CNCCookbook 2021 CAM Software Survey [ What’s the best CAM? ]

Every year, CNCCookbook surveys readers on their CAM Software. The results provide an invaluable guide to CAM for the CNC World.  This year we received over 300 responses.

Product Managers at a variety of CADCAM companies, large and small, tell me they find the results very valuable in their own planning. There’s really no other source of information quite like these surveys, so I wanted to get these initial results out as soon as I could.

We’ve done these CAM surveys in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and now 2021, so there is historical data to compare against when looking for trends. Note that the 2021 results are actually 2020, we just felt it would look funny to publish 2019 in 2020, especially given we conducted the survey at the beginning of 2021.

As in the past, we divide the market into 3 segments:

• High-End:  More expensive packages with more functionality.
• Tiered:  Modular packages available in a range of configurations that span from the Low-End to the High-End.
• Low-End:  These are inexpensive packages often used by Hobbyists, but as we’ll see, at least one package has come up-market to the Professional World.

Let’s start by taking a look by category at market share.

CAM Software Market Segments

This year, High End CAM was 39% of our responses, Tier-priced CAM is at 53%, and the Low End is at 8%. These numbers are basically unchanged from last year’s results.

Whereas last year’s numbers reflected some loss of share of the High End to Fusion 360, this year’s numbers show that trend has stopped, at least for now.

CAM Software Market Share by Segment:  High End

This year, High End CAM market share is still led by Mastercam, which has an overall (across all segments) share of 28.9%. Last year they had 29.2% share, so they’ve contracted a bit.

In second place we have SolidCam at 7.9%, down from last year’s 9.5%. And in third place, PowerMill has risen from 3.2% to 6.1%.

CAM Software Market Share: Tiered Segment

In this category, Fusion360 leads, with 45% overall market share.  Vectric / Aspire showed the biggest change in going from 24.2% down to 20.5% this year. Most of the others didn’t change all that much.

CAM Software Market Share: Low End

CamBam remains #1 and even grabbed share to rise from 24% to 33%. MeshCam lost a little share, moving from 15% to 12%.

Overall CAM Software Market Share

Here are all segments in one graph so  you can see market share gains and losses overall.

Customer Satisfaction Awards

Which packages did customers love the most?  There’s a lot more detail in the eBook (see below), but here are the winners.

Tied for first place with very close scores are PowerMill and HyperMill:

Congratulations to the PowerMill team!  This marks the second time PowerMill took the gold as they also had it in 2016.

Congratulations to the HyperMill team!

The Silver Customer Satisfaction Award Winner this year is Mastercam:

Congratulations to the Mastercam team!

Customer Satisfaction Award Winners over the Years

We think the customer satisfaction awards are a big deal as they represent actual user's evaluation of the software.  After all, who would know more than actual users who live with a package day after day and use it to do their work?

Here is the roster of Customer Satisfaction Award winners over the years:

PowerMill 2021 & 2016
SprutCAM 2020 & 2016
SolidCAM 2018 & 2017
HyperMill 2021
Mastercam 2021
Siemens NX 2020
Gibbscam 2018
CamBam 2018
Surfcam 2017

If you'd like to learn more about the Customer Satisfaction Awards, for example the scores of all the top packages, refer to our eBook (see below).

More Results Coming: eBook

If you've seen the CAM Survey Results in prior years you'll know we have a lot more information.  I'm almost done analyzing the remaining information and will do another installment soon in the form of a detailed eBook.

The eBook will include all the information found in this article plus a lot more information I haven't mentioned here such as:

Here is some of the information yet to come:

• CAM Software Market share for CNC Router users.
• Market Satisfaction Winners:  These are the most-loved packages.  We'll give customer satisfaction scores for all packages so you can compare.
• CAM Software Gripes:  What did our audience dislike about the various packages?
• And a whole lot more.

Be sure you're subscribed to our blog newsletter so you don't miss these future installments.  There's a signup form right below.  If you're already subscribed, I will send you the eBook just as soon as it is ready.