One word of warning about onshape. If you're not paying their subscription prices (i.e. using the free personal license) the retain all rights to anything you make on their platform.
Me personally I don't care, I'm not making anything I'm going to sell, but you should be aware if you are
I don't think that's quite accurate. If you're using the free license, then everything you create is a public document. Allowing anyone in the world access to that document. Per the EULA[0]:
> 7.2.2 For any Public Document owned by a Free Plan User created on or after August 7, 2018, or any Public Document created prior to that date without a LICENSE tab, Customer grants a worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to any End User or third party accessing the Public Document to use the intellectual property contained in Customer’s Public Document without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Document, and to permit persons to whom the Document is made available to do the same.
Perhaps more importantly, the Free License doesn't allow for any commercial use. If you are designing something for commercial use, then you can, should, and are obligated to, upgrade to a paid license.
It's been good for making 3D printing doodads I need for around the house. Happy to let others use my 1-off flange shim thingy. But aside from that this is a very good warning to be aware of.
This is why I signed up for the pro trial (6 months is generous) to learn cad and draw up some internal use equipment design for my company. The terms of the pro trial make your designs read-only after the trial ends, but you retain ownership and rights and it doesn't go public unless you explicitly switch to a hobbyist license.
The sales rep called me and seemed miffed when I said we're not an engineering firm, and we do not need CAD for our line of business. Sorry buddy, but my use case is for a commercial purpose (not for sale but it is designed for and would be used by a business...) so I can't really sign up for the free hobbyist license that explicitly prohibits commercial use and fails to clarify exactly what that means.
For folks who are curious, the product in question here is physical objects and Onshape is a CAD program.
Their licensing kerfuffle was a bit more subdued than Autdesk's on-going slow motion crash (maybe AD has finally come to a rest) --- as noted elsethread, all documents on a free account are public.
The opensource alternatives are a wide-ranging lot:
- BRL CAD --- intensely old-school, it is one of the oldest opensource codebases
- FreeCAD --- exactly what it says on the tin, the recent fixes and UI updates have put it back on the radar for a lot of folks
- Solvespace --- small/light-weight and nimble (a single downloadable executable on Windows last I checked) it has a UI which I never found comfortable
- Dune 3D --- the new kid on the block, it has a remarkably polished UI (it's the only interactive CAD program whose tutorial I made it through more-or-less successfully) --- it's had a number of previous discussions here:
I recently had to choose a CAD software and went for freeCAD. I wanted something local without subscriptions. It's ugly and relatively unstable but I'm not dropping $50-$150 a month nor learning how to use an online tool that can be unplugged at any moment
It is a great platform but I can't make it work with my 3DConnexion SpaceMouse (various browsers on MacOS) so I have to use Autodesk Fusion.
Which is a shame because certain quality of life features like selections are working much better on OnShape and you also have git style branches as well in the free version!
They also have an iPad app!
Highly recommended
I use it to design functional parts for 3D printing at home, very solid 3d design software that works on any internet connected device. Can easily open/see/edit parameters quickly on a phone or tablet even, to address a design flaw.
Workflow in a nutshell:
- Start a sketch on a plane, use toolbar circle, draw, type dimensions, close sketch.
- Click the rectangle you made and use toolbar extrude.
- Click the resulting object (bottom left) and export as STL / 3MF file.
It is parametric design:
- Discover your oops. Go back to sketch or extrude, edit dimension, entire design updates by magic.
- Dimensions can be changed into a quickly editable #variablesYouName by typing # basically.
Documentation is short and to the point. Same for most videos that explain how to accomplish something specific. Love it.
One word of warning about onshape. If you're not paying their subscription prices (i.e. using the free personal license) the retain all rights to anything you make on their platform.
