I’m using Fusion360, and I dislike it for a lot of reasons, but it’s easy to use. I tried FreeCAD, but it was very janky in comparison. Shapr3D was surprisingly good, but there’s no way I’m paying monthly for my hobby usage. I need precision prints, so I can’t just use Blender or similar.
Is there some magical unicorn software I’m not finding?
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Fusion360 for non-organic and Blender (with add-ons) for organic. I don’t like fusion360 for organic stuff. FreeCAD was supposed to get a big update at some point but I never tried it. Autodesk Inventor was alright but I didn’t like it as much as Fusion360.
FreeCAD, as of today, looks and feels like it was made in 2010 or earlier. I’m sure there is a type of person who FreeCAD check all their boxes and excites them to no end, but I am, sadly, not in that group.
Default look n feel does feel a couple of decades outdated. But it can easily be customized to look look much more modern and comfortable.
Youtube tutorials on how to get started often begins with customizing the user interface before even starting the modeling tutorial. I recommend Deltahedra and Mangojelly on YouTube
FreeCAD, and I recommend you give it a second try, while watching the excellent tutorials from Deltahedra and Mangojelly on YouTube. Lots of the jank can be avoided if you only know how, so the tutorials are extremely useful.
FreeCAD has gotten exponentially better with each release the last few years, and both active developers and funding/donations from users have increased exponentially. The future is bright. And unlike the “free” commercial programs, FreeCAD is immune to future rug-pulls and enshitification.
You might also want to try https://dune3d.org/ , a relatively new 3D CAD software
FreeCAD for most things. Microcad for anything I need to script. I hear OpenSCAD is promising.
FreeCAD, but (from a pure usability perspective) OnShape is quite good if you just want something done (note my CAD usage is fairly limited).
FreeCAD. It’s janky, absolutely, but it’s quite powerful once you get used to it. Improved a lot with the latest major update as well.
I also tried OpenSCAD for a bit. As someone with a programming background, I really like the principle of how it works. But ultimately, I found it way too limiting.
I used OpenSCAD for a bit, and it’s good for simple things where clicking is far less efficient. I once needed a plate with a set of holes. OpenSCAD was great.
Look up how to use FreeCAD’s spreadsheet.
I’m still learning FreeCAD, but so far is seems just fine to me! Just different from what I am used to. But there are a few good channels on YouTube that do good tutorials
What are you used to?
Everyone is wrong. OpenSCAD is so much better than anything else. It’s so much easier to just write code. I regret wasting so much time learning Fusion.
SolidWorks
Do make sure to retry freecad if you havent in a while - they finally merged their big update that made faces not break - its still got a learning curve but its far less frustrating now
FreeCAD, but basically because it was free and open source when I started learning (which wasn’t long ago anyways)
Fusion 360 as well. I think it’s great for rapid development, I’d love some of the paid options but not enough. Haven’t found anything else that comes close to its power whilst still costing nothing.
Blender for most things, freecad sometimes
I use FreeCAD, Fusion, and Solidworks. I don’t love freecad as it’s unintuitive and clunky. Solidworks is powerful and okay but I often find myself fighting with it.
Fusion, so far has been the one I like most, but it doesn’t run on Linux which forces me to keep my MacBook around. The collaboration features in fusion are good and it handles step files way better than solidworks does.
I know Rhino is really good for the price, so maybe consider testing it out. I believe the licensing is perpetual.
OnShape is what I use. Fusion is fine, but a little heavy for me.
FreeCAD is just slightly too clunky for what I use it for, but I’ll keep trying every release to see if I change my mind.
In the meantime, OnShape is cross platform cause it’s all in browser and I don’t care about my designs being public. I actually post them all free anyway.
In the meantime, OnShape is cross platform cause it’s all in browser and I don’t care about my designs being public. I actually post them all free anyway.
The biggest issue with their license is that they went so hard on protecting themselves hosting it, that they basically give everyone BUT the creator the right to monetize a public design. It’s an offensively sloppy ToU, or at least it was the last time I checked it.
Onshape is the way to go for free tier CAD.
Otherwise TinkerCAD can work, it’s just more of an MS Paint version of CAD.
Onshape is nice and I enjoy using it, but the free tier has some really absurd caveats that anyone considering the platform should be aware of:
Free users are restricted from commercial use and all designs are publicly-available.
Additionally, while free users technically continue to own the IP they create, they lose control of licensing rights. Section 1.7.2.2 Your content - Intellectual Property of the Terms of Use states
For any Public Document owned by a Free Plan User created on or after August 7, 2018, or any Public Document created prior to that date without a LICENSE tab, Customer grants a worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to any End User or third party accessing the Public Document to use the intellectual property contained in Customer’s Public Document without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Document, and to permit persons to whom the Document is made available to do the same.
In theory, this means that while free users cannot monetize designs they made on the platform, paid users can take those files and monetize them without the consent of the creator(s).
