I hope you get a piece of better information for selecting the best software in the below link. The pros and cons have well expressed in detail by different perspectives and users.
In my view, I preferred ANSYS software for CFD analysis.
For CFD ansys-fluent (last editions) is better because it is suitable for fluid mechanics FEM projects. Solid works is good for modeling and designing such as machine parts
In my view, solidworks also better for CFD as many industry are using it as a 3D modeling and simulation. By my own experience, it's give good enough predictions.
But ansys is better because it's totally dedicated to simulation.
Solidworks is specified as CAD software and is known for designing geometry such as part, surface, etc. As Ravi Kumar mentioned, Ansys is dedicated to simulation. You can design the geometry in Solidworks and import it into Ansys. You should consider the cost of Softwares. Both of them can help you to simulate CFD. Solidworks flow simulation may be easier to simulate CFD but Ansys has more tools to approach the high-credit resultant.
I used to have Pro E long time ago. Now I am on Solidworks only because it has better GUI than Ansys. I use the models and drawing files and import them in any kind of CFD software too. So I am used to it .
However, ANSYS is the most robust numerical simulation software, specifically when talking about the CFD, or multiphysics (such as the solid-fluid interaction).
While Solidworks is the best for the CAD/CAM plus some numerical simulation, I can consider it as motion detection only, but not numerical simulation.
The thing here is that Dassault (founders of Solidworks) have the Solidworks for CAD/CAM and COMSOL for the numerical simulation.
COMSOL is a good competitor for ANSYS, however, ANSYS is still more robust,
Where in ANSYS you can control the whole case and its scenarios, while in COMSOL, the software build some parts of the case for you, hence all the beginners prefer COMSOL than ANSYS since it can help them and build some of the case.
Solidworks is not in this game at all. forget it here
use ANSYS or COMSOL.
The one who is better than all of these software is your own code,
You can build your own code for your case, you can use MatLab, or any other language, and customize your case as you want.
CFD Analysis is much better to get accurate (real time) results,t that to ANSYS FLUENT is very better to do fluid based problems, if the problem related to turbo machinery then CFX is suggested. Apart from this for meshing ICEM CFD is suggested for any type of anlysis.
Solidworks: for preliminary analysis. -> Easy, not time consuming, helpful during initial stages of design process. Ansys/Fluent (CFD): Accurate, detailed results, time consuming, can be used for final validation, verification.
As already mentioned, ANSYS has been a massive simulation tool used in the CFD industry over the years. However, it is worth mentioning that ANSYS (like all engineering software) is just a tool in which its accuracy and capabilities significantly depend on the user’s understanding and adequacy.
As already mentioned by many authors, the ANSYS-tool is the best selection for CFD calculation nowadays. Yes, it is actually a highly optimized commercial software for CFD. Moreover, users can update their modeling unit for a particular item by ANSYS, which is not available in the default setting of it, by hooking up UDFs (user-defined functions, which must be written by C++ according to ANSYS user manual ) with the ANSYS main solver. Hence, overall, it a promising software
Ansys is far better than Solid works. ANSYS is the most robust numerical simulation software, specifically when talking about the CFD, or multiphysics simulations