Many of the hobby users DO have cnc machines at home and the CAM half of CAD/CAM is is equally as important to them as the drawing or CAD portion. Correct me if wrong but I also believe you do not own any cnc machines, so the CAM portion of the various softwares does not matter at all to you.

Albre may well be a excellent choice for YOUR purposes. This of course means you would not be eligible for either the free Fusion 360 or the EAA solidworks version. And I would be using a program many versions back, with bugs and lack of useful new features.Your description clearly identifies you as a commercial user, even if you use cad/cam for hobby use also.

Would I have even more money if I did not pay for it? One might say yes, but then I would not have the program in the first pace, so I would not be earning money with it, so I would not have the money at all. This is not because I paid nothing for it, but because the cost of the program is far exceeded by the money earned directly or indirectly from using it. I have a CAD program (Alibre) that I paid for and continue to pay maintenance on.

Found it difficult and unintuitive in use. Have used Dassault's free Draftsight 2D software for the last 10 or more years, last year it became a subscription based tool, $200.00 per year, I spend well more then that per month on terrible breakfast sandwiches, beer and smokes.Īnd yes, I have the free edition of Fusion 360, merely an employee not a business owner so was able to use it. I am a simple machinist, I do not need 3D Parametric modeling for most of the work that I do.

I also understand that giving away free product develops dedicated users that will not want to change platforms, I always desire that every product that I buy be 'free'.įor instance every time that I have bought a bottle of Heinneken beer it came with a label attached, I fully understand that this is also a facet of food labeling laws.ĭassault Systemes and Autodesk are in the business of making a profit, if they continue to give away product freely there will be little profit down that road.

Eaa solidworks