I’m trying to find out what is the most used between these two. There are others being used. These seem to be the most mentioned. Who is using what?
Thank you
I mostly use Fusion myself. I’ve been meaning to try out Onshape to see if I like it better than Fusion. One of the nice things about Fusion is now we have a dedicated post-processor. Which reminds me, I need to test the new post…
Of course, the GRBL post works just fine for our purposes. I believe the Kiri:moto plugin has a GRBL post, but I’d need to look into it.
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I use OnShape because I learned SolidWorks and the OnShape user experience is VERY similar to SolidWorks.
If I had the money to pay for it I would use SolidWorks.
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I use Fusion 360
Cad and cam
Onshape because Chromebook. Onshape runs in a browser and that’s perfect for my selfish purposes.
By use I mean intend to use. I have played with it a little, but I’ll get into it when I have a Maslow and therefore a LOT of incentive to learn.
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Same with me: coming from a solidworks background OnShape was the way to got. But I am looking into Fusion360 too. No preference so far when it comes to machining (used them to render 3D technical models for Marketing)
I use onshape because fusion360 is an autodesk product, and I avoid their
products if I can.
They have a bad track record, not from a “products don’t work” point of view,
but from a “use the courts to block people reselling their products” and
deliberatly breaking compatibility with competitor’s products.
Also, Fusion360 is only free if you are not a business, or are a small enough
business (based on your gross revenue, not profits).
Onshape is free as long as you make your designs free.
Both run in browsers, Onshape even runs on phones and tablets.
If you are not concered about issues other than “does it work”, either one will
work.
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Trained in Solidworks here also, but use fusion as i dont like that you need to have your designs open on onshape because i want to desigs a few things for potential commercial gains, so open just does NOT work for me.
Plus the non free version of onshape is $125 a month and fusion is $40 if you get to the point of paying for either
I use OnShape mostly because I discovered and started learning it before I discovered Fusion. A few other pros/cons:
- Autodesk is a big company, more likely to survive an economic hit; OnShape is smaller.
- OnShape has come a long distance in a very short time. I haven’t been following closely, but I get the impression that they are developing a lot faster than Fusion.
- OnShape kinda turned their back on the hobbyist/start-up community; they used to offer up to 10 private files per user for free accounts, but took those away, making existing user’s private files read-only. This was a bummer for hobbyists, but killer for users with small for-profit projects. They suddenly faced a choice of $125 per month to keep developing or abandoning their designs on OnShape and starting over on another platform. OnShape ignored the community’s call for a cheaper hobbyist price tier. I don’t want to paint the OnShape folks as bad guys here. They just stopped giving something away for free which is within their rights, and I’m sure AutoDesk is capable of the same type of behavior. It is a reminder that when you depend on someone else’s service, you can lose functionality up to and including losing everything on that service. I still think it’s a good trade. I can work on my OnShape designs on just about any computer with a browser and an Internet connection, but I keep a copy of FreeCAD on my computer just in case.
I’ve just started to kick the tires on OnShape and Fusion360. I found the work flow in Fusion was similar to DesignSpark Mechanical and I was able to replicate a job fairly quickly, and Im sure I could do the same if I invested the time into learning OnShape,
But I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the licencing or use policies. I too will be holding onto my free to use copy of DS Mechanical.
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I personally love OnShape for all my hobby projects, since I like the workflow, and love that it is browser based. But I have reinstalled Fusion so I can take advantage of the CAM stuff when my Maslow gets built.
Look into the Kiri:Moto plugin for OnShape. I haven’t tried it myself, but from my understanding it does CAM similar to Fusion. That way you don’t have to move over to another CAD program. 
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You can run local copy of kiri:moto, fairly easily.
Install node.js
sudo apt-get install npm
sudo apt install nodejs-legacy
Copy from git
` git clone https://github.com/GridSpace/grid-apps.git’
cd to grid apps dir.
npm update
npm start
open http://localhost:8080/kiri in your browser. Drop in an STL file.
You can also run jscut locally in your browser, if you have a fairly new copy of node.js which has built in httpd server. npx node-static -p 8000
. I don’t have my Maslow yet, so, i cant comment on tool path optimization, yet.
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to be clear, what they took away was the ability for you to have documents that
are not available to the pubic for free.
you can still have any number of documents that are available to be discovered
and cloned by others for free.
I didn’t run into onshape until after this happened, so I didn’t know that
onshape ever offered this option.
I like the community emphisis that if you are using the free service, your
designs are available to others (I was shocked to discover that there are 50
clones of my maslow frame document yesterday)
David Lang
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