Escape from the claws of the corporate CAD overlords - with FreeCAD!

Love the overlay effect on the notebook!

I always liked FreeCAD and saw potential in it, thanks for making it more popular!

I like freecad but it's definitely not there yet. I've had more than one experience where I spend hours and then completely break things and feel more comfortable giving up and starting fresh. Openscad is kind of a fun alternative and I use it sometimes whenever I get annoyed at whatever the next fusion 360 nonsense comes up.

Also FreeCAD taught me one thing: Make your designs as simple as possible. If a feature isn't needed, don't add it. Makes everything look like its build in minecraft, but it works :)

If you don't need to be overly precise Plasticity as a great alternative to traditional CAD. It focuses more on the creative side of things. It is super easy to create a shape or a body you like very quickly, but it is more like blender in the way that you design stuff to look right, rather than matching closely set dimensions. Its a one time purchase of 99$ as of now.

Thank you Thomas for this really useful information about Freecad! I am used to use Autocad but just can’t afford it and as I grow older I stopped using cracked and or illegal versions. When I watched this video one thing came to mind what I said to many co-workers, the program is just a tool, if you can’t see the object you want to draw in your mind?… the program won’t help you any further. (back in the days applications, apps were called programs 🙈) Cheers, Albert

Hi Thomas! I know an alternative tool you should test!!!
I have been working professionally with different 3D CAD for almost 20 years. Like you said, they are all the same, CATIA being the exception by having the worst UI but the best core engine.
When I started my own business I really wanted to be independent from any cloud service that would lock in my work and change/raise pricing every 6 months.
I really wanted to give FreeCAD a chance. Worked in it for almost a year, tried different branches (with Realthunder's beeing the best) and went through all tutorials I could find. I really know how to make a stable model (e.g. only sketch on reference geometry, dress up features last etc...) but nothing helped. Even if I would succeed in the end it took me about 10 times as long as in all the other CAD systems.
I finally saw a review about Alibre Design. It looks and feels like a 10 year old solid works which actually is a good thing. It's all there but no blingbling. I bought the Pro version and I just love this software.
You buy it once and the license lasts a lifetime.
They also have a cheap Alibre Atom Version for doing some 3D print stuff.
Would be cool if you'd test it.
Greetings from Sweden

I have used freecad for two years but switched to onshape. It's easier and more consistent, with more support

FreeCAD looks interesting but I haven't really learned how to work with it. I generally use Rhinoceros 3D which is a CAD/CAM level NURBS based surface modeller. Recent versions have been addding some solid modelling feature. It isn't cheap but it isn't a subscription based package and it doesn't require Internet access. Another program that looks interesting for parametric modelling and that is free is Solvespace. I also just ran across reference to a package for about $99 called Plasticity that some people might find of interest.

I've tried many graphical tools that want me to do things like remember insane combinations of keystrokes and mouse actions to do things, FreeCAD among them. My brain works fine with OpenSCAD, I can't deal with the others :-).

Would love to work in freeCAD if they would improve the modeling. But... the stl into step function is the most powerful I have ever seen

Can I just state the obvious:

I'd happily pay a Netflix style subscription fee if it meant that the income from users are used to upgrade the software from a UI/usability perspective.

Honestly, so commendable what the freecad team has done.

You are completely on track with the issues of over reaching features. It simply isn't usable for real parts and assemblies. I would rather use ProE from 1999 and would much rather use Catia v5 from 2004 than the current Freecad. Even Catia v4 at least worked. This is too bad as a viable open option would be great. PrePoMax is an excellent example of how to do this sort of project using modern libraries and following the structure of the leading commercial software.

While the design process is "fragile" using it has helped me developed better engineering practices (for when actually manufacturing). It helps me make sure everything is constrained and there is nothing ambiguous in the final product, minimizing the sources of error. I can say the same thing about the C Progrmaming language. While this is a difference of Philosophy, I'd say that we ought to have our ideas correspond to the reality of the equipment we work with (whether C or FreeCAD), not the other way around.

These are the same arguments I have had with Altium over the years, make a rock solid simple tool that just works before you shoot for the moon with complex features that only a few will use.

For the seed box, why not just build the 2 diffrent sized boxes, and make an assembly? Import 2 parts and then clone and constrain. 10 minutes max.

I love this software for what it is. I've used SolidWorks for years and literally had my first full assembly built successfully in FreeCAD in under 2 hours with zero knowledge of the software. I don't understand the struggles you have had. Great software, especially for the cost!!

Conversely, I can't stand Fusion360 and will never use it again.

should have tried part design it would have been so muchsimpler. I just use that rather than the skether workflow.

Used CATIA at first. The jump to Fusion 360 or Solidworks was really easy, but FreeCAD wants to do everything it's own way

FreeCAD is the free CAM too

Brilliant and succinct information. So rare on YT. Thankyou!

A fascinating review. The word "fragile" sums up my experience exactly.

I see you using this for 3D printing but can this used for things like wood working designs and projects? For instance, cabinets, tables, etc.

As someone who writes code first and dabbles with modeling second, the implicate approach hasn’t really bothered me after I realized what was happening. Sometimes it’s clunky but usually that’s a ui quirk or my own poor layout decisions

I love freecad and it is truly elegant but I feel like a bumbling fool every time I use the damn program.
And the documentation is barebones, sorry but that's unforgivable with software this dense.
I'm giving up and but will check again when there is proper documentation and a normal interface designed for humans.

