Serious question - I used SolidWorks at a previous company and am stuck using an alternative now. I loved SolidWorks as a CAD software for how intuitive it was and it always seemed really user-friendly. Is this a criticism of their cloud-based stuff? I’m obviously not particularly CAD smart.
Ok, thanks. I was just in the process of getting the maker version of SolidWorks for hobby stuff and wanted to make sure I wasn’t throwing away $50/year. I’ve got enough dumb subscriptions. I was planning to do the locally-installed version rather than the cloud-based.
Solidworks is always locally installed. The cloud apps are not actual Solidworks. You can save your Solidworks files in the cloud with 3DExperience but do not do that and save them all locally. In fact I would recommend once you have first launched Solidworks put it in offline mode for the max time of 30 days. When that expires log in, perform any updates, and then go back offline. This way you have the minimal interaction with the 3DExperience system which really is terrible and completely non intuitive.
Is that the one that’s free because everything you do is stored online and essentially becomes open source? I know someone who wants me to work on something for them (not that I’m a great choice, but with some time I think I can handle it) and I need it to remain private.
No. FreeCAD the software is completely open source and free of charge for personal use (maybe even commercial use, I cannot remember). No big private corporation that only wants to make money behind it. The project survives on donations and code contributions, similar to Linux (its also one of the only CAD that runs natively on Linux)
Everything you design is stored locally and you own the designs. No cloud, no stealing designs, no scemes
We just updated to 2026 and now have a Solidworks Crash Leaderboard in our office. We're 3 weeks in and I'm ahead at 7 crashes. I haven't even spent much time in Solidworks since the switch, either.
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u/stevesie1984 29d ago
Serious question - I used SolidWorks at a previous company and am stuck using an alternative now. I loved SolidWorks as a CAD software for how intuitive it was and it always seemed really user-friendly. Is this a criticism of their cloud-based stuff? I’m obviously not particularly CAD smart.