIDWORKS integration
It integrates closely with SOLIDWORKS workflows and file types, which simplifies publishing and distributing viewable content from SOLIDWORKS. This is useful in organizations standardized on SOLIDWORKS where many users need access to design information but not full modeling capabilities. The tight alignment with the SOLIDWORKS ecosystem can reduce translation steps for internal sharing.
Not a full CAD tool
It is primarily a viewer and collaboration utility rather than a full CAD modeling environment. Users who need to create or modify geometry must use a separate CAD authoring product. This limits its role to downstream consumption and review rather than design creation.
Format support varies
While it supports SOLIDWORKS content well, interoperability with non-native CAD formats can be more constrained than platforms designed for broad multi-CAD authoring and translation. Some advanced metadata, constraints, or feature history from other CAD systems may not carry through in a way that supports deeper inspection. This can affect mixed-CAD environments that require consistent behavior across many file types.
Collaboration features are basic
Its collaboration capabilities center on sharing and markup rather than full cloud-native co-authoring, version control, or integrated project workspaces. Teams that require centralized governance, granular permissions, and audit trails may need additional systems. This can introduce extra tooling for organizations with formal design control processes.
Plan & Pricing
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| eDrawings Viewer (desktop) | Free | Permanent free viewer; can download from official eDrawings site (free viewing of 2D/3D files). |
| eDrawings Professional (desktop) | Price not listed on eDrawings site (license required); not sold separately — obtain via SOLIDWORKS or reseller | Requires paid license; adds markup, measure, exploded views, dynamic cross-sections, VR features. Official eDrawings pages state Professional requires a license and is not sold standalone; eDrawings Professional is included/available in SOLIDWORKS Professional/Premium (see notes). |
| eDrawings Mobile (iOS/Android) | Historically: viewer $1.99 and Pro upgrade $9.99 (iOS) / viewer $1.99 and Pro upgrade $7.99 (Android) — shown in historical SolidWorks blog posts | Mobile apps exist; the historical blog posts list one-time app/in-app prices, but current app-store pricing is not listed on official SolidWorks/edrawings pages and may have changed. |
Notes:
- A 15-day free trial of eDrawings Professional is offered by SolidWorks (official registration page/blog).
- The lowest-priced SolidWorks product explicitly shown on SolidWorks pricing pages that lists inclusion of eDrawings Professional is "SOLIDWORKS Design Professional" at $3,456 USD/year (annual) — this is an inference that the minimum paid route to obtain eDrawings Professional is via a SOLIDWORKS package that includes it (see official help pages stating eDrawings Professional is available in SOLIDWORKS Professional/Premium and the SolidWorks pricing page for package prices).
Seller details
Dassault Systèmes SE
Vélizy-Villacoublay, France
1981
Public
https://www.3ds.com/
https://x.com/3DS
https://www.linkedin.com/company/dassaultsystemes/
