Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah, I avoided Fusion (etc.) because of the usual bait-and-switch I've seen with commercial applications that claim to be "free" at some point. If I'm going to invest in learning a new application, I'd rather it be an open one.

I dove into FreeCAD with either version 1.0.0 or earlier. It was… rough.

To be sure, it was a whole new app so I expect initial navigation around the app to be challenging. But, wow.

Nonetheless, I did get a few things modeled up [1]. And for that I have to thank LLMs for steering me through using the app. I suggest others to try an LLM as a guide if you are learning (and I still am learning, of course). I like tutorials, but so often you can spend hours watching tutorials that cover all manner of ground where you simply want to complete a specific task—unable to find the tutorial covering how to do it.

Having said that though, I am eager to try this 1.0.2 version. (I'm also eager to fix a few minor MacOS-specific nits that I've already seen.)

[1] https://engineersneedart.com/blog/3dprinting2025/3dprinting2...

I've spent a decent amount of time on the FreeCAD Discord and more than one advanced user on there suggests treating FreeCAD like a rolling release. So I've been using the weekly FlatPack builds and have had a great experience. FreeCAD has been taking some big steps recently and by sticking with 1.0.0 / 1.0.2, you're basically missing out on almost a year's worth of improvements.

And the tutorial by Mango Jelly Solutions on YouTube are fantastic. They are generally very focused on one particular task per video so I think you'd find them really useful.

Thanks, I'll both pull down the dev builds and will check out Mango Jelly's channel.

I find SOLIDWORKS for Makers [1] a great middle ground between bait-and-switch "free" Fusion and the real, very expensive, deal. SW is one of industry standards, its interface is much better than FreeCAD's, and it's more powerful than both FreeCAD and Fusion. For example, both FreeCAD and Fusion struggle with G2/G3 smoothness [2] where SW doesn't even blink. Fusion doesn't allow to pattern features on sketch points (it's gated behind an expensive add-on [3]) when it's a built-in feature in SW.

[1]: https://www.solidworks.com/solution/solidworks-makers

[2]: https://www.printables.com/model/1490911-g0-g3-corners-visua...

[3]: https://www.autodesk.com/uk/products/fusion-360/design-exten...

Subscription-based, cloud-based. That's two strikes.

It sounds like Solidworks is better for someone who is always using it—I maybe use a 3D CAD tool two or three weeks out of the year. Rent-anxiety (paying for it but not using it) keeps me from subscription apps.

They have 2 versions.

One is cloud based one is local install. They are pushing cloud based one because, their local installer is really bad (it's also bad for commercial version, people often joked, that the hardest thing about SW is getting it to run)

But yes, you pay yearly subscription. Which I am not a fan of, but it's a decent price, and I understand that such niche programs, can't sustain themselves on volume

Problem is, its not available in many countries including mine.

They are saying "we are expending countries" but i check once in a while and hasn't changed in years.

> If I'm going to invest in learning a new application, I'd rather it be an open one.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. The concepts are very transferrable.

At work I used to use SolidWorks exclusively, now I'm using Onshape and will probably switch to Inventor soon. At home I typically use Fusion 360. They all work more-or-less the same and moving between them isn't too hard.

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