I am not an engineer. I'm not even good at math, and my spatial reasoning skills are nonexistent. With that in mind, here are the CAD programs I've tried.
Blender, Pros: Free, surprisingly comprehensive. Cons: Not parametric, can't precisely measure or constrain models, all the extra stuff you get like rendering has no use in 3D printing.
Onshape: Pros: Easy to use, convenient (I've successfully edited a model on my phone), free*. Cons: Runs ~~on someone else's computer~~ in the cloud, not private, enshittification is sure to come shortly if history is any indication.
Fusion360: Pros: seems to be what everyone else is using. Cons: enshittification is already happening, runs locally with limited saves in the cloud so you don't own your files but also don't get the run anywhere convenience of the cloud.
Plasticity: Pros: buttery smooth workflow, pay once run forever, runs and saves locally. Cons: Not peremetric so hard to go back and adjust things later.
FreeCAD: Pros: free, open source. Cons: workflow as rough as sandpaper, constantly crashes.
Plasticity and Onshape have proven to be the most productive choices for me. If only Plasticity were parametric it would be the perfect software for me personally.
I want to like FreeCAD, I really do, but it's so hard to use. I love Plasticity, but it's meant for making 3D assets for games etc. using hard surface modelling, not so much for manufacturing.
If I may digress for a moment, I work as a network admin. I'm familiar mostly with Cisco at work, but use Ubiquiti at home. Cisco equipment is monstrously expensive from a consumer or prosumer perspective, and the only way to get true hands-on experience is to buy used equipment from ebay which may still be pricey.
Ubiquiti's market strategy seems to be to make the kind of gear that a network admin would want in their home. It's inexpensive relative to the big fish like Cisco, but has a fairly comprehensive feature set. The idea is to entice Joe IT guy to buy Ubiquiti gear for his house, fall in love with it, then push for the company to switch to Ubiquiti the next time they upgrade.
What I want is the Ubiquiti of CAD programs. Easy to use, low barrier to entry but comprehensive enough to use professionally.
Suggestions/comments?
I've been using freecad with great success for years now and I'd say while I agree freecad is rough in terms of ux, it is highly usable, especially after 1.0 version. I feel like investing time in overcoming its flaws and weaknesses will pay off in the future, as it will enable access to a stable, eternally free and reliable software. Though I also agree it crashes frequently, I set a very frequent auto save and I don't often get screwed now.
FreeCAD is a spectacular second CAD tool to learn. Once you understand the concepts and workflows for one of the industry standard tools, you will know how to translate that to FreeCAD speak as it were.
As a first CAD tool it is atrocious. It crashes while you are exploring new tools and you just don't have the vocabulary (or muscle memory) to actually ask questions or search for answers.
If someone really wants to get into hobbyist CAD (for 3d printing), probably the best flow is to start with TinkerCAD, switch to Fusion 360 (assuming you aren't running linux. Onshape if you are), and once you are comfortable and can build basically whatever you want change to FreeCAD if you want more control over your toolchain.
And if someone wants to do this professionally? Fusion 360 is the endstate. Maybe you'll end up at a firm that uses the other family (which I think Onshape is part of?) but you will basically never find a company that wants FreeCAD formats.
FreeCad was crashing on average every two minutes when I tried using it last month. I really want to like it but crashes need to be toned down...
I’ve been using it for months now and I had zero crashes. Is this a platform thing or just because I’m mostly only using the parts menu?
Yeah I have used Freecad for ages and never had an issue, also use an NVidia GPU. Hopefully you get your issue sorted, because freecad really is good and only getting better every time.
Well, it definitely isn't suppose to be THAT bad. I can get a crash every half an hour or even longer. Usually for no apparent reason - like when I want to sketch on a face and the app switches from PartDesign workbench to sketcher or wise versa. And then after restart that doesn't happen again. That is annoying, has been happening for ages and would really like it to be fixed. But it's not every few minutes, more like half an hour to an hour.
Maybe use a release and not a weekly build?