GrabCAD Workbench Is Discontinued: What Happened and What Teams Use Now

What happened to GrabCAD Workbench

Stratasys announced the retirement of GrabCAD Workbench in August 2022 and took the service offline on June 1, 2023. For teams running SOLIDWORKS® 3D CAD, Workbench had been the low-cost way to get version control and outside sharing without standing up a server.

The dates matter if you are writing an internal case for a replacement. This was a scheduled retirement with around ten months of notice, not an outage, and the product has not come back.

What Workbench did well

Worth being precise about this, because it defines what a replacement has to cover:

• No server to buy, configure or maintain
• Version control without the overhead of a full PLM rollout
• Sharing with customers and suppliers outside the company
• Preview and markup in a browser
• A SolidWorks plugin, so files were checked in and out from the CAD window instead of a separate app

For a team of five to twenty engineers that was enough structure to stop the usual shared-drive problems without turning it into an IT project.

What teams did next

Three routes, each trading something different.

Back to a shared drive

Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or a network drive. Cheap and immediate, and it holds up until two people open the same assembly. Shared drives sync files, not the relationships between files, so assembly references break when a part is moved or renamed, and nothing stops one engineer overwriting another's work. A file-level history is not the same thing as a version of an assembly.

Traditional on-premise PDM

A vault with a database and a server behind it. It handles references and check-in properly. The cost is setup time, hardware, an admin who owns it, and usually a VPN for anyone working outside the office. For a team that picked Workbench specifically to avoid that, it is a big step.

Cloud CAD document management

The category that grew into the space Workbench left: reference-aware file management delivered as a service, with browser access for reviewers. No server, and the CAD integration runs in SolidWorks rather than in a separate desktop app.

What to check when you evaluate a replacement

Most of the pain after a migration comes from the same handful of things. Check them before you commit a live project to a tool.

• Assembly references. Move a part, rename it, then open the top-level assembly. Do the references resolve, or do you get suppressed components?
• Where check-in happens. If an engineer has to leave the CAD window to check a file in, it gets skipped. Check whether it runs directly in SolidWorks.
• What a version actually is. Ask what gets captured on check-in, and whether you can open an older version of a part without restoring the whole project.
• Reviewer access. Can a client or a machinist open the model with no license, no account and nothing to install, and does their comment stay attached to the version they saw?
• Released files. Once something is approved for manufacturing, can it still be edited by accident?
• Getting your files out. Workbench taught this one. Check how you export everything, on demand, without opening a support ticket.

Where Sibe fits

Sibe is a collaboration-first CAD Document Management platform with a native SolidWorks add-in. Engineers check files in and out directly in SolidWorks and Sibe tracks every version. Assembly references update automatically when files are moved, renamed, deleted or imported.

Reviewers open a free Visitor Link in any browser, with no account and nothing to install, and their markups stay tied to the version they saw. Released files lock, and the approval sits in the audit trail. Sibe mirrors your folder structure in a local cache folder, so the way your team navigates files stays familiar.

Setup is the add-in, a workspace and a folder: live in under 20 minutes. No servers, no VPNs, no admin hassles.

The feature-by-feature detail is on the GrabCAD Workbench alternative for SolidWorks teams page.

Sibe and GrabCAD Workbench, side by side

Information on GrabCAD Workbench is based on publicly available product documentation and Stratasys announcements prior to the service's retirement on June 1, 2023, announced August 2022. GrabCAD is a trademark of Stratasys. Details reflect the product as it operated before shutdown.

FAQ

Is GrabCAD Workbench coming back?

There has been no announcement that it is. The service was retired on June 1, 2023 and has not returned.

Can I still get to my Workbench files?

No. There is no Workbench service to log into. Anything your team exported before the retirement date is wherever you saved it.

What do small SolidWorks teams use instead?

The three routes above: a shared drive, a traditional on-premise PDM vault, or cloud CAD document management. Teams that chose Workbench to avoid servers and admin usually land on the third.

Do reviewers need a SolidWorks license to see a model?

Not with a browser-based viewer. In Sibe, a free Visitor Link opens the model in any browser, with no account and nothing to install.

Where to start

Pick one project, not the whole vault. Import it, move a part, rename it, and open the assembly. That one test tells you more about a replacement than any feature list.

Book a free 20-minute demo and we will run version control on real SolidWorks files with you.