Ask HN: How does modern FreeCAD compare with Solidworks?

• FreeCAD

  46 731 0.0 C++

  Link branch FreeCAD (by realthunder)

FreeCAD has improved immensely over the past 2-3 years in terms of stability and features. A decade ago it was not uncommon for me to experience crashes from it randomly losing its GLX context or the constraint solver segfaulting for some reason. Now it's rare for it to crash at all for me, though I still run into a lot of constraint solver errors that are a pain to deal with.

However, despite the recent improvements, I still cannot recommend it compared to commercial solutions for the sole reason of the Topological Naming Issues: https://wiki.freecad.org/Topological_naming_problem

This issue has been probably the #1 problem I've had with FreeCAD since I started using it. And though I've learned how to design parts to get around the problem in most situations, it's a huge hurdle for newcomers to understand and get around. Luckily there's a fork that fixes a significant number of the issues: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3 and https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD

I've also heard of Ondsel, which is supposedly a much more user friendly version of FreeCAD that also includes some fixes to the issue: https://ondsel.com/

• FreeCAD_assembly3

  75 868 4.4 Python

  Experimental attempt for the next generation assembly workbench for FreeCAD

FreeCAD has improved immensely over the past 2-3 years in terms of stability and features. A decade ago it was not uncommon for me to experience crashes from it randomly losing its GLX context or the constraint solver segfaulting for some reason. Now it's rare for it to crash at all for me, though I still run into a lot of constraint solver errors that are a pain to deal with.

However, despite the recent improvements, I still cannot recommend it compared to commercial solutions for the sole reason of the Topological Naming Issues: https://wiki.freecad.org/Topological_naming_problem

This issue has been probably the #1 problem I've had with FreeCAD since I started using it. And though I've learned how to design parts to get around the problem in most situations, it's a huge hurdle for newcomers to understand and get around. Luckily there's a fork that fixes a significant number of the issues: https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD_assembly3 and https://github.com/realthunder/FreeCAD

I've also heard of Ondsel, which is supposedly a much more user friendly version of FreeCAD that also includes some fixes to the issue: https://ondsel.com/

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com featured

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

• solvespace

  71 3,057 7.2 C++

  Parametric 2d/3d CAD

  

• build123d

  10 359 9.7 Python

  A python CAD programming library

I have used build123d to make a few parts recently, and it's a joy to use once you get the hang of it: https://github.com/gumyr/build123d https://github.com/gumyr/bd_warehouse

• bd_warehouse

  1 20 8.2 Python

  A build123d parametric part collection

I have used build123d to make a few parts recently, and it's a joy to use once you get the hang of it: https://github.com/gumyr/build123d https://github.com/gumyr/bd_warehouse

• FreeCAD

  237 17,871 10.0 C++

  This is the official source code of FreeCAD, a free and opensource multiplatform 3D parametric modeler.

  

Fix was merged into mainline FreeCAD yesterday: https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/issues/8432#issuecomment-...

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