CATIA
Shares rank 26 of 27 CAD software by recommenders
Recommended as the professional CAD tool for aircraft and race cars. The common caveat is its high license cost.
Recommended as the professional CAD tool for aircraft and race cars. The common caveat is its high license cost.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 56%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Trusted where failure is not an option
“why do we design our fighter jets, Formula 1 cars, or Space X rockets in Dassault's CATIA or Siemen's NX”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “GenCAD” “you aren't going to risk using anything other than the likes of NX, Catia, Creo, or SolidWorks”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Apple's Dimensional Drawings” Used for fighter jets and F1 cars
“why do we design our fighter jets, Formula 1 cars, or Space X rockets in Dassault's CATIA or Siemen's NX”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “GenCAD” Standard alongside NX, Creo, SolidWorks
“you aren't going to risk using anything other than the likes of NX, Catia, Creo, or SolidWorks”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Apple's Dimensional Drawings”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
High license cost
“Unfortunately the P3 license costs like $15k per year, and it is f'in ugly clunky software.”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design” “CATIA with plugins can go up to 100k a year. That's what we currently pay”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit” “These software are expensive for personal projects.”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “Marble Fountain”
Other CAD software people recommend
The four most recommended other CAD software, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeCAD | 199 | 95 | 68% | 12 | 2 yrs13 owners | Approved |
| OpenSCAD | 173 | 87 | 66% | 12 | 9 yrs4 owners | — |
| Onshape | 65 | 21 | 76% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Autodesk Fusion 360 | 60 | 37 | 62% | 12 | — | — |
| CATIAThis page | 5 | 4 | 56% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Unfortunately the P3 license costs like $15k per year, and it is f'in ugly clunky software.”
“you aren't going to risk using anything other than the likes of NX, Catia, Creo, or SolidWorks”
“the German and French sides were using different versions of the CATIA PLM software”
“CATIA with plugins can go up to 100k a year. That's what we currently pay”
“why do we design our fighter jets, Formula 1 cars, or Space X rockets in Dassault's CATIA or Siemen's NX”
“I liked CATIA, but can't afford it at the moment.”
“The result was a nightmare though”
“These software are expensive for personal projects.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.