hi,

I searched everywhere for a recent price comparison between to most known commercial CDF soft... but didn't find anything worth... Till now I've only contacted ANSYS for a price list (had to go to a meeting with sellers pretending to be a customer and... a few weeks later a got the answer). The answer was (VAT NO INCLUDED IN PRICES):

ANSYS CDF-Flo (v11, I guess) Standalone - €29,530 + €5,512 annual license & updates (called TECS ANSYS CFX-Flo Standalone) + €900 Introduction curse (they said its an offer... wtf?! I don't need this)

ANSYS Professional NLT - €17,170 (This is a module that I thought it was included in CFX, but no...) + €3,260 annual license (called TECS...) + €1,500 Introduction curse (I guess this is WORKBENCH)

ANSYS design modeler - €4,410 + €850 annual license (who the f... uses this anyway?)

The result was more than €60k (VAT not included) to pay in 30 days.

So, in order to avoid meeting with all CFD providers can someone PLEASE post the current price instead of saying that its "around 20-40"?!?

I would really like to know the STAR-CD price.

Thanks in advance

antbot

Hi That's pretty difficult to get the price list for a commercial CFD software.

After comparing CFX and CCM+ for 2 months, I opted for CCM+. I got a great package including a first class CAD package that was cheaper than CFX plus their design modeller.

I find CCM+ great, it's still lacking a few features compared to star CD but it's so easy to work with and looks really good.

Also you know what you purchase. CFX people really annoyed me because they let me try something (CFX fully unbundled) and I realised that the quote that they gave me was for bundled.

There is also lots of extra in CFX that I thought were included in mny quote but were not in fact

fully unbundled was maybe 30% extra or something like that

If CCM+ contains the features that you need (it does have heaps of stuff: for example it has k epsilon, k omega, Reynold Stress, DES, LES turbulence models etc..) I think you should seriously consider CCM+

The cost to the customer of commercial CFD software varies from zero to the sorts of prices you are quoting depending on the costs and likely benefits to the CFD company of the customer using the code. If you engaged in a serious evaluation of several CFD codes you would soon find that the price companies pay is not fixed.

First of all with CD-adapco products I would like to know whether of not you need STAR-CD or STAR-CCM+. This affects the list price. The first product is 30K and the second product is 24K. This is the standard price for the two processor license. Extra parallel domains (HPC) at 3.25K each.

STAR-CCM+ can be more expensive than STAR-CD because it uses a serial solver for parallel CFD, where as STAR-CD does not. 1 four processor job in STAR-CD needs 4 HPC at 13K, but in STAR-CCM+ terms this becomes, 1 serial license at 12K + 3 HPC at 9.75K. Ouch. Mirror licensing first, mirror pricing ?

adapco sometimes messes this lot up by selling the completely obsolete license of 1 STAR solver + 1 pro-STAR.

The US price is in USD and in the EU it is Euros. So EU clients currently pay well over the odds compared to the US.

Basic training is usually 550 per day per person and 750 per day per person for advanced training.

User support is included as standard. No price reduction for skilled users who don't need the service.

Just like ANSYS products there are bugs in the software, but any bugs alive after three versions automatically becomes an old friend since your are on friendly terms with them.

In your posted message you mention CFX and not Fluent. When did ANSYS start charging the Fluent price for that product? When ANSYS first bought out CFX it resorted to price dumping to get market share. I am hearing from friends, romans and countrymen that ANSYS has jacked up the price of CFX recently.

Regards

Thank u all for the help, I understand prices r different, depending on the needs of each client. I forgot to tell that ANSYS seller asked me if the application of the product had anything to do with Universities or Scientific Laboratories (non-profit). If that was the case they could make 20% discount on the price.

Let me just tell u that I use CDF as mechanical engineer (I had close contact with ANSYS-CFX on MSC degree), and recently I thought starting a company providing CFD services... I would use CFD for relative simple but general consulting proposes (aerodynamics mostly). I mean I'm not interested on running complicated CFD code and advanced clustering computing, but more like a good GUI environment. I manage how to test STAR-CD and I had a lots of problems trying to know how to start for example. I must say that, from a n00b point of view STAR-CD needs some GUI improvements. Taking only the GUI in to account I can't even agree that CD-ADAPCO and ANSYS are direct competitors (I've also tried ANSYS 11 and it looks almost perfect).

So, considering that START-CD's price is on the same level, may I conclude that ANSYS is the best choice for me at the moment?

Thanks again

It depends what you are doing, if you can do it in STAR-CCM+ its a fair bit cheaper and a lot nicer GUI....

