Best Industrial Design Software for Startups
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Compare the Top Industrial Design Software for Startups as of November 2025
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What is Industrial Design Software for Startups?
Industrial design software is a suite of tools used by designers and engineers to create, prototype, and refine products that are manufactured at a large scale. These tools enable the development of detailed product designs, from conceptualization to final production, while considering factors like aesthetics, functionality, ergonomics, and manufacturability. Industrial design software often includes features for 3D modeling, CAD (Computer-Aided Design), simulation, and visualization, allowing designers to create realistic representations of their products and test them in virtual environments. These platforms also offer collaboration features that enable teams to work together on designs, share feedback, and iterate on ideas. With integrated tools for rendering, material selection, and assembly planning, industrial design software plays a critical role in improving product development cycles, reducing costs, and ensuring that products meet required standards and specifications. Compare and read user reviews of the best Industrial Design software for Startups currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
SimScale
SimScale
SimScale is a cloud-based web application that plays a key part in simulation software for many kinds of industries. The platform allows the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and Thermal Simulation. It also offers 3D simulation, continuous modeling, and motion & dynamic modeling. -
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Solid Edge
Siemens
Solid Edge is a portfolio of affordable, easy to deploy, maintain, and use software tools that advance all aspects of the product development process – mechanical and electrical design, simulation, manufacturing, technical documentation, data management, and cloud-based collaboration. Developed on Siemens industry leading technologies, Solid Edge provides the most innovative and comprehensive approach to product development for the mainstream market.Starting Price: $75/month/user -
3
Civil 3D
Autodesk
Civil 3D® civil engineering design software supports BIM (Building Information Modeling) with integrated features to improve drafting, design, and construction documentation. Conduct grading design studies based on project constraints. Grading Optimization is available in Civil 3D only as part of the Architecture, Engineering & Construction Collection. Transform how you navigate, visualize, and interact with Civil 3D design models. Project Explorer is an extension available in Civil 3D only through the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Collection. Experience more efficient workflows for surface modeling, corridor modeling, site design, storm and sanitary, and plan production and documentation with Civil 3D® civil engineering design software. Securely access Civil 3D files, data shortcuts, and xrefs from multiple locations and companies, all in a common data environment.Starting Price: $2,430 per year -
4
PowerMill
Autodesk
Fusion 360 with PowerMill® CAM software provides expert CNC programming strategies for complex 3- and 5-axis manufacturing. Now includes access to Fusion 360, Fusion 360 Team, and advanced manufacturing capabilities through Fusion 360 extensions. Access a vast library of strategies in PowerMill. Reduce programming times with rapid toolpath calculation. Simulate, verify, and optimize motion of CNC machines and industrial robots. Fusion 360 offers 3D modeling, generative design, simulation, electronics, collaboration, and more. Get modeling for manufacture tools to help prepare complex geometry for better CAM programming. Use simulation tools to improve plastic part designs and optimize the mold tools used to make them. This US manufacturer uses a combination of Autodesk Moldflow, PowerMill, and PowerShape in the design and manufacture of high-quality injection molds. -
5
CATIA
Dassault Systèmes
CATIA is the world's leading solution for product design and experience. It is used by leading organizations in multiple industries to develop the products we see and use in our everyday lives. CATIA delivers the unique ability not only to model any product, but to do so in the context of its real-life behavior: design in the age of experience. Systems architects, engineers, designers, construction professionals and all contributors can define, imagine and shape the connected world. A Social design environment built on a single source of truth and accessed through powerful 3D dashboards that drive business intelligence, real-time concurrent design and collaboration across all stakeholders including mobile workers. An Instinctive 3DEXPERIENCE for both experienced and occasional users with world-class 3D modeling and simulation capabilities that optimize the effectiveness of every user. An Inclusive product development platform that is easily integrated with existing processes & tools. -
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EDGECAM
EDGECAM
EDGECAM is a market leading computer aided manufacturing (CAM) system for NC part programming. With unparalleled ease of use and sophisticated toolpath generation, it’s the only CAM system you’ll need for milling, turning and mill-turn machining. EDGECAM utilises your in house knowledge and experience to drive the CAM process with automation tools to suit different applications - allowing you to maintain your competitive edge. Associative native CAD model loading technology allows instant model manipulation, updates and rapid tool path regeneration. ‘Workflow’ technology enables accelerated and efficient programming of CNC machine tools. Edgecam is used by many of the World’s leading Manufacturers to improve productivity and quality from sub-contact to corporate organisations. Industry leading training and support on a global basis from dedicated support teams ensures excellent response times. -
