OnShape

[marcos-diaz]

Intro

OnShape is a full featured CAD application which is purely cloud-based and executed in the browser.

The company was created by ex-employees from Solidworks.

Requirement notes

• Multiplatform: ✅
  • Browser-based.
• Free / Open source: 🔴
  • Free for hobbyists (for now?).
  • Not open source.
  • Cloud-based.
• Active project: ✅
  • OnShape became very popular among hobbyists as a free replacement for Fusion360, so it has a significant community of users.
  • We can assume that the company is healthy, and the product will be around in the future, but that's only speculation.
• Low entry barrier: ✅
  • OnShape seems to be to CAD application with a more streamlined and simple parametric modelling workflow.
  • Since OnShape is a popular product, there are plenty of tutorials available.
• Non-linear: ✅
  • Main workflow is common non-destructive parametric design.
• Fast prototyping: ✅
  • Thanks to its nice UI, this is possibly the closer a parametric design tool can be to become a good solution for prototyping.
• Collaboration: ✅
  • Cloud-based iteration management. Seems nice.
• Assembly: ✅
  • Yes.
• Common tools: ✅
  • Yes.