Seamless DWG compatibility? Really?

There are many low-priced AutoCAD clones on the market - some have already vanished, some new are coming. All of them are trying the same thing - mimick as much as possible the AutoCAD functionality plus UI, and achieve compatibility with the genuine AutoCAD DWG file format to capture (at least temporarily) some AutoCAD users.

One of the chinese AutoCAD clones was recently released in a new "plus" version with bombastic claims about "unprecedented" DWG compatibility and "50000 extremely rigorous drawing tests performed to guarantee seamless DWG processing".

We have tried to verify these claims with our own (both rigorous and not so rigorous) tests - a set of standard AutoCAD drawings and with our DWG benchmark test - Budweiser.dwg (www.cadstudio.cz/budweiser). Started with the Budweiser2013 version – this cannot be opened at all (OK, it a is a rather new format). But surprisingly, even the 2010 version of this test cannot be opened at all there - reporting an "unknown DWG format" (any AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT will read it reliably). But why unknown? Version 2010 DWGs should be already "seamlessly compatible"!

A converted version of this DWG test will finally open but then the Budweiser benchmark shows that all the following test cases fail: #7, #8, #11, #17, #18, #22, #25, #26, X (annoscale). So it makes rather a 70% compatibility, not the claimed 100% compatibility (if you can call anything below 100% a "compatibility"). None of the clones can also handle password protected and signed DWGs.

So the test results of this CAD tool are worse then those of other, older "noname" clones and only slightly better than in the previous version. Stay sceptical about bombastic claims...