Ten things you need to know about OnShape

Launched this morning at 8am Pacific

 

1. It's free. No limited functions; no time-out bomb; no limit to online storage.

2. It is a history-based feature modeler that is also a direct modeler-editor; it employs features, extrusions, parts, and assemblies -- just like Solidworks users are used to using.

3. It is a pure cloud play that runs in desktop browsers and on apps specific to Android and iOS. There is no local version; there is no local install; there is no local saving of files.

The OnShape user interface, when the program first starts up in a Web browser

 

4. It uses Parasolid for the kernel; it uses D-cubed for constraints and other MCAD functions, like Solidworks.

5. Users can co-edit models down to the feature level, both editing the same feature.

6. If a server crashes, Parasolid moves your modeling session to another server automatically.

7. The free version makes your files public after the first five; to keep all your proprietary data private, you pay OnShape $100 a month.

8. To keep more than five files private on free account, you deactivate the other files (can't be viewed or edited, but are still sharable).

9. The $100/month includes unlimited file storage on the cloud, unlike any competitor. The free version gives you 5GB.

10. As of today, you can try it at www.onshape.com in any modern Web browser on all operating systems; there are separate apps for Android and iOS users.

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Link to OnShape presentation (PDF): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28941239/Onshape%20Press%20Kit%2003092015.pdf

 

Comments

[Andrew Kimpton]

Points 7 & 8 are not quite correct.

A free account can have as many private documents as you like, but only 5 documents can be marked as active. Only active documents can be edited.

Active documents are not public - unless you decide to share them publicly, but that's up to you. Active vs. public are two separate things.

[Mark Guthrie]

Ralph, thanks for the great overview. Btw, I think you may have a typo in #8. amount->account? 8. To keep more than five files private on free amount, you deactivate the other files (can't be viewed or edited, but are still sharable).

[Jeffrey]

Point 1 directly contradicts points 7-9.
If there was no limit to online storage you would be able to have an infinite number of private documents taking up an infinite amount of space. Instead you are limited to a few private documents and 5GB of storage, at least according to your points.

Now you are limited to 10 private documents with a total storage for private documents of 100 MB, and a total storage limit of 5 GB. Considering the size of the files, that is very little storage.