This maybe sacrilege for the open source paradigm, but I would prefer “almost free cad’. I would love to see a payment model, so the developers can be full time on the development and still don’t break the bank for the end user. Open source is great, but what good is it if the developers don’t have the time/financial resources to make a truly useful product or one where the features work well enough to be useful.

FreeCAD certainly has a lot of features. I'm really looking forward to any of them doing as advertised....
It's where i have started my 3d journey just a few days ago. I'm reassured to see that you are having the same issues as i, when it comes to the intuitivity of FreeCAD.

You can give Solvespace a try. While its limited and also has its quirks - its very purpose build and for me the first open source CAD that clicked.

I bet developers are paid, not to make good competitive software. How hard it could be to put inventor/solidworks UI over it. It would be so much more logical to use it. On the other hand they could copy UI from fusion which is kind of fresh. I didn't get over UI, to face limitations of program. Now everything looks like CATIA where you have different environments and you are switching between them (this approach is probably 20 years obsolete).

I am so glad to see a video with such many views that honestly goes over the difficulties and unintuitiveness of using FreeCAD, without just going emotionally hateful. (I am kind of guilty of this becaue the last time I tried using it back in 2019, I was so frustrated while just trying to model one of the simplest shapes ever!! I rage quit really hard and had to begrudgingly return to Fusion360...)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO. The FOSS community needs to hear these constructive criticism! Someone like me would have just taken my frustrated emotions take the best of me...
I'd love to return to Open Source crossplatform softwares again someday too!

im new to free cad , only a week ago but i think most bugs can be fix with some little tricks but you really need to be really specific on the numbers the only problem i encountered when im using it that i think really need fixing is the calculation on cross sections i encounter this when designing a multiple pipes connected to each other

I still have this feeling with Fusion360, so it also depends on the level of CAD you are used to.

If you can't share your documents accurately with pro ACAD users. And can't. It frustrating.
Conversations to ACAD not always good.
For private practice it's ok.
But engineers, architects, inspector want accurate ACAD drawings.

I quit learning freecad after a day and switch to onshape to earn experience. I might go back to learn free cad again

In my opinion one of the biggest issue with freecad is the user interface.
After years of using SOLIDWORKS I've come accustomed to how "regular" cad programs work and look, it takes maybe 5 minutes for me to get used to something like fusion 360 or onshape, however when it came to freeCAD i was struggling to even extrude something, not to mention the mouse buttons that differ from mainstream programs

I use Blender... Just sayin'...

FreeCAD should be the dominant force in the hobbiest community.

I've been very frustrated by FreeCAD in the past but there are things you can do to keep the model from breaking. I think that you are right to compare it to catia but Pro-E might also be a good contender as well. If you wanted a more complete cad program openscad is actually better according to a couple of friends but I haven't been able to wrap my mind around coding a model.

i just hate freecad coming from solidworks. i chose solid edge now since there is a free community version with many features included

Python bad

C++ good

Literal skill issue

You're only issue with onshape seemed to be that you didn't want to pay even though you were using it professionally ?? How does this reflect the needs of your audience?

Love Design Spark.
Really hate that SolidWorks is just manditory in the Corp world.
Design Spark can be directly exported to SW, so no one has to know I didn't do the work in SW.
Boomers can keep their EGO while I can just get the work done with a design workflow similiar to Rhino

Have been waiting for FreeCAD or similar for years but.. We need a "Sketchup CAD", something that is simple and intuitive. My dad, after retiring and not having any other than 2D cad experience learned Sketchup in a week. He did not properly know how Windows File Explorer worked, being used to much more rudimentary and limited file management but he was fully using SU. Designed three buildings with it... and does not know what a vertex is. He uses it very much like parametric modeler would, using dimensions and offsets for about everything...

The problem with opensource is that they are dreamers and idealists, revolutionaries. They don't WANT to do things the way it has been done which then leads to them re-inventing wheels, except what they create aren't actually wheels.

I'm interested on Freecad, my problem is that always i want to start i found comments that is very buggy and unstable for design that go beyond than the standard hobbyist design.

For the same reason i stay with the mexican/indian style (cracked solidworks).

I tried to learn FreeCAD after using Fusion360 and Blender for several years. Well, I tried to rotate a part of sketch(which have to be really simple) and couldn't do it :(
I searched in forums and checked couple of videos and didn't find any adequate solution.

So... no FreeCAD, thank you! I found better alternative using CAD sketcher addon for Blender, which is MUCH more useful

I've started several times with FreeCAD and got frustrated by some "unexpected" behaviour, but use it now for most of my 3D-printing related work. The worst design problems result from automatic generated names which get different regenerated differently when going back in the workflow (topological name problem). So you never should reference a face or line directly, because those names get different when you change something in an early state. You can only avoid this by reference only the XY, XZ and YZ planes directly since only those don't change. Working this way isn't very intuitive and complicated for complex 3D models. The RealThunder branch seems got a solution by using UUIDs instead of names. Unique IDs are a common solution for similar problems e.g. with file- and network- names in applications like Git, Docker, Kubernetes etc. I can't understand why the main FreeCAD branch doesn't fix that problem until today in a similar way. Users can name items that are relevant for later use, but automatic generated stuff should be bound to guarateed unique names.