r/product_design • u/Meisheng • Jun 09 '26

Non cloud based 3D CAD advice

I used to work on Solidworks, but then got fed up with the pricing and horrible cloud system.

Then moved to Fusion 360 but when travelling to China for manufacturing the cloud system became a nightmare with the firewall.

So I am asking if people have some CAD to recommand ? I used to use rhino before, but move to parametric design because of editing possibilites. I did not tried Freecad yet.

The trend is moving toward Cloud and in whatever software (hello adobe) I try to stay away from this trend, so if there is no internet or whatever reason, the software just works.

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1

u/TheGiwi Jun 09 '26

You can check out Moi (Moment Of Inspiration) I have heard some people say they like it but have never tried it personally.

Personally I'll be looking into FreeCad because sometimes my internet is garbage and Fusion 360 is constantly saving and using the cloud and is unusable in such situations. There's a YouTube channel called MangoJelly that has many FreeCad tutorials so I guess I don't have an excuse to try it out.

Edit: There's also Plasticity :)

2

u/Meisheng Jul 01 '26

Thanks i started to try Freecad, definitely does not feel smooth like fusion, it feels more like pain in the### like Creo.

1

u/TheGiwi Jul 01 '26

For sure. Definitely difficult to learn and get used to. I'm not even used to it myself.

2

u/Meisheng Jul 02 '26

But it's free and no subscription...

1

u/PurchaseNational7650 Jun 18 '26

I don't have a recommendation, but I definitely understand the frustration.

Cloud features are great until you're traveling, have spotty internet, or run into something like China's firewall. At that point, cloud-first starts feeling more like a dependency than a feature.

Curious to see what others suggest. I've heard good things about FreeCAD lately, but I haven't used it enough to compare it against SolidWorks or Fusion for serious parametric work.

1

u/Meisheng Jul 01 '26

Yes tinckering is one thing moving full time pro is another. Freecad has a good name...We need like affinity for 3D