Friends don't tell friends to learn FreeCAD.

I'm a decently able self-taught CAD user now, of the level where I can reasonably quickly pick up a new piece of software. And yet... I've lost count of the number of times I've reinstalled FreeCAD thinking "this time it will be different"... and then quickly removed it again. Compared to anything reasonable it's just an awful hot mess to try and figure out, with huge quirks, a weird interface, and unhelpful error messages.

Given the reasonable pricing, I'm interested to try Plasticity, although it's not strictly CAD in the sense of Fusion360/Solidworks/etc - it's currently more of a modelling program. It's also doesn't have the parametric + history features that are really valuable in other products.

The truth is, we're crying out for a decent open-source CAD program. Everything currently available (FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, SolveSpace, CadQuery, etc.) has huge usability and/or feature deficits compared to the commercial offerings.

To quote myself from a previous blog post of mine:

> I tried and tried and tried to get into [FreeCAD]. It promises so much, but there are two fatal flaws in my opinion. First, the UI is a nightmare. I have no idea which "workbench" I am supposed to be using, and there are so many similar choices available, each with subtly different tools and ... I gave up trying to make sense of it. Secondly, even when following tutorials to get some basic modelling done, I found lack of sensible keyboard control and having to click almost everything a real distraction. Not a good experience.

It's an absolute nightmare to use. Really the worst UX I've ever seen.

I am a developer, FreeCAD is a bit of fun to wrangle a model out as a puzzle but it's not even in the same universe as Fusion360.

I'd love to use something like KiCAD is in the EDA world.

I highly expect, at any moment, Audodesk to pull the rug from under the hobbyist licence and I'll not be able to use it anymore.

While I feel kinda 'dirty' when I use it, I have been using it for maybe 8 years and the thing is a masterpiece. It's like a third arm for me.

Once your brain knows the whole constraints workflow it is so natural. I can very quickly model up pretty much anything I can think of to make.

Fusion360 was good until it became SaaS

I'm not saying that Fusion is the best CAD software, but FreeCAD is worth less than you pay for it. The UI/UX is in the bottom three most user-hostile nightmares I've ever experienced.

Time spent thinking "I'm sure it's just me" in FreeCAD is time you will never get back.

I use Blender for CAD. It's not designed for that, but I've developed a particular workflow that fits my needs quite well. I use it to design everything from small parts to buildings. I've used FreeCAD, but it's just too time-consuming.

mind elaborating on this? as an outsider to CAD software i don't know the landscape — i'm finding some concerning things about fusion360 when i search for pros/cons but i'm not sure how to weigh the opinions, e.g how relevant the commercial lock-in could be for a hobbyist

One time FreeCAD user: FreeCAD couldnt solve a very basic constraint. Every time it got stuck and said it's too hard. Fusion360 had 0 issues.

Licensing is a thing with FreeCAD but last time I looked it was free (as in beer) for hobbyists. The grey zone is where you turn your hobby into a small scale business.