Interesting response. I agree that the front end of STAR does look obsolete, but pro-STAR is essentially coming to the end of its life. STAR-CCM+ is moving forwards and in 2009 will be at least 90% as capable as STAR. Right now CD-adapco is in a transition period between core products.

There is more to STAR than its current lack of pretty packaging. ANSYS has a suit of products and the packaging is simply a sexy dress and grease paint covering the parts underneath. STAR and a few others are behind on the integration game because they are separate outfits with independent products. Do not read automatic merger into that statement.

Also the discount level of non-profit or academic applications is somewhat larger with CD-adapco.

Look past the cosmetic surgery and currently STAR is lower in price per application than Fluent or CFX stitched into a surgically enhanced workbench.

As for putting list prices online. Not a problem provided the same list is quoted to clients in the same market. It is only a problem if variable pricing in the same country occurs, i.e. overcharging some.

Can someone kindly put the Fluent list prices for the EU and US online? For comparison purposes.

For me a combination of getting an accurate answer at a reasonable speed coupled to price is important. My position on`software is as follows: could be better, should be cheaper.

The value of software is the price the market is prepared to pay for the product and not a one sided demand for the list price or get lost. They are alternative software solutions and we have an internal project to grow the use of OpenFOAM on the non-profit R&D work we perform under contract. This is our response to being forced up the price escalator. It is a route that others should follow.

Regards

"ANSYS has a suit of products and the packaging is simply a sexy dress and grease paint covering the parts underneath." ROFLMAO

Right now I'm testing STAR CCM+ and its definitely better looking. About its capabilities I can't comment because I'm not that good a this...

For what I've seen, most of you prefer CD-ADAPCO's products and consider them better built, despite of its "roots" front end.

I think I need to be more mature on CDF before any precipitated choice of software to the start up company.

About OpenFOAM, I've heard its the most promissory open source CFD code. As soon as I have time I'll test it as well and help the community. This reminds me Win vs Linux

Regards

> I think I need to be more mature on CDF before any precipitated choice of
: software to the start up company.

Several of your statements such as the importance of GUIs and the lack of interest in parallel computations markedly distinguishes you from those with CFD expertise. Gaining CFD expertise before investing substantial time and money in particular commercial CFD software has got to be wise.

In addition, if you perform CFD simulations as a contractor for a company they will often tell you which CFD software they want you to use and provide access and/or funding for it. This may not be the case at the bottom end where the company has little to no CFD experience and wants CFD simulations at low cost. Unfortunately, here you are likely to be competing with contractors that have obtained their software at zero cost making it almost impossible to be competitive on price. To successfully charge higher rates you will probably need CFD expertise in order to work more efficiently and reliably making you worth paying a higher rate.

> About OpenFOAM, I've heard its the most promissory open source CFD
: code.

Opinions will differ about that. It has its strengths and weaknesses.

> As soon as I have time I'll test it as well and help the community.

If you are looking to use CFD software as a job rather than a hobby then I would suggest giving little weight to helping the community. Use open source software because it makes business sense.

> This reminds me Win vs Linux

There are some similarities and some differences. The biggest similarity probably concerns performing a sensible cost comparison. In many areas Windows is far cheaper than Linux although scientific computing is not one of those areas.

The biggest difference is that anybody interested in computers can help out with Linux as a hobby but this is not the case with CFD software. Firstly, a high level of expertise is required to effectively develop CFD software and, secondly, most with this expertise are already employed to use it in their day job making their employers the copyright owners of CFD software whether the employee writes it in their spare time or not. This requires the employer to agree to allow the employee to contribute and this is not always going to be forthcoming. It would be forthcoming if the company itself can earn money from the open source software but this has not yet reached critical mass yet with any CFD software I know about.

ant -

If you decide you need a commercial tool for your biz you should explore how flexible different CFD s/w vendors are. Perhaps they'd consider a royalty payment scheme in the beginning (e.g. you give them a % cut of your revenues from customer projects); when your business ramps up you could then shift to standard licensing. What I'm saying is that many CFD vendors, especially the smaller ones, are willing to be creative.

Open source is certainly the most attractive financially, but without experience it's very risky.

Go find a good CFD vendor to act as a partner - you could rely on their expertise to support you as you build up your own knowledge. My $0.02.

-Fred

thanks Andy

nice tip Fred,

that could be my best option!

anyway I've delayed the project for about a year... Now I'm using STAR-CD to help me with a cooling system design on a huge project. It will keep me busy for wile

thank you all