It seems that you have only used Pre-1.0/1.1 FreeCAD from your description.
I have done some pretty complex designs with it, but the topological naming problem was really bad then.
It has improved greatly, has good defaults now, and I have yet to have any sort of crash at all and so far.
Sure, not perfect, nor even “great” and without all of the quality of life tools as F360, but it also doesn’t bend you over like F360 does. Development has sped up a ton in the past couple years too. I am hoping it is on par with what F360 was before enshittification in 5 years or so.
Sadly, F360 has been spiraling downhill for a while. Everyone who uses it a lot (and especially professionally) is complaining how terribly slow and buggy it is and gets worse with every update. Apparently rampant memory leak crashes, calculation crashes, and skyrocketing prices.
I have definitely used it post 1.0, not 1.1 since that just released in March of this year though. I have a hard time believing they have fixed all the issues I have with it between 1.0 and 1.1. I would love to see it get better, but unfortunately I just don’t have a lot of hope without significant changes made to detoxify the community. To me it is one of those “the first step is admitting you have a problem” situations, and so far they seem unwilling.
As for F360 going downhill, not in a way I notice as a hobbyist (other than making it much harder to install under wine recently…). That said, I only use F360 because they have a free for hobbyist/makers option. Most everyone I know that uses CAD professionally use Solidworks (outside of YouTubers that seem to be getting paid by Autodesk occasionally), so I have long assumed F360 isn’t “the best” option, just the one that I could reach.
True, many many companies have solid works because they invest heavily in marketing to universities, but holy shit it is slow, horrible, buggy, and crashes a ton, but it has a good ecosystem with Altium for mechanical+ electrical design so companies get locked in. It is all about marketing.
Creo (I think that was it) is really the way to go. Like FreeCAD, it is not very intuitive, but it can handle assemblies that would send solid works and inventor into the depths of error and lagging hell.
It seems that you have only used Pre-1.0/1.1 FreeCAD from your description.
I have done some pretty complex designs with it, but the topological naming problem was really bad then.
It has improved greatly, has good defaults now, and I have yet to have any sort of crash at all and so far.
Sure, not perfect, nor even “great” and without all of the quality of life tools as F360, but it also doesn’t bend you over like F360 does. Development has sped up a ton in the past couple years too. I am hoping it is on par with what F360 was before enshittification in 5 years or so.
Sadly, F360 has been spiraling downhill for a while. Everyone who uses it a lot (and especially professionally) is complaining how terribly slow and buggy it is and gets worse with every update. Apparently rampant memory leak crashes, calculation crashes, and skyrocketing prices.
I have definitely used it post 1.0, not 1.1 since that just released in March of this year though. I have a hard time believing they have fixed all the issues I have with it between 1.0 and 1.1. I would love to see it get better, but unfortunately I just don’t have a lot of hope without significant changes made to detoxify the community. To me it is one of those “the first step is admitting you have a problem” situations, and so far they seem unwilling.
As for F360 going downhill, not in a way I notice as a hobbyist (other than making it much harder to install under wine recently…). That said, I only use F360 because they have a free for hobbyist/makers option. Most everyone I know that uses CAD professionally use Solidworks (outside of YouTubers that seem to be getting paid by Autodesk occasionally), so I have long assumed F360 isn’t “the best” option, just the one that I could reach.
True, many many companies have solid works because they invest heavily in marketing to universities, but holy shit it is slow, horrible, buggy, and crashes a ton, but it has a good ecosystem with Altium for mechanical+ electrical design so companies get locked in. It is all about marketing.
Creo (I think that was it) is really the way to go. Like FreeCAD, it is not very intuitive, but it can handle assemblies that would send solid works and inventor into the depths of error and lagging hell.