

BricsCAD, on the other hand, trended upward in both cases and was even beaten out by AutoCAD 2021 on a warm start. Time to OpenĪs shown in the graph and table below, the time it takes AutoCAD to open remained consistent for a cold start and trended downward for a warm start. The methodology is explained in greater detail at the bottom of this post. Times were rounded to the nearest half-second. Times were taken at two points during startup: the time it takes for the program to open, and the time it takes to be able to execute commands.


Times were recorded for a cold start — opening the program after a computer restart — and a warm start — opening the program after it has already been opened during the session, which is typically faster than a cold start. BricsCAD V20 Ultimate was tested and compared to last year’s data for BricsCAD V19 Platinum. In addition to AutoCAD 2021, AutoCAD 2019 and AutoCAD 2020 were retested to ensure a fair comparison. The results: AutoCAD 2021 is a little quicker to start than its recent predecessors, while BricsCAD V20 is a little slower (but still faster overall than AutoCAD). With the recent release of AutoCAD 2021, we added its times — along with those of BricsCAD V20 Ultimate — to the rankings. Last year, we tested the startup performance of several versions of AutoCAD and BricsCAD to see how the speed has changed over the years, and compare the two programs.
