I liked TinkerCAD.

You can save files in fusion 360 locally. It's just not the main way the program encourages which sucks.

I think you have to like export instead pf save but you do get a .f3d file which is the same as what gets saved to the cloud.

Onshape would be ubiquity. Easy to use, flash, has all the good bits, ripe to screw the customer at any moment once enough lock in is gained.

Blender has addons for parametric workflows. Actually, there's plugins to do anything you want.

I will be blunt. If you are as bad at math and spatial reasoning as you say, then CAD probably isn't for you. You will always find it difficult and unrewarding. Design and engineering require a mindset you might not have.

As far as "cheap and easy and professional" CAD they ALL require effort to learn and money to gain entry for commercial versions. CAD is a skill and skills require effort to acquire. And it sounds as if you have no desire to put in very much effort.

For a CAD program to meet your want of cheap and simple, (professional means a lot of money and takes more than a few minutes of effort), look at TinkerCAD. It's free and simple enough that I teach that to 5th and 6th grade students well enough for them to make simple objects. Ain't nothing wrong with starting there and learning how to think about design and CAD before you might try and step into more demanding software.

I tried using FreeCAD 5 or 10 years ago, and it was painful. I had access to Inventor, so I used that for the limited work I was doing. Later, I heard of some build/pack/whatever that removed a lot of pain from the FreeCAD workflow, but I can't remember what it was called and I wasn't doing CAD work any more. Trying to find that led me to this, though:

Ondsel ES Look

Also, I found a video on YouTube that appears to go through the same steps. Here it is.

I'm not sure it that will solve your problems, but the 20 minute video should answer that question for you.

RS Design Spark?

I haven't used it in a few years but I remember it being alright for hobby stuff.

Solidworks has a cheap maker version. You can save locally. It's always been shit, so it can't get enshittified /s.

My solution to the same issue was OpenSCAD. But it might not be for the faint of heart. For me, this is a godsend, working 100% in my mindspace.

I use alibre, it’s a one time purchase

I got a 3d printer about a year ago and looked into CAD software and came to the exact same conclusion you just did. I ended up using Plasticity. I thiink I paid $150 for a year of updates. But there are still two major drawbacks: first is it's not parametric, as you said, but more importantly you can't import stls and edit them. You can export stls, but you have to make them from scratch. You can technically import an stl but it's impossible to edit. Oftentimes I find a design online but I want to tweak it to my purposes but I can't do that.

I'd love it if Free CAD had a better UI. It's just so frustrating and hideous to use.

I've been using progeCAD for the last few years and its basically a clone of AutoCAD for a fraction of the price and you own it unlike autodesk's model they've had since like 2017 or something.

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.

There's an entry missing in your list, which many people seem to not know about: Siemens Solid Edge

Like fusion, is free for personal/hobby use. But it's not "cloud based". Also unlike fusion, they aren't constantly scaling back what you can do with the free edition. Probably worth a shot.

I haven’t used it but there is also tinkercad

FreeCAD: Pros: free, open source. Cons: workflow as rough as sandpaper, constantly crashes.

It has a learning curve (like all software), yes. But I cannot confirm the crashes.

You missed OpenSCAD but that might've been intentional if you're looking for something with low barrier to entry and a purely "visual" workflow. It's the diametric opposite of Blender, basically. Surprisingly non-comprehensive with very limited options of primitives to work with, but laser-focused on building precise, constrained, parametric models out of said primitives. The downside is that you have to code it. Like, in actual code. For the artistically-minded designer, it's probably not the right tool. But for people with the appropriate mental model and skillset, it's an extremely effective tool, and infinitely extensible. If you need to do something particularly complex, chances are someone's already written the functions and libraries to do it, and if you need to know how to do it too, you can just look at their code. Assuming you can read it.

The actual coding language itself is a bit janky and for me, counterintuitive and unpleasant in some ways. It certainly wouldn't be my first choice, but it's workable, and the elegance of the overall idea makes up for it. It's worth the extra investment in learning, and I can't go back to wrestling with what I find are clunky visual workflows anymore. I crave the hard numerical precision of actually and accurately defining the shapes I'm working with.

Blender has an add on project called cad sketches in development. It's free to use and is donation supported just like Blender is. I haven't used it myself but it wouldn't hurt looking into it.

https://www.cadsketcher.com/

Solidworks is probably the Cisco of cad software, and a license for casual home use is only 48/year

I saw a bit ago that blended has an addon or plugin or something that adds parametric functions

I think I got the impression it's less powerful that proper parametric cad or something, but I figured I'd mention it in case that makes it a more viable option for you!

Depending on your system I think, I have been using Sketchup 2017 (whatever the last free version was they released) for years to make 3D models for all kinds of purposes, incl 3D printing. For my brain it has proven to be the most intuitive tool to learn, it’s been a really long time so maybe I have forgotten but I feel like the barrier to entry was pretty small. There is a lot of content out there from people giving tips and tutorials. There are plug-ins still flooding around that have really good functionality. I use it with a Connexion 3D Space Navigator mouse that’s prob 10+ years old. That’s been a godsend and adds so much efficiency and flow to the tool.

I don’t know if you can still download it from Trimble but there are sources for it elsewhere.

Have fun, whatever you choose.

I use a free version of sketchup make from 2008. You can still find it out there on the internet for download.

I really don't understand why people have so much trouble with FreeCAD. It does everything the other software does, it just crashes on occasion.