Why free CAD software?

Commercial CAD seats commonly cost hundreds or thousands of pounds per user per year. That's a lot for a hobbyist, a student whose education licence runs out at graduation, or a five-person engineering shop.

Free and open-source tools have matured fast. FreeCAD reached version 1.0 in late 2024, and KiCad is used for professional PCB work. Your files stay in open formats you control, and the licence can't be withdrawn.

Some listings are free-to-use proprietary tools with limits (for example non-commercial use only, or public documents only). Each listing says which, so you can check it suits your work.

AI CAD tools are listed separately and honestly. They can speed up concept models, simple parametric parts and engineering look-ups, but engineers still need to check every dimension, tolerance and drawing. Most of these tools are paid products with free tiers or trials, and each listing says so.

How tools are chosen

Each listing links to the official website, states its licence and whether it is fully open source, free but proprietary, or free with paid tiers, and shows stars, last-commit date and licence from the project's public repository where it has one. Top Pick listings are clearly labelled and never change the facts shown about a tool.

Spotted something wrong or missing? Tell us.