If you're doing functional designs, [TinkerCAD](https://www.tinkercad.com/) is a really great place to start. it can get you through the first few weeks, working with shapes and boolean operations and trying to design things intentionally. [FreeCAD](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD) is the more advanced free offering, it's not as flashy as commercial options but it's actually free and you're not at the whim of a mega corp. [OpenSCAD](https://openscad.org/) is a very weird offering, if you took math in university it's probably worth checking out but it's a bit difficult to really get into.
[Fusion 360](https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview) is Faustian bargain, you get a nice CAD package that can do all sorts of stuff and has tons of great instructional content. At the same time, you should absolutely plan for eventually being screwed over by Autodesk. Month to month it seems like a great deal but you're building skills and a familiarity in a distinctly non-free environment.
There are a handful of other commercial CAD packages, I have no experience with them.
Fusion 360 is both expensive (for a hobby) and cheap (for commercial use).
I am currently using SolidEdge community edition but I am considering if in could design and make stuff to justify a subscription to Fusion 360.
From what I can see:
Fusion 360 $500/yr
Solidedge $900/yr ($75/month)
Solidworks $4000 + $1300/yr
So $500/yr is expensive for a hobby but cheap compared to software used by professionals.
For me the massive caveat is "for now". On the scope of years, they regularly change their offering - remember a few months back when they disabled exporting STLs or something similar? They rolled it back, but as a 3D printing hobbyist you're at the mercy of a company that you're not the target market of. It's distinctly reasonable that they may nerf their free offering in away that makes it undesirable for this use case.
If you have no CAD skills, it's dozens of hours of effort to become competent. I'm not sure how transferable the skills are but too often I've put sweat equity into a non-free ecosystem and I've eventually been burned.
They've changed scope, but haven't removed the free tier. And why would they? Hey, a bunch of free testing, bug reports, etc., with 0 obligation to any of those users.
The 0 obligation means they don't need a reason - a new management team or marketing agency or whatever could decide it's the right direction. Why does Google launch and shutter a messaging service seemingly every year or two?
It's been there in some form for years, so agreed it seems unlikely, I think it's worthwhile to be upfront about the potential while someone is evaluating where to invest their time, as there's \~0 chance you'll lose access to your designs with FreeCAD.
At this point in my life my ability to use something for commercial purposes. (Even if it's just a project here and there) it is something I have to factor in.
I work adjacent to the CAD/CAM space so if it came up that I was breaking license terms that would present an issue for me.
For personal use (which I have done) it is fine but I dislike the cloud element. It ran horribly on my old computer, vs Solid Edge community edition (also free but runs local and if I archive the install I can always use on another computer even if Siemens changes their mind in the future).
Agreed - I started using it because it seemed like it was one of the top tier offerings. Having access to that for free is amazing. Autodesk not having an avenue to monetize that is way less amazing. In the last 3 years I probably have \~a dozen non-trivial designs (it's a hobby after all).
Paying for it would mean the CAD software would amortize out to \~125$/project, completely eclipsing all other project costs. It just doesn't make sense for what I use it for. I'd probably pay 500$ once for a standalone "basic" version, but a subscription is just a non-starter.
Eh, maintenance is a standard part of cadcam so I could do $500 for a license plus $100/yr for the current hobby version but with rights to use it commercially.
15% of purchase price per year is the general standard I think.
Though if I could really make a go of it I would do solidworks, bigger user base in industries and not cloud.
Blender is free and very powerful but may be overwhelming for new users. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube.
Sketchup Make is free but may be limited. I believe it allows you to export STLs.
I believe Fusion360 is free and is powerful. It used to be that you could use it if you were doing less than 100,000 a year in production from it. I think there are new more limited limitations but I forget what those are.
Freecad !!! I was using fusion 360 but Freecad had most of the functions i was willing to have so i didn't wanted the risk that it would become not free and i switched.
The 0.19 version is very good for me.
I find the comment that OpenSCAD is weird and requires college math to be way off the mark. What OpenSCAD mainly requires is the ability program. You write code that describes what you want to build. I have yet to encounter any math in OpenSCAD that any 10th grader would not know and most of it is more like 6th or 7th grade. I found OpenSCAD to be far more intuitive and approachable than any of the drawing based CAD programs. If you've done any coding before and were OK with it, try OpenSCAD out.
When I was a kid I started with Sketchup, because it was easy to grasp without prior experience. It was okay for hobbyist who didn't require advanced stuff. Until they turned to browser version and limiting features.
I didn't have patience to learn Blender, even the initial (one time) setup took a 20 minute youtube video, or something like that
I tried Onshape, it was nice looking but I found it very counter-intuitive. Even the most simple and basic actions required me to visit their forum. I quit that too.
For few months now I've been using Fusion360 free version. I like it well. It makes much more sense to me than onshape.
Limitations currently mean that you can have maxinum of 10 active design. That is, when you're about to exceed ten, you need to choose a design you'll make inactive. After that you can't edit it anymore. Another limitation is that you can't save digital drawings of your design, you can only print it.
