STAAD vs. competitiors 11

[Mark10]

My question is about which FEA software, with concrete plate design ability, is the best for the US. It seems that STAAD is the most popular and has the majority of the market. What are your opinions of STAAD overall and would you recommend buying it compared with competitors? I have reviewed STAAD, Robot, SAP200, IES VisualAnalysis, RISA 3D(No Concrete until 2002), and STRAP, but it is very hard to get a good grasp of the programs with demo versions and limited experience. From past threads it seems that RISA is the best, with STAAD offering many problems. Thanks for your input.

 

[Qshake]

SC, STAAD is cheap and as IMAGINEER points out it, it is not a bad frame analysis program. Now, you may think that it is easy to run over to another program but this is only recent for years REI has been the only provider of software in the lowend price range $2000-$4000. Most of the other packages were near $10,000. Thankfully, there are more and more companies venturing into the low-mid range market and thus I think we will see a big shift to other packages.