Cradle 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

Overview

Cradle

4.4

(27)

Pricing

Starting at $449.00 one time

About Cradle

Cradle is a requirements management software that helps businesses create unique transitive links to manage full lifecycle traceability. The platform offers bi-directional control that enables managers to handle important data for various projects.

Key features include unlimited databases, user-defined queries, graphical traceability views, quality check information and key performance indicator (KPI) tracking. Additionally, Cradle lets stakeholders integrate the system with several third-party applications including Microsoft Word.

Cradle Screenshots

Cradle Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $449.00 one time

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

$449.00

per feature, one time

No plan information available

Cradle Features

Popular features found in Requirements Management
Budgeting/Forecasting
Change Management
Document Management
Lifecycle Management
Prioritization
Reporting/Analytics
Status Tracking
Task Management
Workflow Management
More features of Cradle
Access Controls/Permissions
Activity Dashboard
Agile Methodologies
API
Bug Tracking
Collaboration Tools
Customizable Reports
Customizable Templates
Data Import/Export
Document Storage
Drag & Drop
File Management
Multiple Projects
Projections
Project Planning
Requirements Review
Stakeholder Defined Attributes
Template Management
Third-Party Integrations
To-Do List
Traceability
Version Control

Cradle Integrations

Microsoft Word

Cradle User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.4

Ratings Breakdown

56%

33%

11%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

3.8

Value for money

4.4

Customer support

4.9

Functionality

4.4

Sarah K.

Verified reviewer

Aviation & Aerospace

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

Customers In Mind

I’m extremely impressed with the tool. I even enjoy having the capability to work in a sandbox area for practice. Training to excellent!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The developers kept the customer in mind when creating the tool. The user interface is very accommodating and easy to use. Capability to collaborate with other tools very helpful and a top requirement when choosing the right tool. The customer service is excellent! Always available and willing to work with the customer to the needs.

Cons:

I have not run into any cons. I’m impressed with the tool.

Vendor Response

Dear Ms Koctar Thank you very much for your very kind remarks about Cradle and particularly our support team! We are delighted that you have been pleased with Cradle over your years of using it and hope that when you need a RM / SE / MBSE / ALM tool, that you will once again rely on Cradle and 3SL! With best wishes Mark

Replied August 2018

Verified

Reviewer

Hospital & Health Care

5001-10000 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

Requirements Engineering Software - could not manage without it

From the initial engagement with the staff at 3SL through implementation and support we have been well supported. The few gaps we found for our particular use of have been filled as an enhancement, initially for us, but then will become part of the core product. A very responsive organisation. The flexibility of its metamodel (Schema) has allowed us to extend our use well beyond traditional Requirements Engineering. Where will Cradle take us next?

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Designed to manage engineering and operational requirements first. Will handle software requirements as well, but I like the fact that it uses terms recognised by civil, mechanical, electrical, marine, aerospace, automotive, nuclear engineers. Second important plus point is its graphical capability. To be able to show how a requirement links to a process or an organisation brings the whole subject of RE to life making it so much simpler to ensure users can record all their requirements and that they can verify that they have been met.

Cons:

The user interface is very traditional and is ready for a facelift. It works well for requirements engineers but is not as intuitive as would be needed for infrequent access and use by business users.

Vendor Response

Dear Sir / Madam Thank you for your kind remarks about Cradle and, in particular, our support team! These are very much appreciated. We are delighted that Cradle is delivering real benefits to you and that our enhancements have filled the gaps in Cradle's functionality! If you have a favourite style of UI - let us know! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL

Replied August 2018

Thomas W.

Entertainment

10000+ employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

Cradle Life

I have been working with Cradle for the past 12 years and have not found a SE tool with Cradles functionality. Other tools do not allow you to follow the complete System Engineering Process from Modeling all the way to retirement.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Modeling, Requirement Management, Click and Drag objects. Can support almost any SE task. Full SE life-cycle support capabilities.

