This is interesting.
https://www.getbild.com/
Looks like they are on the right track for small teams using Solidworks.
Started in 2021.
I tested Bild. It seems promising. It is young and clearly missing some things, but lots of improvements planned for 2023. It reads properties from Solidworks very efficiently.
Generally fast both directions - around 9MB/s (not perfect, but better than other PDM systems on cloud or VPN).
It has a desktop app instead of a plugin for Solidworks, and I’m fine with that.
Did you got with Bild or something else?
I didn’t yet, but it’s still a contender. They are rapidly making improvements based on customer feedback. Their crew doesn’t seem to have deep real-world PDM and manufacturing experience - which means they sometimes reinvent the wheel in odd ways, but mostly the user interface is good.
I doubt it will ever be as industrial as something like Solidworks PDM (I wouldn’t even want it to get bloated and do all the same stuff), but it could totally be a good solution for the right companies. It’s clearly faster and easier to implement and use than Solidworks PDM Professional (and Enovia 3DExperience). In many cases it’s easier than PDM Standard. The cloud access and no server hardware is a fabulous aspect. Bild is more practical than the best GrabCAD Workbench attained.
Where it doesn’t measure up is things like:
• Cleaning up 100 or 1000 files. No Dispatch scripts.
• No FVUT (File Version Upgrade Tool).
Understandable why they don’t have those things.
• Search tool (much improved in Q4 2024) could use more work. It’s fine on the basics of finding items.
Bild is really good at reading Solidworks metadata - but could use some interface tweaks last I saw. I haven’t fully tested writing both directions.
Yeah…after researching them I figured that could be the case. Most all of their software development is done in India. I’ve worked with groups there and in other countries our company outsources software dev with, and the biggest problem is finding people who understand engineering and manufacturing and the lingo. They know how to code well and have good IT standards, but don’t usually know why and how it should work. At least enough to ask the right questions.
I’m not a fan of the data living on their servers.
The data security issue doesn’t worry me more than other solutions, or only a little bit more. Data isn’t on Bild’s servers, but they would have some access (that’s the part that worries me a bit). It’s probably on Amazon like everything else. Bild can be ITAR Compliant, and they mention “Teams that have additional security requirements can leverage Bild hosted on AWS GovCloud”.
They are charging for storage, which is what made me assume that was a requirement.
They not doubt have access to your data. The question is how they protect and limit access to it internally.
Looks like they changed the pricing scheme from per user to a group. Like most cloud services, once in they can raise prices that force you to pay unless you want to go thru the headache and expense and evaulating a replacement and then migrating your data.
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A lot of subscription services have started selling only bundles. You have 3 employees? Great, buy the 5 seat package.
Maybe the “no upfront cost” for the customer really shifts it to them. So selling one license is not enough anymore, especially for niche software.
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I’m seeing $600/month and $1500/month (your image shows $750 and $1850 recently). If you have 10 users - $1800/year/editor for Professional. It’s a decent deal. I didn’t go with Bild, but I wish I could, it would be easier to deploy and admin - no server, much less IT involvement. Bild has continued to make improvements.
Products like this struggle with appropriate pricing - adjusted to bring in more people and support them. Yes, they want to make more profit, but I think there is a real survival and growth aspect. We want them to grow and be stable, so I’ll given them some benefit of the doubt.
I’m not a fan of inflexible grouping, but I can see having some minimum size (3 isn’t bad). 10 is too many, there are lots of smaller teams which could benefit. They may have realized it’s about as much support work for 3 people as it is for 6 users, so they are trying to get larger customers, but I don’t like that 10 minimum for Professional. What if instead they just billed some extra if a small team overused support?
I had monthly pricing selected, if you pay per year its 20% off. More than likely you would do annual unless you were evaluating.
I think for smaller teams, pricing is ok. It’s difficult to compare as pricing is not apples to apples. Bild Pro is 10 editors and 15 viewers, named user. PDM Pro licensing is floating, so you might not need 10 cad editor licenses and 15 viewers, maybe 5-7 cad editors and 10 viewers, just depends on if your team is in the system daily or doing other things.
I do wish I could see more of Bild’s functionality. It does have built in ECO whereas in PDM you have to sort of hack it in. But where are the limits, how robust is the api, just not much to see. For our company, I think we are too large, we are moving up to Windchill from PDM. If you think PDM is expensive, then don’t even glance at Windchill. It does alot though.
Yes, “sticker shock” is real!
When you can’t find the price, it’s not a good sign.