I just started learning FreeCAD version 0.21 and finding it tough slugging. And no wonder, I supposed. FreeCAD folks and the Ondsel polls have acknowledged that UI is a weakness. But thanks to the excellent MangoJelly tutorials [0] on YouTube, I feel like things are finally starting to soak in. And in watching those tutorials, I've come to realize just how powerful FreeCAD is. The 0.22 release will be a big step up and I'm looking forward to it.
I'm hopeful that with the renewed focus in the project that it becomes the next Blender or the next KiCAD: an open source tool that can hold its own against current commercial offerings. Go FreeCAD Go!
A few months ago after a tweet about open source CAD got way more traction than I would have expected, I started a discussion board using github's discussion feature to document some analysis of the open source CAD landscape and how best to achieve a professional-ready open source CAD system.
I did a fair amount of digging in to all the possible options, and ultimately came to the conclusion that FreeCAD and the fork by Ondsel are our best hope of good open source CAD for professional users.
If you are curious, take a look at the discussions and reasoning, captured here on that discussion board:
Ondsel managed to make FreeCAD intuitive, it's actually quite usable already! I never could get things done in FreeCAD. Some would say it's a skill issue, and they'd be right. And yet Ondsel "just works" for me.
One downside is that Ondsel has recently put the download behind a sign up for their SaaS offerings. Even though there's a free tier, requiring a sign up is very anti-user and not really indicative of the open-source CAD saviour we all want...
For now they still have releases on github, though:
I'm really excited to see FreeCAD hit a stride. For me, a browser based cad program is a non-starter, cloud based in a close second. I want a strong tool for personal hacking, and the limitations imposed by commercial free tiers are frustrating, and I don't do advanced enough cad to pay an outrageous license fee.
I'm a big fan of FreeCAD. There are certainly more capable tools that are easier to learn, but I have invested enough time and energy into FreeCAD that I can get what I want out of it. My 3D CAD needs are not tremendously complex, but every time I need to do something more complex, I find that FreeCAD does the job - sometimes it's not as obvious as it is in other CAD Packages.
I remember using Blender a long time ago, and how weird it was. They figured it out, and I think there are enough developers and enough commitment that in another Decade the current incumbents are going to consider FreeCAD as a real threat.
I'm hopeful that with the renewed focus in the project that it becomes the next Blender or the next KiCAD: an open source tool that can hold its own against current commercial offerings. Go FreeCAD Go!
[0] https://www.youtube.com/@MangoJellySolutions