Cons:

Performance, Web Access, Older looking, Proprietary Database, Difficult to integrate with other systems. Sometimes that amount of functionality makes it hard to remember how to use the system unless you are in it every day.

Vendor Response

Dear Mr Wieckowski Thank you for your kind remarks about Cradle. As a long-time user of Cradle, we apprecaite your remarks and your suggestions for improvements. We hope that you will find that our next release in a few months' time will answer these suggestions! We all forget some of Cradle's features from time to time - there are so many of them! Please consider searching the product's on-line help, contacting our support team, or browse our blog at: https://www.threesl.com/blog/ With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL

Replied August 2018

Frank S.

Electrical/ Electronic Manufacturing

201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

Usage and Administration of CRADLE

I think its a perfect tool to implement a process for requirements engineering at least to the level we are using it. (We don't do any modelling os far, also no systems engineering.)

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It covers almost every task you may encounter during requirements management process. If you get used to the interface it is very flexible and can easily be adopted to specific needs. The text format of the Cradle export files allows a lot of additional (specific) data processing.

Cons:

Actually I'm missing privileges to restrict link management (especially deleting a link). For people typically working with Microsoft Office application, the usage of CRADLE requires a change in mindset (but this may also be a 'Pros'). The upgrade process is really challenging for our IT. The direct connection of server and client version leads to a 1-day shutdown of CRADLE and parallel distributing of the clients to a lot of computers. The Document Publisher is really hard to use. Template definition requires a lot of effert and experiments until it is running. The publishing process is too time consuming.

Vendor Response

Dear Mr Schindhelm Thank you for your review of Cradle and your kind remarks! We can help you with automated distribution and installation of Cradle clients. You can limit the ability to delete links in thr user-defined link rules - please contact me for details. I agree that configuring templates to publish documents can be complicated. I know that you have some exceptionally complex documents to produce - which is why we built some templates for you! You are welcome to add some MBSE to you Cradle system at any time - please contact me for details! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL

Replied August 2018

Verified

Reviewer

Oil & Energy

5001-10000 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

A very valuable and customizable RM Tool

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

CRADLE is a very mature solution, pefectly suitable for large scale requirements engineering projects. It can perfectly be adapted to any business model, process, allowing very specific customization (using an API for interface developments interacting with the tools database). Data access control can be tailored to match a projects organization, data configuration management is very precisely ensured. A wide range of file formats is proposed for interfaces with the external world (for imports, exports, or as attachments) 3SL Team offers a very good support and service when required.

Cons:

The interface of the client could be considered as a bit stark and old fashioned. (we did not worked with web interfaces) Unfortunately, only one baseline can be open at a time, validated alternatives could only be managed using distinct objects. User experience for Verification & Validation process (using workflows) could be enhanced (reviews by validator is to be preferably done using XLS exports) Source document import using Doc Loader (Word format) can be a difficult experience for docs with complex structure, and could allow more possibilities (table patterns)

Vendor Response

Dear Sir / Madam Thank you very much for your review of Cradle and for your kind remarks. We will be pleased to discuss any details that you may have for improvements to the UI, the loading of source documents and the CM system. We are, however, pleased that the workflow mechanism provides the degree of control that you need to ensure traceability and integrity of your project data. Please contact me directly at your convenience! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL

Replied September 2018

Stephen W.

Design

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

Excellent Requirements Management Tool

I have been very impressed with Cradle, import and export of data is more robust and much more deterministic over my previous RM tool. The ability to perform analysis from source requirements through to verification steps and make edits in the same view is very powerful. The further my project has developed the value of Cradle has become very apparent, even for small projects where a spreadsheet in the past may have been used, we will use Cradle.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The software is highly flexible and once you understand how to setup the items you can use the tool for many aspects of a project at various stages of the project life-cycle. Outstanding linkage and traceability features, nested views is a very powerful and simple method to carry out detailed traces. Great Customer support.

