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Hi all,

I've been using 123D Design for a few years, but as it has been discontinued for some time what other free design software do you use? I prefer offline rather than cloud based.

Thanks

I use FreeCAD, you can make most things easily enough using basic 3D solids in the Part workbench, or trace 2D images in Draft workbench then close wire and upgrade to faces which can be extruded and lofted into solids.

When done create a simple copy of the solid and export as STL mesh, always imports fine into my UP3D software.

meshmixer.

I still use tinkercad for alot of easy work even though it's online.

Autodesk Fusion 360 - I confess that I haven't done much with it, but it's free for non-commercial use and it seems to be capable of just about anything.

OpenSCAD - http://openscad.org - It's a totally different approach to CAD, where you basically write a script that generates the shape that you want. As someone who enjoys programming, I really like this approach, but it does get kind of tricky when the scripts/shapes get more complicated.

I have also used Alibre Design quite a bit, and I really like the UI (it's the most intuitive CAD software that I have tried), but it was $200 when I bought it and apparently it's $1000 now. Apparently they've given up on the hobbyist market. That seems like a dangerous business choice, given that lots of professionals start out as hobbyists.