Know the Topological Naming Problem and how to mitigate it. It'll take twice as long, but IMO using it (and contributing to its community, even just through forums) can only help it improve.įreeCAD is not great, but not horrible either. That said, if you're more into it as a hobby/for personal projects, have at it. I want it to succeed, and hope that in 5 or so more years it might get there, but for now I'd never use it in a professional setting in its current form. I continue to force myself to use it because I want it to succeed, improve, and offer the first real native linux, open source, good CAD platform.Īs much as I like using Fusion, I hate the cloud component and having to 'rent' software. It is very constraint driven (similar to Fusion), but is picky about ensuring that designs are fully constrained.įrom an open source perspective, FreeCAD feels like Inkscape (open-source illustrator alternative) was 8 or so years ago. Also, am very pro open source/run linux as my daily driver/etc.įreeCAD can do anything I need it too but it will take me twice as long. Is FreeCAD really that bad? It seems to be perfect for my needs.įor some background: Hobbyist, been using AutoCAD since I was a child due to an engineer parent, primarily use Fusion360 currently but use FreeCAD occasionally, and have briefly used others. Reading things that like scare me off a bit, but it seems there is no better alternative. I understand that there is a big bug in it that causes faces to move around, but it seems that there is a patch for it (Thunberbird or something like that). However, I keep reading that FreeCAD is hard to use and sucks. I am also going to use Blender, but I have seen that is better for organic designs as opposed to mechanical designs. The only other software that seems to fit my needs is OpenSCAD, but the programming aspect is a bit of turn off for me. No license restrictions - No fear of losing software access and any designs are mine to do as I wish, even sell if I'd like.After doing some research, it seems FreeCAD meets all my needs: My main purpose would be to print 3D models for cement vessels for candles.

I want to get into 3D printing to make practical objects.

Freecad review reddit