Cons:

Being a flexible tool it can take a bit of time to get used to particularly in you have come from other RM tools that work in a particular way. I recommend getting training on the tool if you need to get going on a project straight away. Once you understand the basic principles it becomes easy to use. Some elements of the user interface could do with improvement especially around the layout of forms but this is only minor and does not impact of the capability of the Cradle.

Vendor Response

Dear Mr Walton Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your encouraging remarks about using Cradle and extending its use across your process. I am particularly pleased that you have been able to load your data easily and see real benefits from using Cradle's traceability, unique indirect (transitive) cross referencing and nested tables! As ever, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL and our local partner at any time - we are always ready to help! With best wishes Mark

Replied August 2018

Alberto B.

Verified reviewer

Airlines/ Aviation

10000+ employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2018

Cradle As a Transformative Tool

Design data for in flight entertainment software and hardware. Integrated ground station-satellite-aircraft connectivity networking and architecture.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Ease of configuration management for large groups of design data. Ease of training new users. The degree that an administrator can enact global database schema changes with no error. The ease with which the schema for item types can be defined. The ability to feed simulation using design data and schedules as well as DRM (design reference mission) Idef architecture. The tool suite presents a single integrated environment to link design architecture, requirements, and specifications in a conguration controlled database.

Cons:

export to Excel and WORD required significant post production cleanup or scripting.

Vendor Response

Dear Mr Blanco Thank you very much for your review of Cradle and your kind remarks. We will be pleased to discuss your needs for publishing to Excel and Word at your convenience! Please contact support@threesl.com and let's work these issues! With best wishes Mark Walker 3SL

Replied September 2018

Dmiriy M.

Verified reviewer

Computer Software

51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed August 2018

Review from Russia for best regards to Cradle

When developing a large volume of requirements (a large project), it is very difficult to track their interrelation. When making changes in requirements it is difficult to track other objects in the project they are concerned with. May be errors. I develop requirements and publish them in Word documents for my team. Due to the convenient possibility of tracing requirements in Cradle, changes in requirements and publication of changes are very simple and error-free.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The Cradle allows you to present complex things and objects very simply . The software helps to structure thinking process in the design of complex systems. The Cradle is avelible adaptable for any project ( software design, submarine design , etc.)

Cons:

It would be difficult for me to deal with the program myself.

Vendor Response

Dear Mr Makarov Thank you for your very kind remarks about Cradle, we are very pleased that it is providing a benefit to you and your colleagues! Both 3SL and our colleagues in Russia will do everything that we can to ensure that Cradle continues to meet your needs! With best wishes Mark

Replied August 2018

Bernard C.

Verified reviewer

Management Consulting

201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2018

Tools to easy manage requirements, configuration and documentation for systems

Once configured, it has very simplified the complex systems definition (including sysml design), taking care of the different roles in the organisation.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Previously 5

Functionality

Pros:

Provide all you need to manage your system requirements, configuration and documentation during all its life cycle.

Cons:

Because of its very large functionalities and organisation support, needs time to configure and administrate.

Alexey S.

Verified reviewer

Airlines/ Aviation

201-500 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed September 2018

Pilot using 3SL Cradle in a simple airborne project

Cradle helped us made our exterior light project in short time without sufficient problems. Russian support team from Saturs is great.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It's flexible. Cradle API allows to access projects database using C language library. It helps to integrate different tools like change management system with requirement management system (Cradle). Cradle has very customizable templates to import and export requirements from/to Word documents. Cradle has both Windows and Linux client and server applications.

Cons:

It makes use special tricks to use common parts of requirements as separate project. It's no trivial.

Vendor Response

Dear Mr Savin Thank you for your review of Cradle and for your very positive assessment of Cradle and, in particular, our colleagues in Russia! We are very pleased that you are being successful in your use of Cradle, and we are delighted that you would be likely to recommend Cradle to other people! With best wishes Mark

Replied September 2018

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