Revit Architecture vs Bentley Architecture

[stuart.hood447743]

I'm sure that this has been debated many times before, but I'm new to this forum so please forgive me....

Can anyone offer any (unbiased?!) advice on the relative merits of Revit Architecture compared with Bentley Architecture. We are currently MicroStation users about to make the transition to BIM. Internally, opinions are divided about whether it would be better to stay with Bentley or switch to Revit and there are pros and cons either way.

Any MicroStation users out there with an opinion on this?

[DoTheBIM]

I'm sure that this has been debated many times before, but I'm new to this forum so please forgive me....

Can anyone offer any (unbiased?!) advice on the relative merits of Revit Architecture compared with Bentley Architecture. We are currently MicroStation users about to make the transition to BIM. Internally, opinions are divided about whether it would be better to stay with Bentley or switch to Revit and there are pros and cons either way.

Any MicroStation users out there with an opinion on this?Kind of hard to get unbiased opionion from a biased forum ;)

What are the reasons given for being divided internally?

[aellsworth]

I can only give you second hand info. but my last firm did quite a bit of research in the decision making process. We were a Microstation based office planning the transition to BIM. So we had 2 people get trained in Bentley Architecture. Their experience was that Bentley Architecture was completely different from MicroStation, so much so that all of our Microstation experience wouldn't do any good.
Following that it seemed that the two packages had similar enough capabilities, but Revit has much more market share, and much of the power of BIM comes from having the entire team participating and not just the architect. So we went with Revit.

[stuart.hood447743]

Our main CAD manager is an expert MicroStation user and has been using it for approx 18 years and regards it as being far superior to AutoCAD (but that's a discussion for a different forum!). He has already been using MicroStation for 3D design of certain building elements (without the Bentley Architecture GUI) with some success. Even though the popularity/simplicity of Revit and the alleged steep learning curve / complexity of Bentley Architecture is being acknowledged by him he is still a MicroStation man through and through!! His level of expertise may make the BA learning curve shorter and less steep than for others.

Also, the short term costs are much lower for Bentley compared to Revit. There are concerns about Revit file size, hardware requirements, interoperability etc

[DoTheBIM]

Our main CAD manager is an expert MicroStation user and has been using it for approx 18 years and... The more experience the more bias no matter how hard one tries not to bias. All valid points of view though. I'll let others state the flip side for revit. In the end you'll or someone will have to decide what is best for that situation, short term, long term, learning requirements, hardware investment, etc...

[pirate123]

As a user of the Bentley Microstation and Triforma for over 20 years and now a Revit user for the past 12 months, I believe that both packages have their own pros and cons. I personally preferred Microstation for the vast amount of tools available to expedite free form modelling for Architectural projects - Revit seems very limited and restrictive with only allowing certain tools to be available during any particular process which I find extremely frustrating. Bentley has advanced in leaps and bounds whereas Revit seems to have stagnated. I totally agree with stuarthood " .... the short term costs are much lower for Bentley compared to Revit. There are concerns about Revit file size, hardware requirements, interoperability etc".... Have a nice time with the argument and good luck My biased vote ...Bentley...

[gtarch]

We were Microstations users for a good while, and we switched to ADT around 05. Even thought we felt at the time that Microstation was a superior platform.

We just got tired of being the 'only Microstation user in town'. We were spending a lot of time with file translations, finding/training stafff, etc. It just got really old. And it was costing us time, money and accuracy (all those ****** file transfers). And Clients would ask why aren't you using ACAD (what's wrong with you), and on and on.

We're Revit now. I imagine that Bentley coexisting in a Revit-Dominated environment would be even worse, because 3d/BIM is more complex. Manufacturers are starting to offer revit families, for example. Good luck finding anything like that for Bentley.

There are a lot of costs to swimming against the tide. Even if 'Bentley is Better' (and I have no idea whether it is or isn't)

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[MikeJarosz]

Indeed swimming beg a huge cost and swimming pool required a big capital.

Even SOM gave up swimming against the tide. SOM wrote its own CAD system starting in the late 60s. It was very, very good. But you won't get anyone who never used it to admit that uncomfortable reality. I mastered it and used it over twelve years. Finally, as the partners and senior staff who supported the system retired or moved on, (i.e. Faslur Khan) support for the "go it alone" approach evaporated. It was the translation issue that was the final blow. There were so many features that had no equivalent in Acad, a translation resulted in a totally dumbed-down file. Eventually Acad 12 was brought in. I was instantly a dummy. I went from a UNIX master administrator to typing in all caps. That will happen to your seniors too.

I did try Microstation once. Never quite got the hang of it because it was on my own time and had no real project. As far as being the only Microstation user in town, I understand the only industry that uses Microstation is the transportation industry. Unless you are a transportation specialist, Microstation becomes an also ran.