Autodesk Fusion vs. DraftSight

Most of my work with Fusion 360 has focused on its 3D modeling capabilities, and its liberal licensing policies for hobbyists has made it popular in that space. It focuses on a "mechanical engineering" approach to modeling rather than artistic, organic sculpting. While it's less rigid than its big brother AutoCAD, making the most of it will require thinking about the structure of your model rather than simply its appearance. That emphasis means it's fantastic for producing mechanical parts, and it can simulate how multiple separate parts will interlock and work with each other in 3D printed devices. This makes using it to design hinges and other moving mechanisms orders of magnitudes simpler; it also preserves an ongoing, editable history of the part being modeled. Realizing you need to tweak the tolerances on a part halfway through the design is fairly easy; you can go back any number of steps in the model's creation and modify the parameters used on a specific part, changing a hole's width or a groove's depth without altering any other parts of the model. The downside of this CAD-like power is that it's much less capable of "sculpting" organic models. Tools like ZBrush, Rhino, and even Blender are a better choice there.

Incentivized

We put it through its paces with our drawings and it works fine. We do a lot of wiring diagrams and industrial control panel layout drawings, so we use a lot of its 2D capabilities. I would not use it in a multi-user environment where you have multiple designers working on one project at a time. This software makes no provisions for allowing multiple users to work at the same time on the same drawing and has no native version control. And because of their poor software control, DraftSight many times put out versions that are "crashy", which would make a lot of people very unproductive very quickly. I would look at other products for larger projects like that.

Incentivized

• Fusion 360 is incredible at enabling me to quickly and efficiently capture the ideas that I have in my head and output them as 3D models without having to do any intense drawings. I use this all the time to model small, less important parts of our products during the prototyping phase.
• The software is really good at helping even the least experienced designers get acclimated to the software extremely quickly. Having a quick-access help manual and easy to navigate functions made the software feel almost second-nature the first time I used it.
• Fusion 360 has the functionality to save all of your files online, so you can draw something out on one computer and move to another one that has the software and pick up right where you left off. I use this function all the time when I am when I work at a computer that is not mine.

Incentivized

• You can easily bring in a dwg format drawing into the programme and it will display the information just as well as AutoCAD.
• The programme supports shortcut features or one-click buttons for the most commonly used operations.
• Script files can be used which is a bonus.

Incentivized

• Even though it has a very good cloud software, Fusion 360 gets very laggy when using slow internet connections.
• Fusion 360 uses a vast amount of your device's memory. It is recommended to select the RAM value as high as possible on your device.
• Fusion 360's sculpting and retopology features are behind the competing software on the market.

Incentivized

• The layers palette icons are confusing and it requires too many steps to create a new layer. I shouldn't have to open the layer manager to create a layer.
• Converting splines to polylines and arcs (quickly and easily) that can be cut on CNC equipment. This is a nut no CAD package I've come across has been able to crack to my expectations. I need less "workarounds" and a more straightforward workflow with tunable options for this very frequent process.

Incentivized

It does everything I need for great value.

Incentivized

It has given us, a small startup, the ability to compete effectively with far larger competitors by evening the playing field at a low cost.

Incentivized

Because the tool is very useful and easy to access, it provides very basic and useful tools to start in the modeling part despite being basic processing aspects. It is also very easy to get a free, temporary, or student license, which makes it a very good CAD tool.

Easy if you know how to use CAD software. But is not very difficult to learn using DraftSight if this is your first CAD software. As soon as you get in to it the work flow will save you a lot of time and its simple interface is very nice.

Incentivized

Sometimes I like using it on Saturday nights. Unfortunately, they usually do their updates at this time and it isn't available to use.

Incentivized

Other than a bug created by a VAR tech support that didn't get resolved until I installed the next version, DraftSight has worked fine.

It can freeze sometimes while doing heavy tasks.

Incentivized

In general it's very quick to load drawings...now it depends a lot on the file we're opening or working on.

Incentivized

Support is conducted via internet Q&A boards; newcomers to 3D modeling may find that articulating their questions in the language of CAD software is the tricky part — once they find the right technical term for what they're trying to accomplish, answers come quickly. Autodesk also provides a large library of educational tutorial videos that make the initial process of learning Fusion 360's interface much easier.

Incentivized

Technical support seems to be overseas with broken English and difficulty to read English. I asked for a trial license to try the fix but it was declined. Ask pratiksha.dahotre and gayatri.keskar for details. In summary, they released a broken version, I helped to fix by providing feedback and error logs. They claimed it is fixed but I can't test it.

Based on some knowledge of AutoCad, using Draftsight took a short time before I felt comfortable using it.

Incentivized

No. It is basic and straightforward.

Incentivized

Take time to get used to where commands are and how the interface can be customized to suit your needs and work style. The keyboard commands are very helpful and can make work more efficient if time is taken to learn them.

Incentivized

No we can’t compare these softwares from each other’s but yes this Autodesk Fusion [360] is a great tool for printing 3d models which gives you full control over elements

Incentivized

While SketchUp is free, DraftSights cost is minimal and its abilities are much greater. It is so much easier to layout and modifies a system design. Since DraftSight is compatible with all versions of CAD, it makes it easy to collaborate with customers on their specific system design. We spend less time and see greater sales on our projects.

It offers so much already, and the reason being is that it showed promise early on.

Incentivized

As a startup, we really appreciate scalable software or tools, and because we use it for diverse types of projects, flexibility is key.

Incentivized

• Fusion 360 has had a positive impact on our ROI. Specifically, being able to cut down on iterations by presenting 3-Dimensional designs to stakeholders earlier on in the process.
• Fusion 360 also has had a positive impact on our ROI in terms of manufacturing. Although not all manufacturers have in-house personnel trained in Fusion360 specifically, we have found that it is so easy to pick up if one is experienced in another CAD program. Its ease of use and ability to share files with others has saved a ton of time and money.

Incentivized

• Draftsight has been very cost effective, it was free a few years ago then £79 a year, which it still is if you have the standard version. Now the minium level is Profession edition at £159+ VAT per year. Which is still very good value for money, just more that what we currently pay with the standard licences we have.

Incentivized