Manufacturability tools compared — where does your CAD live during analysis?
When a product designer reviews STP/STEP files for manufacturability, the biggest difference between tools is where the file is processed. Fabdose keeps it on your computer. Most alternatives upload it to the cloud.
Feature comparison
| Capability | Fabdose | Cloud Manufacturability SaaS | Quote services |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where your CAD is processed | On your computer (local) | Vendor server | Vendor server |
| Internal NDA / security review | Not required | Required | Required (separate contract) |
| Time to first result | < 1 min (local analysis) | 30s ~ several minutes (upload + queue) | 1 ~ 3 business days |
| Free tier | 5 analyses forever, no card | Trial → $40~200/mo | $80~500 per quote |
| Lock-in | None (local rules keep working after cancel) | Access ends with subscription | Vendor-specific quote (non-portable) |
| Report language | Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese (designer vocabulary) | Mostly English (engineer vocabulary) | Vendor-specific (shop-floor terms) |
Grounded in standards
The same material can have different minimum wall thickness or shrinkage limits depending on the process. We analyze against industry standards like ASTM and NADCA, and process-specific design guides.
This sourcing applies to material properties and process thresholds. Geometry checks like wall thickness or undercuts are computed directly from your uploaded file.
Honest limits
Fabdose doesn't catch every manufacturability issue. It's a heuristic, rules-based pre-check. It does not replace supplier review at quoting time — it lets designers filter out the obvious rejection reasons *before* requesting a quote.
Available today. Plastics: injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, thermoforming, compression molding, plastic 3D printing. Metals: CNC machining, sheet metal, die casting, metal 3D printing. More processes are added once their rules hold up on real files.