looking for another CAD program

Karl_T

Karl_T

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Like a great many here, I use Draftsight for my CAD drawings. Just got this email:



"We are also investing in other technologies including an upcoming cloud-based version of DraftSight and much more. Therefore, we want to make you aware that DraftSight 2019 for Windows® is offered in paid versions only, and all free versions of DraftSight (2018 or earlier) will cease to run after 12/31/2019."


I guess we got eight months, but what other good 2D CAD programs are out there? Of course, free is my favorite price.


Karl
 
Currently using Qcad. Qcad is free but I'm sure there are better programs out there.
 
Fusion 360 is free to the hobbyist and students. The learning curve is fairly high but really intuitive.
 
Big Chief pad and #2 pencil. LOL.

FreeCAD is also good. Runs on Linux/Mac/Windows. Pretty powerful. Short tutorial.
 
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Sorry to hear about Draftsight going away. I worked AutoCad for almost two decades, had a hard time changing when I had to. Can't say I'm looking forward to learning another program.
 
SolveSpace is another free CAD program. It runs on Windows and Linux (using a windows emulator like WINE). In addition to the usual drawing functions It can extrude objects, perform boolean operations on objects, etc. I have it running on a Linux machine but haven't gotten too far into it yet.

I learned about this one from a similar discussion on this forum.
 
Can I ask which of these is most like autocad/draftsight? I really don't need to learn a new interface if possible.
 
I have AutoCad 2016 student version. It's free for 3 years fully functional. you just have to register with Autodesk as a student and download your copy. Just a note if you d/l 2019 there will be a watermark when you print, 2016 has no watermarks
 
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