this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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I’m using Fusion360, and I dislike it for a lot of reasons, but it’s easy to use. I tried FreeCAD, but it was very janky in comparison. Shapr3D was surprisingly good, but there’s no way I’m paying monthly for my hobby usage. I need precision prints, so I can’t just use Blender or similar.

Is there some magical unicorn software I’m not finding?

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 54 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No, all CAD software sucks. I use FreeCAD myself and just got used to the jank.

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

FreeCAD has possibly the worst UI I have ever used combined with some of the worst UX of any software. But it has every feature I need, it's free and it works (mostly).

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I haven't used it in awhile, but OnShape I think had the best UI, for being in a browser.

There are some macros out there I've found that make FreeCAD a lot better. I kinda wish they had a half-decent reference for macro writing; they'll point you to their unfinished out of date wiki if you ask.

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Omg. I swear they rename/move a bunch of things every update so every guide is just a little bit out of date.

The answer they give you is "If you want it written, YOU write it." Which...it's no wonder open source software doesn't hold up, right? It's made by idiots who think it's up to end users to write the manual.

[–] KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago

Idk Creo has pretty awful UX

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 days ago

100% this. Ive been through 4 different cad packages professionally and every single one of them is terrible bad awful garbage. Pick your flavor of garbage and get with it.

After a few months of forcing myself to learn it, FreeCAD really isn't that bad. It's miles better than Creo.