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Mastercam
CNC Software
CAD/CAM software is used to translate computer-aided design (CAD) to manufacturing workpieces with computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) on your CNC machine. Mastercam offers CAD/CAM software tools for a variety of CNC programming needs, from basic to complex. Due to our innovative, flexible solutions and top notch network of support, our software is a complete solution from the start of design through to manufacturing. Choose Mastercam to streamline your production process from job setup to job completion. Our CAD CAM software products take parts from design through to the production line. Program your manufactured parts with leading-edge features for precision and efficiency. Creating code to drive your CNC equipment is what Mastercam does best. Build your comprehensive CAD/CAM solution with Mastercam. -
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SOLIDWORKS
SolidWorks
SOLIDWORKS® 3D CAD solutions provide easy-to-learn, yet extremely powerful functionality that shortens product development time, reduces costs, and improves quality. SOLIDWORKS® 3D CAD solutions provide easy-to-learn, yet extremely powerful functionality that shortens product development time, reduces costs, and improves quality. Take advantage of the capabilities of SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD and the benefits of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, a single cloud-based product development environment. Quickly create and collaborate on 3D designs in the cloud and deliver innovative products to market faster. Quickly create and collaborate on organic shapes and complex surfaces in the cloud and deliver innovative products to market faster. Rapidly generate and detail 2D drawings from 3D models, speeding up the design-to-manufacturing process. Harness the power of the world’s most widely used 3D design software in a fully-integrated engineering suite, backed by the community. -
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Autodesk Fusion 360
Autodesk
Fusion 360 unifies design, engineering, electronics, and manufacturing into a single software platform. Get integrated CAD, CAM, CAE & PCB on a single development platform. Also includes EAGLE Premium, HSMWorks, Team Participant, and access to consumptive services, such as generative design, cloud simulation, and cloud rendering. Engineer products with a comprehensive set of modeling tools. Ensure form, fit, and function of your products with various analysis methods. Create and edit sketches with sketch constraints, dimensions, and a powerful suite of sketch tools. Edit or repair imported geometry from non-native file formats. Make design changes without worrying about time-based features. Create and edit complex parametric surfaces for repairing, patching or designing geometry. Create history-based features, including extrude, revolve, loft, sweep, etc., that update with design changes.Starting Price: $495 per year -
10
Autodesk Alias
Autodesk
Seamlessly collaborate across different workflows and personas. Increase productivity and eliminate the need to toggle between siloed systems. Use a single source for design from sketch through production surfacing. Create and reuse templates across design and surfacing teams—sharing surfacing language. Curve and Surface replace workflows with the History Visualizer tool, enabling automatic rebuild of geometry. Collaborate across teams and manage projects with a single suite of tools for faster decision-making. Allow Alias and non-Alias modelers to collaborate with Alias Assemblies and Master Alias Assembly Concept. Review design projects with Shotgun to keep creative teams focused.Starting Price: $585 per month -
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The industry standard for creating custom materials, Adobe Substance 3D Designer gives you complete authoring control. Design tileable textures and patterns, and edit complete texture sets. Use pre-made resources or create materials from scratch in this non-destructive, node-based environment, and take advantage of Designer’s ever-expanding scripting capabilities. Want to change something or adjust the look of a material after the fact? Make changes at any time; never lose any of your work. Edit full sets of textures in real-time and produce tileable Substance materials and MDL materials that are will be directly compatible with your renderer or game engine. Combine a large number of preset filters and tools for procedural and hybrid workflows. Access and modify the sources of any resource or filter: you have absolute editing control. Our team develops and maintains integrations with all the major 3D apps.Starting Price: $19.90 per month
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LabVIEW
NI
LabVIEW offers a graphical programming approach that helps you visualize every aspect of your application, including hardware configuration, measurement data, and debugging. This visualization makes it simple to integrate measurement hardware from any vendor, represent complex logic on the diagram, develop data analysis algorithms, and design custom engineering user interfaces. With LabVIEW and NI DAQ hardware, you can build a custom measurement solution to visualize and analyze real-world signals to make data-driven decisions. Using LabVIEW and NI or third-party hardware, you can automate the validation of your product to meet challenging time-to-market and performance requirements. Working with LabVIEW, you can create flexible test applications that control multiple instruments and design user interfaces to optimize your manufacturing test throughput and operational cost. You can build industrial equipment and smart machines faster with LabVIEW.Starting Price: $453 per year -
