My company is currently evaluating STAR-CD and Fluent as potential CFD packages in-house. I would like to read some feedback from actual users of these softwares on the pluses and downfalls on their features.

To give you a few keywords to help you get an idea of what types of fluid dynamic problems my company anticipates dealing with. Hydraulic fluids, air, water, particulate, two-phase flow, cavitation, hysteresis, filtration & separation (porous media), laminar/turbulence, valves, manifolds, internal flows, pressure drop, dynamic fluid-structure interaction, steady/transient, force calculation, moving mesh. For more info, Pall Aerospace can be found on the web at https://www.pall.com/en/aerospace.html

Also CATIA CAD import.

I spent several months doing a side-by-side evaluation of Star-CD and Fluent. I eventually chose Star-CD, but my reasons are not entirely founded in technical issues.

A straight up comparison of solver capabilities and features will not produce a winner. Both codes are very solid and both provide similar solutions for a number of cases. Preprocessing for Fluent is done using Gambit, which is very easy to use. Preprocessing for Star-CD is done with Prostar (archaic) or with Pro-AM, an automatic mesher with some very interesting features (trimmed hexahedral cells, for one).

Both codes feature import capabilities, though, Star-CD seems to be geared more towards CAD integration (you can run Star-CD directly from Solidworks).

Star-CD has a very interesting feature in that it compiles the executable each time so that it optimizes memory utilization. This is important when dealing with limited resources.

In the end, Fluent works very well within its capabilities and is easier to get up-to-speed. Star-CD takes some time to learn, but has more flexibility and can solve a wider range of problems (IC engines, rotating frames, turbomachinery).