Hey there! As a 3D printer addict I do a lot of small parts in CAD to print and use around the house. Lately I’ve been exploring all sorts of CAD software since finding out there’s a more around than just Fusion360 and Onshape so I started exploring what’s out there and jotting down my impressions.
Hope this is not spam, just want to help people see what’s around and help them pick!
This is a field where free software is unfortunately way worse than the paid options, and all the paid options are expensive.
If you are still a student, you can get SolidWorks for 100 USD a year, or Creo, Inventor, or Solid Edge for free. Completely non-commercial though.
If you are serious about this, get a SolidWorks permanent standard license (it’s like 4 thousand USD?) or ZW3D permanent license which is just a bit cheaper, it’s a relatively new Chinese company though, so a bit of jankiness is expected, but up to you if you want to try them out.
Way worse? Maybe more difficult to learn.
FreeCAD is a great free open source 3D modeling software with plenty of online resources to help you get started.
I’d say the opposite is true. The pro CAD softwares are a lot more user friendly than FreeCAD in term of UX, so easier to learn too.
FreeCAD has a lot of problems that stem from things like opaque errors (wire is not closed, failed to recompute) to how some features aren’t just there (multi surface sketch is the big one for me) that continuously break my flow. I could adapt but it feels a bit miserable to use compared to others. It’s not “hard” it is actually “worse” (for now)
I’ve tried ZW3D. What I can say is it looks like NX. I’m familiar with it cause I use NX before. And it capable doing g3 continuity. As far as I know it has good price, permanent license, and maintenence skip (just skip maintenance and after years just pay 1 time maintenence fee you will get the latest version). It is not as good as Siemens NX, needs more fix/features here and there. But it has potential in the future.
But for hobbyist I’ll recomend Solid Edge Community Edition, because it has no limitations besides for non-commercial use. This one is really powerfull if you can use sync tech mainly for prismatic modeling. And 2024 version has been launched, just wait it till community edition will be updated.
Creo I never touch it so can’t say about it. But I like the UI. PTC has Onshape (cloud based CAD) too if you want to try, just register and open/design using your web browser. But for free account your model will be public, if you have academic/edu email you can use it to register and your file will remain private.
Inventor, I have tried but didn’t like it.
There are Alibre for affordable price. Also there are T-flex and Kompas 3D (russian made).
If you like direct editing based CAD (history free) there is Ansys SpaceClaim. *(Solid Edge is kind of hybrid can do Sync/history free and Ordered parametric).
CMIIW
Solid Edge is available for free for non-commercial use to everyone, I’m almost done writing its article and it looks really good tbh!
Never heard of ZW3D, sadly the pricing seem a bit steep for what I’m looking for :S