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Autodesk Vault
Autodesk
Get your data under control and streamline workflows with product data management software. Autodesk Vault product data management (PDM) software integrates with Autodesk design tools and other CAD systems to keep everyone working from a central source of organized data. Use Autodesk Vault to increase collaboration and streamline workflows across engineering, manufacturing, and extended teams. Quickly find and reuse design data and minimize rework and repetitive tasks. Accelerate workstreams in a system that brings together internal and external collaborators. Achieve faster response times and fewer errors with automation and data accessibility. Tools for administrators, including configurable email notifications, help drive greater organizational standards for data creation, review and release processes, and industry standards. Stay connected and productive wherever you need to work. Access Vault data securely without the need for a VPN connection using the Vault client.Starting Price: $840 per year -
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PTC Windchill
PTC
PTC Windchill is a comprehensive product lifecycle management (PLM) platform designed to help manufacturers improve collaboration, data sharing, and quality control across global teams. It provides secure, role-based access to real-time product data, enabling streamlined product development and manufacturing processes. Windchill’s open architecture allows seamless integration with enterprise systems like SAP ERP, supporting a connected digital thread. The platform includes advanced features such as BOM management, engineering change control, manufacturing process management, and supply chain collaboration. Windchill leverages AI-driven insights and automation to enhance decision-making, reduce manual tasks, and accelerate innovation. Its flexible delivery options include on-premises and cloud deployment to fit diverse IT strategies. -
15
Siemens NX
Siemens
Siemens NX software is a flexible and powerful integrated solution that helps you deliver better products faster and more efficiently. NX delivers the next generation of design, simulation, and manufacturing solutions that enable companies to realize the value of the digital twin. Supporting every aspect of product development, from concept design through engineering and manufacturing, NX gives you an integrated toolset that coordinates disciplines, preserves data integrity and design intent, and streamlines the entire process. A generative design process is one that engineers can adopt to quickly develop new products based upon meeting design constraints. It is an iterative process that produces fast results the engineer can refine via constraint variation to narrow in on the best design to meet the requirements.Starting Price: $287 per month -
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Inventor
Autodesk
Professional-grade 3D CAD software for product design and engineering. Inventor® CAD software provides professional-grade 3D mechanical design, documentation, and product simulation tools. Work efficiently with a powerful blend of parametric, direct, freeform, and rules-based design capabilities. Work with anyone, anywhere no matter what CAD software they use. Use cloud-based design reviews to collect feedback from key stakeholders wherever they are. Follow the entire product development lifecycle with one data model. Design efficiently using specialized tools for sheet metal, frame design, and tube and pipe. Enable design, documentation, and process automation powered by iLogic. Access Inventor API to create your own add-ins. Go further by investigating Forge Design Automation API for running your job processes in the cloud.Starting Price: $2,190 per year -
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Ansys Discovery
Ansys
Ansys Discovery features the first simulation-driven design tool combining instant physics simulation, high-fidelity simulation and interactive geometry modeling in a single easy-to-use experience. By combining interactive modeling and multiple simulation capabilities in a first-of-its-kind product, Discovery allows you to answer critical design questions earlier in the design process. This upfront approach to simulation saves time and effort on prototyping as you explore multiple design concepts in real time with no need to wait for simulation results. Ansys Discovery answers critical design questions early in your process with speed and accuracy. Boost productivity and performance by eliminating long waits for simulation results. Discovery lets engineers focus on innovation and product performance. By answering critical design questions early in the process, thus decreasing engineer labor and physical prototyping costs, Ansys Discovery allows for a ROI boost across your organization. -
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Altair Inspire
Altair
