Alternatives to Fusion360  

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

Try Onshape, I've recently made the move from Fusion 360 to Onshape and have no regrets.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

I have been using Alibre Atom3D  for a number of years now.  It's low cost to purchase (currently $149) and once you own it, you own it.  Resides on your PC so you don't need to be online to use.  Uses sketches similar to Fusion to create objects for 3d printing.  Doesn't do everything that Fusion does, but for my purposes it has worked very well.  They have 'professional' versions but they cost considerably more.  With Atom they usually put out updates once or twice a year but an annual update license is only $50.  If you don't want to buy the lifetime license they also now have the option to pay a monthly fee which includes any updates while your license is still valid.  In either case, all the files stay on your computer and not on the cloud.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

I am a huge fan of FreeCAD. It‘s open source, it‘s extremely powerful and it‘s sadly quite difficult to learn - but it definitely is worth the effort.

I loved the concept of OpenSCAD, but the render times, and (seeming) lack of activity on this project

OpenSCAD is still being developed.  OK, the latest stable release is two years old but there was a 'Development Snapshot' released this week.

I have complex, high precision, print-in-place projects that take forty minutes to render for printing on a fast pc - but in development those same files render in under a minute on a Raspberry Pi if the precision is reduced while tweaking some less critical aspect of the file.

Cheerio,

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

Depending on how much of Fusion 360 you are really using, don't renew the paid subscription and move to Fusion 360 for personal use which is free.

Another option is to use 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for makers which is $99 per year.   https://discover.solidworks.com/3dexperience-solidworks-makers   

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

Oh wow, I never thought I'd see the day when Dassault Systemes was competitive in price. I might have to change to Solidworks because even at their "33% discount," Fusion is still very expensive for someone who will probably make less from using the software than it costs.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

In my exuberance over price, I missed the "3Dexperience" part of that equation, and for that reason alone, I think I'll stick with Fusion. I've not heard good things about 3DX.

Dassault is great at buying up products and then hacking them into their "ecosystem," and I have nothing but disdain for their entire marketing department. I still have PTSD from dealing with them in my professional life on the CATIA side of their house.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

I have been using this software for about a year and a half and I have been reasonably happy with it.

Posted by: @zab

I have been using Alibre Atom3D  for a number of years now.  It's low cost to purchase (currently $149) and once you own it, you own it.  Resides on your PC so you don't need to be online to use.  Uses sketches similar to Fusion to create objects for 3d printing.  Doesn't do everything that Fusion does, but for my purposes it has worked very well.  They have 'professional' versions but they cost considerably more.  With Atom they usually put out updates once or twice a year but an annual update license is only $50.  If you don't want to buy the lifetime license they also now have the option to pay a monthly fee which includes any updates while your license is still valid.  In either case, all the files stay on your computer and not on the cloud.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

 

Fusion360 has served me well as a hobbyist, but I am getting to the end of my license term, and I can't justify the annual cost.

As a true hobbyist, the free personal/hobbyist license should do the job for you. I've only switched to a commercial license because I hit the annual threshold in sales (and I'm an honest guy). Unless you need some esoteric features, the main restriction of the personal license is the limit of active projects (10). But as a hobbyist that shouldn't be an issue. To address a common misconception, it's not a limit on the total # of projects, only on ones you're actively editing. Once you hit the limit, put an older project to sleep to open a slot for a new one. 

I use both OpenSCAD and Fusion 360 a lot as my primary design platforms but I wouldn't consider them as competitors. Fusion makes a lot of designs steps a lot easier than OpenSCAD and requires less mental acrobatics; it doesn't help that OpenSCAD looks like a programming language but really isn't. On the other hand, OpenSCAD is great for scripts that allow you to create different variants of a base design super quickly. Fusion has now added Configurations, which serve a similar purpose, but it's not as straightforward as OpenSCAD. 

I've tried other software but after getting over the initial learning curve I find Fusion just works with how I think about problem solving. Unlike FreeCAD, which just twisted my brain into a knot. But different strokes for different folks, so YMMV. 

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

I recently abandoned Fusion360 and migrated to FreeCAD. It's been... difficult. I've learnt many Fusion360-isms that I now have to unlearn to use FreeCAD effectively. Many of the features as implemented feel primitive when compared to Fusion360. Also there are at least two forks of FreeCAD so you're following some tutorial only to discover the fork you're using doesn't implement that feature.

