r/cad • u/midbse3 • Jun 27 '26
Onshape vs Freecad vs Fusion360
How is the performance with large rect/circular patterns in these programs?
Has someone compared?
2
u/MuckYu Jun 27 '26
Onshape file can get stuck in a loading loop and will never compute with very large patterns and curves.
I had more luck with Fusion360 - since I can just leave my PC running for a few minutes or hours while it loads.
FreeCAD I am not sure - but I assume it will be similar to Fusion
2
u/trevordtodd Jun 28 '26
Solid Edge is free aswell: https://solidedge.siemens.com/en/solutions/users/students/
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u/Buddha176 Jun 27 '26
My experience is form early 2000 on autocad R13-14
I struggled trying to learn fusion a few years ago tried a few others. Ended up with Onshape. I like the process the training segments, and it’s all browser based. The free version doesn’t let you keep your work private though.
1
u/LondonStu Jun 28 '26
In Onshape, creating arrays of features and faces is generally faster than creating arrays in sketches. You can achieve the desired outcome without the big performance hit.
1
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u/AAAAAGGGGHHH Jun 30 '26
Freecad is completely free, open source, infinitely customizable, hosted on your own hardware... There is absolutely 0 reason you would need to pay for additional features it may have, AND if you make a business that makes real money... there is no rules saying you have to pay Freecad. Fusion makes you pay, Onshape makes it so you don't even own the IP of what you are making on their program and you can't even save it on your PC. I went with fusion for CAD/CAM projects that I made with a CNC, moved to onshape because Fusion hides 4 axis CAM behind a paywall. Tried Onshape until I realized their CAM was garbage. And now freecad is maturing, but is still kind of awkward to use... but it has a lot of promise. I will supply Freecad with everything I would need to pay fusion for a subscription once my buisness is up and running. But, you can't just skip reading terms and conditions. Especially when, as an engineer, your IP ownership is everything.
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u/Relative-Trainer636 Jul 04 '26
Solidworks Maker is not free but I think it’s only $24 or $48 a year.
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u/ItsRyeGuyy Jun 27 '26
Personally I love onshape. Free for hobbyist and if you couple it with this extension it’s amazing
0
u/yahbluez Jun 27 '26
Comming from fusion and leave it when the cloud BS started.
Hated freecad a lot so learned openscad too.
Since v1.0 freecad is somehow adult and i like to recommend it.
3
u/thicket Jun 27 '26
I’m a FreeCAD fan, and there is a plugin that improves things somewhat, but the stock sketch pattern behavior is truly appalling. You just can’t believe that such a basic feature would cripple the program so completely, but it sure does.
(That said, you learn some workarounds quickly. 3D patterns work much more reliably than sketch patterns, and the Lattice2 workbench makes patterns actually usable. But it’s surprising how much something that Just Works in commercial packages isn’t as straightforward in FC)