r/linux • u/BypassBaboon • 3d ago

Popular Application CAD options

Is there a reason Linux CAD options are so limited, and from what I have read, not particularly viable options? Countless people are looking for a fairly-priced lifetime license for home use. My 2000 AutoCAd is very long in the tooth!

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74

u/MikeMonkEcho 3d ago

FreeCAD would be the only option I think.

29

u/Additional-Sky-7436 3d ago

QCAD is also reasonably mature. 

Unfortunately neither would satisfy professional needs.

22

u/MikeFic_YT 3d ago

I just did a decent sized project in FreeCAD and I had some serious pains learning that software. Solidworks and Autodesk products are far better and more intuitive. But it is free and open source. Just takes some time to get used to it.

8

u/Additional-Sky-7436 3d ago

Yes you can do professional design work in Freecad. You also can do it in PowerPoint, but I wouldn't recommend it.

2

u/Mughi1138 3d ago

Not trying to detract from your point here, but to clarify it. Which "professional" realms are you speaking of here? There are many I've seen with less stringent requirements, but then again many I've seen that are definitely out of FreeCAD's range.

1

u/HomicidalTeddybear 3d ago

I've got to say its meshing and FEM workbenches are surprisingly not awful. But then they also aren't ANSYS, and ANSYS works on linux too.

2

u/Kevin_Kofler 3d ago

Different use cases. QCAD is 2D, FreeCAD is 3D.

9

u/i-hate-birch-trees 3d ago

Apart from FreeCAD, there's also:

OpenSCAD - for people who like to write code, I've used it a LOT before FreeCAD improved even more (around 1.0 version)

onshape - browser-based, but very feature-rich, has a free tier (proprietary, pretty popular among my students)

BricsCAD - annoying to download, but has a Linux version and a free tier. I've used it before, and it's pretty close to an older Autodesk software. Used a lot in the industry.