I switched from Fusion to FreeCAD when I bid Windows goodbye (this video inspired me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEfNRST_3x8). Fusion does a LOT of stuff for you that FreeCAD doesn't - i.e. extrude a pad from two intersecting shapes in a sketch. While this is annoying at first I feel it forces me to design smarter. I've had a few crashes and the constraint solver sometimes seems to behave weird and takes a ctrl+z and a second attempt at the same action to properly add a constraint but overall my experience has been pretty positive.

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 too feel like the latest versions are quite a big improvement and I finally lost that feeling of slowing myself down just for the sake of using OSS.

But I still hope for a "blender moment" where a concerted effort gets rid of old cruft, improves UI/UX and jump-starts growth (also in developers/funding) and further improvements.

For me, as a beginner in Freecad and 3d modelling I kept being unable to interpret/remember all the tool icons, and remember the shortcuts while learning.

I found this command palette that helped me discover the different commands and actually get to (beginner) proficient.[0].

Again, no relation, but it's what made it stick for me after a few aborted learning attempts. (and I had a lot of fun with freecad! Especially by my second or third model where I could actually just sit down and start modelling without having to learn any extra things. Now I just need an excuse to find something else to model...)

[0] https://github.com/ddfisher/FreeCAD-CommandPalette

FreeCAD is one of those programs that I want to like and I’m rooting for, but for modeling outside of work I’m a much bigger fan of plasticity and blender. I’m hopeful now that language models are so good at software development that we can get a fork of freeCAD with a focus on ease of use.

Unrelated to part modeling, I would love to have a browser based roadway design tool that is domain-first, CAD second. Autodesk and Bentley are trying to be less bad, but their solutions create an extremely high administrative burden and unreasonable costs. Oh, if I just have someone working full-time for a month preparing files to be federated on your cloud platform I can finally get clash detection? I mean, shouldn’t that be table stakes for the software you are already being asked to buy over again every single year?

Have you tried SolveSpace? It's easily my favorite open source CAD program. The main things it's missing are shells, fillets, and chamfers. But I've been able to 3D print quite a few parts using it!

I want to like FreeCad, or FOSS CAD. For example: KiCAD and Blender are exquisite Free/OSS software I'm proud to use. For [non-EDA] CAD, I use SolidWorks, as I find FreeCAD (and OpenSCAD) is not in the same quality and user-experience tier.

I've also dove into all of those, and have mostly stuck to OpenSCAD now. I'm not amazing at it, but I've been able to get a few things done that I needed for 3D printing. What has really made much better at OpenSCAD is ClaudeCode or Antigravity in VSCode, with BSOL2 library. The documentation is just bad enough that it takes me forever to figure out on my own, but just good enough with lots of examples out there that an LLM can get mostly what I want with little fuss.

I've been treating FreeCAD like a rolling release by using the weekly Flatpack builds and it has been a pretty good experience so far. Based on a good model I was given as a starting point and a lot of Mango Jelly Solutions videos, I've developed a detailed model of the Virtual Pinball machine I'm building now. It has been huge in saving me from countless mistakes in the actual build.

https://github.com/dekay/vpin-cabinet/

I can never leave Solid Edge. Synchronous editing is simply the best for 3d printing and fast iteration when you're experimenting with designs.

Yeah I have been able to use it as a complete novice with CAD, albeit making planning out quite simple household things.

I feel like most of the opinions about FreeCAD online are out of date, since at least 1.0 if not later.

I mainly use it for planning things to make out of wood or print out of plastic.

Similar experience. I tried to learn FreeCAD a while ago. People recommended Mango Jelly's tutorials. I used those among others and dove in. However, it was a pretty frustrating experience. Things never worked quite right. I would drill into a certain point and then realized you couldn't get there from here, and had to start over.

I recently had a desperate need to 3D print a part and tried FreeCAD again. A couple of things changed: 1) 1.1 came out and 2) Mango Jelly created a playlist that essentially was "bare bones what you need to know to get started." It was slightly over an hour of the fundamentals of navigating and just enough tools.

I think FreeCAD was basically just way too buggy initially, especially on macOS. Things never worked like tutorials said, or even dot updates sometimes broke what was being taught in tutorials. Also, while great, MJ's other previous videos deep dove into specific tools. Over half of any particular video would discuss features that helped you become an expert, but overwhelming when it came to getting up and running.

Since then, I've felt much more confident about FreeCAD and have used it to knock out other pieces.

OnShape?

This. 1.0 and 1.1 are monumental improvements over the decades of releases that came before.

I struggled through the earlier releases and now I use OnShape because I can seamlessly switch between work and personal computers. If I ever can drop that requirement I'd love to go back to FreeCAD now that it's "good".