SolidWorks

Raised as a usability problem by 19 people on Hacker News over 12 years (2015–2026), in 20 threads.

People raised many different problems with SolidWorks, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 23 complaints

Lines and vertices have 1-pixel hitboxes, so selecting them to add dimensions is maddening at 4K2026-02-13
Student license user finds the software frustrating to use2026-01-13
Tough to learn; frustrating when software forces addressing hidden assumptions2026-01-13
UI relies on hidden conventions; tutorials point to buttons that moved or no longer exist2026-01-12
Simple modeling tasks take ages of clunking through the UI2024-09-03
Older versions become unusable on HiDPI displays, forcing paid upgrades2023-01-12
Software is sluggish and not as responsive as the commenter wants2022-06-13
BOM export workflow is ridiculously drawing-oriented and awkward to use2022-05-02
Submodules feel jammed together with inconsistent interface and experience, making it frustrating and unstable2022-03-11
Using SolidWorks is so unpleasant the commenter dreads starting it2022-03-10
Interface described as a horrible design-by-committee abomination, cluttered with trash over a good core2021-11-18
Modeling simple shapes takes far longer than sketching them by hand2021-06-17
File versioning is needlessly complicated and frustrating, especially for less tech-savvy designers2021-06-15
Orientation popup must be closed with the mouse and can resize into a mess2020-06-06
Must fill a form, then get pushed into a sales call and in-person meeting to buy2020-03-10
Author could never figure out how to do anything in it2019-08-23
Existing CAD tools need heavy discipline and full-time staff to set up and maintain versioning2019-03-05
Horrible UI, along with random crashes and annoying license management2019-01-02
Touchpad navigation in CAD and PCB tools needs too much clicking and precise movement2018-06-14
Newbie couldn't make sense of the interface and gave up on it2017-05-23
Advanced modelling becomes unintuitive, with hidden features and workflows hard to figure out2016-11-19
Assembly files change whenever a component file changes, even without assembly changes2016-08-28
Rebuilding models pops up many windows and forces single-instance serialization, slowing workflows2015-03-23