Applied early in the product development lifecycle, Inspire accelerates the creation, optimization, and study of innovative, structurally efficient parts and assemblies through collaboration. Inspire's award winning user experience for geometry creation and modification can be learned in just a few hours, and delivers dependable Altair solver power. Structural analysis with the speed and accuracy of Altair® SimSolid®, as independently validated by NAFEMS, provides the ability to analyze large assemblies and complex parts. Dynamic motion simulation, including loads extraction, using the reliable multi-body systems analysis of Altair® MotionSolve®. The industry standard for structural efficiency, topology optimization by Altair® OptiStruct®, for the generative design of practical, viable, and manufacturable geometry. Inspire enables both simulation analysts and designers to perform what-if studies faster, easier, and above all earlier, encouraging collaboration. -
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VRED
Autodesk
Autodesk VRED is a professional 3D visualization and virtual prototyping software designed to bring complex data to life. It enables users to create high-quality renderings on-premises or in the cloud, visualize, review, and validate designs with ease and accuracy, and collaborate on any device, including virtual reality. VRED helps designers and engineers create product presentations, design reviews, and virtual prototypes using interactive GPU ray tracing and both analytic and cloud-rendering modes. It transforms complex design and engineering datasets into a holistic digital control model that can be used as a single source of truth. Users can access the latest design data anywhere, anytime, for high-quality collaborative review on desktop, mobile, or in VR using various utilities and streaming APIs. VRED supports features like data preparation, virtual prototyping, virtual photography, visual simulation, collaboration, and XR experiences. -
20
Creo
PTC
Imagine, design, create, and innovate your products better with Creo, 3D CAD/CAM/CAE software, and solutions for product design and development. Now, more than ever, product design and manufacturing teams are expected to create products more efficiently and cost effectively, without sacrificing innovation or quality. Fortunately, Creo delivers the most scalable range of 3D CAD product development packages and tools in today’s market. Creo 7.0 has breakthrough innovations in the areas of generative design, real-time simulation, multibody design, additive manufacturing, and others! Take your products from concept to digital prototype efficiently, precisely, and intuitively with Creo—on the cutting edge of CAD for more than 30 years. With Creo 7.0, PTC amply demonstrates its skill at adding compelling new features to an already robust tool-set using smart partnerships to extend its capabilities even further. -
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Aras Innovator
Aras
Aras Innovator uniquely offers one software platform for complete, end-to-end Product Lifecycle Management, from Requirements and Engineering to Manufacturing and Operation. Our applications are designed to be customized with an easy, low-code approach you can try today. Managing requirements is fundamental to designing great products. Learn how to author and manage requirements in the Digital Thread with Aras. Improve product development with more efficient and effective design processes, streamlining program and project management with powerful capabilities in Aras Innovator. Successful engineering changes are central to improving products and accelerating their development. Aras offers powerful capabilities to manage engineering change. Select, source, and compare electronic components to meet your products’ needs. Connect to a commercial database of millions of parts from leading global manufacturers. -
22
KeyShot
KeyShot
KeyShot brings you real-time 3D rendering that displays results instantly and reduces the time to create realistic product visuals. KeyShot is trusted by brands around the world for its speed, ease of use, scientifically accurate materials, and advanced material editing capabilities. Communicate your ideas easier, explore concepts sooner, and deliver jaw-dropping visuals faster – Try KeyShot today. KeyShot includes native support for over 30 leading 3D file formats. Free plugins offer one-click loading, while LiveLinking keeps your design in sync across applications. Whether it’s a small gadget or a massive assembly, using KeyShot means less time loading and more time creating. KeyShot includes over 750 preset materials, with thousands more on the KeyShot Cloud, and advanced capabilities to create your own. Apply textures, labels, and variations with ease. KeyShot’s powerful lighting, studio, and image tools allow you to capture and style the perfect shot, every time. -
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Bechtle PLM
Bechtle PLM
Bechtle PLM is a comprehensive product-lifecycle-management solution and service concept that helps businesses accelerate their time-to-market by strengthening the network of individual business segments and optimizing how they work together. It goes beyond core PLM components of design, production, and replacement parts management by offering a holistic approach that considers the entire IT landscape, including hardware, infrastructure, software, business applications such as BI, CRM, ERP, CAD, PDM, CAM, DMS/ECM, and AI, to create an integrated, turnkey PLM environment. The solution supports all lifecycle phases from beginning-of-life (product and design development), through middle-of-life (supplier collaboration, warranty, and product information management), to end-of-life (recycling, disposal, remarketing) and enables parallel development stages, improved information quality, reduced reliance on physical prototypes, and faster response times.
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