What is the difference between Carveco (Artcam Pro) and Aspire? This is what non users have been asking for a long time.
Bottom line is that there are many differences from toolpathing abilities to vector manipulation and relief editing. Carveco has many tools in it that simply don't exist in Aspire.
But I won't compare by using a cheap tool or cheap car analogy. A more accurate analogy IMHO lies in two different models of which both are very good. But one is a sedan and has one set of functions while the other is an SUV and has more functions. The average person doing the real work of designing their own models very quickly learns the limitations of a program. If you are not the type of person who is interested in doing the extreme learning curve in how to generate truly cool reliefs from scratch then you would likely never need the robust functionality of Carveco.
To me, the big difference at this time is that you can buy it for essentially the same price as Aspire. And if you find that you actually are getting into high level 3-d model creation, you can get your annual upgrades coupled with customer support for an annual maintenance. And if not, you have all the tools that are in Aspire plus many more than they likely ever will have.
They were and are programs aimed at 2 different levels of users.
I have been told that the introductory price is only going to be around for a few weeks.
For me personally, I bought Artcam Pro when I first got into CNC and after the split when a few former Delcam employees started Aspire with the purpose of designing a program at a much lower cost that would satisfy the needs of many users I wished them very well in their endeavor but never saw any reason to stop using Artcam and start using Aspire.