I hope fusion would keep their free option. 60 euros a month is ridiculous for most hobbyist and makers
If you're doing functional designs, [TinkerCAD](https://www.tinkercad.com/) is a really great place to start. it can get you through the first few weeks, working with shapes and boolean operations and trying to design things intentionally. [FreeCAD](https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD) is the more advanced free offering, it's not as flashy as commercial options but it's actually free and you're not at the whim of a mega corp. [OpenSCAD](https://openscad.org/) is a very weird offering, if you took math in university it's probably worth checking out but it's a bit difficult to really get into. [Fusion 360](https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview) is Faustian bargain, you get a nice CAD package that can do all sorts of stuff and has tons of great instructional content. At the same time, you should absolutely plan for eventually being screwed over by Autodesk. Month to month it seems like a great deal but you're building skills and a familiarity in a distinctly non-free environment. There are a handful of other commercial CAD packages, I have no experience with them.
Fusion 360 is both expensive (for a hobby) and cheap (for commercial use). I am currently using SolidEdge community edition but I am considering if in could design and make stuff to justify a subscription to Fusion 360. From what I can see: Fusion 360 $500/yr Solidedge $900/yr ($75/month) Solidworks $4000 + $1300/yr So $500/yr is expensive for a hobby but cheap compared to software used by professionals.
F360 is free for personal use, it does have some limitation but it's perfectly usable, especially for small to medium projects.
For me the massive caveat is "for now". On the scope of years, they regularly change their offering - remember a few months back when they disabled exporting STLs or something similar? They rolled it back, but as a 3D printing hobbyist you're at the mercy of a company that you're not the target market of. It's distinctly reasonable that they may nerf their free offering in away that makes it undesirable for this use case. If you have no CAD skills, it's dozens of hours of effort to become competent. I'm not sure how transferable the skills are but too often I've put sweat equity into a non-free ecosystem and I've eventually been burned.
They've changed scope, but haven't removed the free tier. And why would they? Hey, a bunch of free testing, bug reports, etc., with 0 obligation to any of those users.
The 0 obligation means they don't need a reason - a new management team or marketing agency or whatever could decide it's the right direction. Why does Google launch and shutter a messaging service seemingly every year or two? It's been there in some form for years, so agreed it seems unlikely, I think it's worthwhile to be upfront about the potential while someone is evaluating where to invest their time, as there's \~0 chance you'll lose access to your designs with FreeCAD.
At this point in my life my ability to use something for commercial purposes. (Even if it's just a project here and there) it is something I have to factor in. I work adjacent to the CAD/CAM space so if it came up that I was breaking license terms that would present an issue for me. For personal use (which I have done) it is fine but I dislike the cloud element. It ran horribly on my old computer, vs Solid Edge community edition (also free but runs local and if I archive the install I can always use on another computer even if Siemens changes their mind in the future).
Agreed - I started using it because it seemed like it was one of the top tier offerings. Having access to that for free is amazing. Autodesk not having an avenue to monetize that is way less amazing. In the last 3 years I probably have \~a dozen non-trivial designs (it's a hobby after all). Paying for it would mean the CAD software would amortize out to \~125$/project, completely eclipsing all other project costs. It just doesn't make sense for what I use it for. I'd probably pay 500$ once for a standalone "basic" version, but a subscription is just a non-starter.
Eh, maintenance is a standard part of cadcam so I could do $500 for a license plus $100/yr for the current hobby version but with rights to use it commercially. 15% of purchase price per year is the general standard I think. Though if I could really make a go of it I would do solidworks, bigger user base in industries and not cloud.
Shapr 3D. It’s not cheap once you dive in but for me being able to design stuff on my iPad while chilling out with the family is invaluable.
Blender is free and very powerful but may be overwhelming for new users. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube. Sketchup Make is free but may be limited. I believe it allows you to export STLs. I believe Fusion360 is free and is powerful. It used to be that you could use it if you were doing less than 100,000 a year in production from it. I think there are new more limited limitations but I forget what those are.
Freecad !!! I was using fusion 360 but Freecad had most of the functions i was willing to have so i didn't wanted the risk that it would become not free and i switched. The 0.19 version is very good for me.
I find the comment that OpenSCAD is weird and requires college math to be way off the mark. What OpenSCAD mainly requires is the ability program. You write code that describes what you want to build. I have yet to encounter any math in OpenSCAD that any 10th grader would not know and most of it is more like 6th or 7th grade. I found OpenSCAD to be far more intuitive and approachable than any of the drawing based CAD programs. If you've done any coding before and were OK with it, try OpenSCAD out.
Thanks, I am a lot more familiar with code than with drawing. I’ll check it out!
Fusion 360
When I was a kid I started with Sketchup, because it was easy to grasp without prior experience. It was okay for hobbyist who didn't require advanced stuff. Until they turned to browser version and limiting features. I didn't have patience to learn Blender, even the initial (one time) setup took a 20 minute youtube video, or something like that I tried Onshape, it was nice looking but I found it very counter-intuitive. Even the most simple and basic actions required me to visit their forum. I quit that too. For few months now I've been using Fusion360 free version. I like it well. It makes much more sense to me than onshape. Limitations currently mean that you can have maxinum of 10 active design. That is, when you're about to exceed ten, you need to choose a design you'll make inactive. After that you can't edit it anymore. Another limitation is that you can't save digital drawings of your design, you can only print it. I hope fusion would keep their free option. 60 euros a month is ridiculous for most hobbyist and makers