Re: SolidWorks is cool, sort of (but FreeCAD might be better)

On 6/17/2025 6:49 PM, Sergey Kubushyn wrote:

Especially when you are not even able to BUY that software, only rent. Not
just it gets extremely expensive after couple of years like it is now with
e.g. Altium Designer -- its cost PER YEAR is now the same as I paid for my
PERPETUAL license when those were still available and "subscription" was
(still "is" for me as mine only expires in 2027) something like 1/4..1/3 of
that and not mandatory. The biggest problem is what are you going to do when
the company goes bust (it is not "if", it is _ALWAYS_ "when" -- the bigger
they are the harder they fall) or just decides they don't want to support
that outdated weirdo anymore when they have a newer one or suddenly want 10x
last year price...

PC-based CAD/EDA tools have always been a gamble.  The market is too small
and the customers don't want to pay for ongoing support/development (the
"I can do all that stuff myself" econo-mentality).
I dropped ~$15K on the DASH suite in 1986.  Where is it today?  (where was
it in 1990??)  PCAD, Protel, OrCAD, Cadence, DIPtrace, etc.
[Sad as STRIDES was one of the slickest tools I've used!]
OTOH, you could have purchased a Mentor Graphics workstation and still
be running PADS.  Is Computervision still in business?  (does anyone
maintain their hardware?).
OTOH, I bought AutoCAD w/AME in the same timeframe (about $3K) and it's
been there for me in the 40 years since!  I'd still be waiting for
FOSS tools to have the capabilities I *bought* those many decades ago!
gEDA, KiCAD, FreeCAD... what happens when the developers move on
to the next "greatest" thing?  Are you willing to take on maintenance
of the codebase -- even if only for yourself?
Ask yourself what your time is worth and how much the tool is
saving (or costing!) you.  Simple business decision.
[E.g., I no longer maintain color printers as the cost far exceeds
what I have to pay if I print on a professionally maintained machine
at the end of the block!]
Whatever tools (not just EDA/CAD) you use, be sure you can keep running them
(or, resurrect them, as needed) for as long as you need to support <whatever>
you've used them for (hardware designs tend to be very transitory; though
I've a client who has somehow kept one of my designs in production for ~30
years... I have absolutely no idea how he finds the parts to do so!  :<  )
[VMs are the obvious choice for tools that can run on generic hardware.
Things get a bit more complicated when you need special hardware to host
the tools  <frown>]