I believe there's a cadquery workbench for freecad, I messed around with it about a year ago but ran into similar struggles as you describe. I'll have to give it another try.
not really. cadquery started as a freecad workbench, but moved out a long while ago. So current cadquery isn't usable inside freecad (which is a shame).
not really. cadquery started as a freecad workbench, but moved out a long while ago. So current cadquery isn't usable inside freecad (which is a shame).
also worth a look: build123d