I've been looking for a while at BricsCAD (as an alternative to VariCAD), but when you add in sheet metal folding and ability to export and import STEP, it starts getting expensive.
I just checked their site and their 20% off prices actually seem reasonable—at least before realizing they are yearly costs.. They do sell also perpetual licenses where you pay for the product of your selection and then a yearly maintenance fee, and this would perhaps make the most sense for a hobbyist, but this already feels a bit expensive.
I've been trying to get into FreeCAD, but some of my existing models seem to be a bit slow with it, not to mention the different workflow. But I'll give 1.0 a shot!
BricsCAD is ok. It's more of a direct modeler with constraint support though. It may or may not matter to you depending on the kind of work.
I tried it for a while, and while I generally liked it, also got stumped by the artificial limitation of STEP import/export, which made it a non-starter even for hobby projects. This is, IMHO, the dumbest thing they could do in terms of licensing.
I just checked their site and their 20% off prices actually seem reasonable—at least before realizing they are yearly costs.. They do sell also perpetual licenses where you pay for the product of your selection and then a yearly maintenance fee, and this would perhaps make the most sense for a hobbyist, but this already feels a bit expensive.
I've been trying to get into FreeCAD, but some of my existing models seem to be a bit slow with it, not to mention the different workflow. But I'll give 1.0 a shot!