3D modeling and CAD software in 2026
6 commercial products, ranked by how many people read about each, or about its maker, on Wikipedia's mobile site. Of those with an article of their own, AutoCAD has the most readers, about 3.7k a month. 30 open-source projects, ranked by GitHub stars and how recently each was worked on. FreeCAD leads with 35k stars, ahead of Editor. 30 had code pushed in the last three months. Most common licenses: MIT (11), GPL-3.0 (7) and Apache-2.0 (6).
Commercial 3D modeling and CAD software
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1
AutoCAD Autodesk
Computer-aided design and drafting software
Complete system Production-ready You produce technical drawings in architecture, engineering or construction and must exchange DWG files with others.
3.7k readers a month Since 1982 Commercial -
2
SketchUp Trimble Inc.
Architectural 3D modelling CAD software
Complete system Production-ready Architects, builders or designers need quick 3D concept models rather than full engineering CAD.
3.5k readers a month Since 2000 Commercial -
3
Autodesk Maya Autodesk
3D computer graphics software
Complete system Production-ready You work in or train for film, TV or game animation pipelines where Maya is the expected tool.
2.7k readers a month Since 1998 Commercial -
4
SolidWorks Dassault Systèmes
Desktop software for 3D modeling
Complete system Production-ready A manufacturing or product engineering business designs mechanical parts and wants the most common desktop CAD for hiring and suppliers.
1.9k readers a month Since 1995 Commercial -
5
Onshape PTC
Onshape is the most customizable production CAD system. Cloud-native CAD and built-in PDM with AI-powered customization, on any device, with zero IT required.
Complete system Production-ready A product team wants mechanical CAD without installs or file juggling, and values branching and real-time collaboration.
800 readers a month Commercial -
6
Autodesk Fusion Autodesk
Computer-aided design (CAD) software application
Complete system Production-ready A small manufacturer, startup or maker wants design and CNC toolpaths in one affordable package.
699 readers a month Since 2013 Commercial
New open-source projects
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1
SolidCraft tangency-labs
SolidCraft: an open-source parametric 3D CAD application built in pure Rust. Desktop, web, and automation through MCP.
Complete system Experimental You want to try a new open parametric CAD tool for hobby parts.
★ 13k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today -
2
Openharness autonomous-ai
The ultimate harness for coding agents and beyond. All your agents. All your machines. One command center. Start with code, then follow your curiosity and build across disciplines: CAD, circuits, robots, games and music.
Developer tool Experimental You run several AI coding agents on multiple machines and want one place to supervise them.
★ 1.4k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
3
Multi-Agent CAD Pan-Chera
MAC (Multi-Agent CAD): A decoupled multi-agent framework for text-to-CAD generation via constrained test-time compute
Framework or platform Experimental You research or prototype text-to-CAD for assemblies and can run LLMs locally or via API.
★ 1.1k MIT Python Active, pushed 5 days ago
Open-source 3D modeling and CAD software
Complete systems you can adopt 7
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1
FreeCAD FreeCAD
Official source code of FreeCAD, a free and opensource multiplatform 3D parametric modeler.
Complete system Production-ready Engineers, makers or small firms need free parametric CAD without SolidWorks or Fusion licences.
★ 35k LGPL-2.1 C++ Active, pushed today -
2
Editor pascalorg
Open-source 3D architectural editor with a local CLI, MCP tools, and practical workflows for humans and AI agents.
Complete system Usable You want to sketch building layouts in 3D and let AI agents help.
★ 25k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
3
SolidCraft tangency-labs
SolidCraft: an open-source parametric 3D CAD application built in pure Rust. Desktop, web, and automation through MCP.
Complete system Experimental You want to try a new open parametric CAD tool for hobby parts.
★ 13k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today -
4
CADAM Adam-CAD
CADAM is the open source text-to-CAD web application
Complete system Usable Makers want quick printable parts from a description and simple parameter tweaks.
★ 5.4k GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 19 days ago -
5
Chili3D xiangechen
A browser-based 3D CAD for AI-assisted, parametric and direct modeling.
Complete system Usable You want real B-rep CAD in a browser without installing anything.
★ 5k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday -
6
SolveSpace solvespace
Parametric 2d/3d CAD
Complete system Production-ready You want a small, fast constraint-based CAD tool for simple mechanical parts.
★ 4.2k GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed 2 days ago -
7
OpenCADStudio HakanSeven12
A CAD application built with Rust — 2D/3D drawing, DWG/DXF support, and GPU-accelerated rendering
Complete system Experimental You need a free tool to open and edit DWG or DXF drawings and accept a young project.
★ 3.8k GPL-3.0 Rust Active, pushed today
Building blocks for your own system 1
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1
Build123d gumyr
A python CAD programming library
Building block Usable You prefer to model parts in Python code for reuse, version control and parametric families.
★ 3.6k Apache-2.0 Python Active, pushed today
Integrations 1
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1
Text-to-cad earthtojake
Design physical products with AI
Integration Experimental You design simple mechanical parts and want an AI agent to produce manufacturable files.
★ 25k MIT Python Active, pushed today
Developer tools 1
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1
Atopile atopile
Design circuit boards with code! ✨ Get software-like design reuse 🚀, validation, version control and collaboration in hardware; starting with electronics ⚡️
Developer tool Usable Your hardware team wants software-style reuse, validation and version control for electronics.
★ 4k MIT Python Active, pushed 19 days ago
Compared head to head
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Open-source licenses
- Permissive: 18. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
- Strong copyleft: 7. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
- Weak copyleft: 3. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.
- Network copyleft: 2. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.
Languages
TypeScript 8, Python 7, C++ 6, Rust 3, JavaScript 2, C 2, SWIG 1 and C# 1.
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