Me personally I don't care, I'm not making anything I'm going to sell, but you should be aware if you are
I don't think that's quite accurate. If you're using the free license, then everything you create is a public document. Allowing anyone in the world access to that document. Per the EULA[0]:
> 7.2.2 For any Public Document owned by a Free Plan User created on or after August 7, 2018, or any Public Document created prior to that date without a LICENSE tab, Customer grants a worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to any End User or third party accessing the Public Document to use the intellectual property contained in Customer’s Public Document without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Document, and to permit persons to whom the Document is made available to do the same.
[0]: https://www.onshape.com/en/legal/terms-of-use
Perhaps more importantly, the Free License doesn't allow for any commercial use. If you are designing something for commercial use, then you can, should, and are obligated to, upgrade to a paid license.
It's been good for making 3D printing doodads I need for around the house. Happy to let others use my 1-off flange shim thingy. But aside from that this is a very good warning to be aware of.
This is why I signed up for the pro trial (6 months is generous) to learn cad and draw up some internal use equipment design for my company. The terms of the pro trial make your designs read-only after the trial ends, but you retain ownership and rights and it doesn't go public unless you explicitly switch to a hobbyist license.
The sales rep called me and seemed miffed when I said we're not an engineering firm, and we do not need CAD for our line of business. Sorry buddy, but my use case is for a commercial purpose (not for sale but it is designed for and would be used by a business...) so I can't really sign up for the free hobbyist license that explicitly prohibits commercial use and fails to clarify exactly what that means.
For folks who are curious, the product in question here is physical objects and Onshape is a CAD program.
Their licensing kerfuffle was a bit more subdued than Autdesk's on-going slow motion crash (maybe AD has finally come to a rest) --- as noted elsethread, all documents on a free account are public.
The opensource alternatives are a wide-ranging lot:
- BRL CAD --- intensely old-school, it is one of the oldest opensource codebases
- FreeCAD --- exactly what it says on the tin, the recent fixes and UI updates have put it back on the radar for a lot of folks
- Solvespace --- small/light-weight and nimble (a single downloadable executable on Windows last I checked) it has a UI which I never found comfortable
- Dune 3D --- the new kid on the block, it has a remarkably polished UI (it's the only interactive CAD program whose tutorial I made it through more-or-less successfully) --- it's had a number of previous discussions here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37979758
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40228068
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40228257
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41975958
Or, of course, one can just code a design using OpenSCAD (and for the Python folks there's https://pythonscad.org/ and so forth).
I recently had to choose a CAD software and went for freeCAD. I wanted something local without subscriptions. It's ugly and relatively unstable but I'm not dropping $50-$150 a month nor learning how to use an online tool that can be unplugged at any moment
Dune 3D seems quite attractive/contemporary, and I believe more stable --- would it be something you would want to try?
I'm open to other things, I just stumbled on freeCAD first and after the few initial hours of pain I'm now able to produce most of what I want
It is a great platform but I can't make it work with my 3DConnexion SpaceMouse (various browsers on MacOS) so I have to use Autodesk Fusion. Which is a shame because certain quality of life features like selections are working much better on OnShape and you also have git style branches as well in the free version! They also have an iPad app! Highly recommended
I had the same issue on Firefox based browsers on Mac OS but solved it by using onshape in a chromium based one (brave in particular)
Slim chance you didn’t already try, but I thought to point this out just in case.
I use it to design functional parts for 3D printing at home, very solid 3d design software that works on any internet connected device. Can easily open/see/edit parameters quickly on a phone or tablet even, to address a design flaw.
Workflow in a nutshell:
- Start a sketch on a plane, use toolbar circle, draw, type dimensions, close sketch.
- Click the rectangle you made and use toolbar extrude.
- Click the resulting object (bottom left) and export as STL / 3MF file.
It is parametric design:
- Discover your oops. Go back to sketch or extrude, edit dimension, entire design updates by magic.
- Dimensions can be changed into a quickly editable #variablesYouName by typing # basically.
Documentation is short and to the point. Same for most videos that explain how to accomplish something specific. Love it.
way too expensive to makers who want to keep their designs private