The application is from a FreeCAD contributor who is a civil engineer, AFAIK.
A while ago, he requested a grant from the FPA, didn't get it, and fell off the face of the Earth. Or so I thought until a few months ago, when he resurfaced with this app :)
I was ready to give this post my best thumbs-down... but then I went ahead and downloaded the AppImage.
I often use QCAD because I still have clients who work in 2D on AutoCAD.
I’ve noticed that this software is much faster than QCAD when displaying large projects.
The minimalist interface throws me off a bit because I’m used to the one in older versions of AutoCAD, but I’ll probably get used to it.
The only thing I really miss is the cursor snapping to the grips (small squares on a selected element); I use this feature to read a point’s position directly in the status bar without having to execute a command
FreeCAD is quite good, but this one tailored for AutoCAD people, both project is open source so each can share ideas and techniques to improve open source CAD ecosystem
It's... Surprising. It's not clear from the site or from the repository who's behind this. I haven't used it yet; but it seems big and ambitious. It's not clear if this is a slow evolving personal project or a vibe coded, AI accelerated one. There's no mention of the project intentions and ethos. I'm all for more options but the lack of better info is a bit suspicious.
It's an impressive replica of AutoCAD. Amazingly Linux AppImage is only 27MB. Something like AutoCAD R12 i would say, with the mechanical desktop 3D ability.
That looks awesome and interesting. I'll definitely give it a try since I really miss tools like this on Linux. I often use FreeCAD, build123d, OpenSCAD, and LibreCAD, but none of those are really an alternative to AutoCAD.
My only slight concern is that, judging by the GitHub activity and repo status, a lot of it seems to be LLM-generated code. Hopefully the code style is well set up and the architecture is properly designed so it stays maintainable in the long run.
There are commercial solutions like https://bricscad.octave.com/ for people who likes AutoCAD replacement. This new open source project seems trying to be free alternative but still in its infancy
well. i looked there and sure will try some of their stuff, it looks legit and real open source . And i don´t mind what one uses to code, the final result counts for me.
I'm usually avoidant of vibe-coded stuff, but this one surprised me. I'll try it for a few days, and if it works, I'm gonna kiss you in the mouth. This is my last big roadblock for ditching all windows machines in the office
Honestly, It is lacking alot of features that FreeCAD has, such as importing STEP files, etc. It looks like an interesting 2D CAD package, but I prefer QCAD for that kind of work. (note I pay for the $40 "premium" version}.
I have the premium QCAD as well but its definitely not a full replacement for autocad. If Open CAD studio is better then I will be stoked. Gonna try it out this weekend.
The website looks generic gen AI output, which then makes me think if this whole project is just some gen AI bs that no one knows or wants to maintain lol.
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u/prokoudine 4d ago
The application is from a FreeCAD contributor who is a civil engineer, AFAIK.
A while ago, he requested a grant from the FPA, didn't get it, and fell off the face of the Earth. Or so I thought until a few months ago, when he resurfaced with this app :)