This page is also available in Dutch: Tests & benchmarks.
I advise nothing I have not tried myself. This page holds the tests with which I judge open-source CAD tools: reproducible, with a fixed method and honest conclusions.
It is deliberately a separate section: this is the evidence behind my advice, not the story I come in with.
What I test
- Modelling speed: sketch, constraint, feature
- Assemblies: mates, motion, bill of materials (BOM)
- CAM workflow: toolpath generation and G-code quality
- Drawing automation: TechDraw views, dimensioning and export
- STEP/IGES fidelity: the round trip with commercial CAD
- Large assemblies: 100+ parts and regeneration time
How I measure
- Hardware: AMD Ryzen 9 / 64 GB RAM / RTX 4080 (stated per test)
- OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (native) and Windows 11 where needed
- Metrics: time to result, file size, number of errors, feature coverage
- Reproducible: I publish test scripts and input files with the results
Results
I publish results as soon as a test round is done. Is there a specific tool or situation you want tested? I am happy to do that on request, and often a focused test in your situation is worth more than a general benchmark.
Reference
I keep the categories BIM & Architecture and Electronics & PCB as context, but I do not test them actively, that is not my core field. The technology under the tools is on NURBS & modeling kernels.