Fusion360 is obviously more polished a product. But even with the hobbyist license the way it forced me to use their cloud and login to their portal just to use the product locally, it didn't sit right with me. My designs were locked in somebody elses subscription service, even if the subscription cost was (for now) $0. I've settled on FreeCAD because it's Free as in Libre, not just Free as in Cost, and to my way of thinking that's worth a little extra pain.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

I moved from Onshape to Solidworks for Makers about a year and half ago and have no intention of changing.  I am not a fan of the 3DExperience thing either.  It doesn't do anything for me and I don't even deal with it.  I have an icon on my desktop for Solidworks and it goes directly to the software.  I have used Solidworks in my professional life and the Makers version is a full version.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

@diem, that is interesting... do you know why are they not updating the main distribution ?

Like @fuchsr, I have applications where I would prefer to use the programmatic approach, and if I have to, I can get around the render issue by hosting the service with a sufficiently large VM.  

Posted by: @diem

I loved the concept of OpenSCAD, but the render times, and (seeming) lack of activity on this project

OpenSCAD is still being developed.  OK, the latest stable release is two years old but there was a 'Development Snapshot' released this week.

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

Thanks folks for chiming in! One additional wrinkle - surface patterning can really complicate rendering in Fusion360. (The dragon and 3D chessboard in this post are the kinds of things I'm thinking about here). Are there other packages where I might see some improvement ?

do you know why are they not updating the main distribution ?

I have no idea, it may just be their way of working; historically they release every two or three years.

I have migrated almost everything I design to OpenSCAD - to get around the declarative nature of the scripts; this is what @fuchsr refers to when he says "..looks like a programming language but really isn't" - actually it *is* a programming language but not the much commoner imperative type, to get around the declarative nature I sometimes write a perl wrapper to generate OpenSCAD scripts.  It works surprisingly well.

I can get around the render issue by hosting the service with a sufficiently large VM.

By conditionally switching major segments and judicious use of $fn it's possible to avoid long render times until you need to output a sliceable render - then, with a complex print, you may have to wait an hour or more.  This plate for example, was laid out in OpenSCAD - Slicer's arrange function wasn't up to the job at the time.

Cheerio,

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

Posted by: @nhand42

I recently abandoned Fusion360 and migrated to FreeCAD. It's been... difficult. I've learnt many Fusion360-isms that I now have to unlearn to use FreeCAD effectively. Many of the features as implemented feel primitive when compared to Fusion360. Also there are at least two forks of FreeCAD so you're following some tutorial only to discover the fork you're using doesn't implement that feature.

Fusion360 is obviously more polished a product. But even with the hobbyist license the way it forced me to use their cloud and login to their portal just to use the product locally, it didn't sit right with me. My designs were locked in somebody elses subscription service, even if the subscription cost was (for now) $0. I've settled on FreeCAD because it's Free as in Libre, not just Free as in Cost, and to my way of thinking that's worth a little extra pain.

I recommend FreeCad as a free tool. Runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, open source and is constantly being developed.

https://www.freecad.org/

wbr,

Karl

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

As a cheap alternative - FreeCad also runs as image.app on a Pi Arm64 CPU.

(System Pi400)

wbr,

Karl

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

For me the question is simple:

1) No internet connection necessary during working with my CAD-tool

2) I can use a Raspberry Pi for doing this work

2) I am the owner of my designs (this is a principal thing for me)

==> FREECAD (not that easy to learn and far away from intuitive, but powerfull and under permanent developement.

Best regards, Clemens

RE: Alternatives to Fusion360

Posted by: @clemens-m

==> FREECAD (not that easy to learn and far away from intuitive, but powerfull and under permanent developement.

It has a bit of a learning curve, but it's not half as bad as some make it look. I found getting into Blender or 3DS Max far more challenging, to be honest. And the results are absolutely worth it, in my opinion.

RE:

I am using mostly Freecad and am mostly happy with it, but it does have its rough edges. Maybe I am just not a good enough user but keeping designs fully parametric in a way that changing dimensions in an underlying sketch won't be messing up some sketch or object connected to it somewhere else, is difficult. Especially switching of direction of distances is a problem I haven't figured out. That can mess up things entirely. 

Still it manages most things I want to do just fine. There are some very helpful add-ons too, like one that enables you to easily design threads/screws (if you want to print proper threads not just screw holes) or gears.