Good things come to those who wait. And for 3D modelling professionals using open-source software, the wait for FreeCAD 1.0 has been a long one – over 22 years in the making!
At long last, this free, open-source alternative to expensive engineering software like Autodesk Fusion 360, AutoCAD, SOLIDWORKS etc., finally issued its first, formal stable release.
A major milestone all told.
Not that a lack of 1.0 release had put people off using it prior to now, of course.
FreeCAD in already widely used – from professionals and engineering students to 3D printing enthusiasts, both on Linux and other operating systems. I recall referencing it a few times when I first started blogging about Linux in 2008 before OMG! Ubuntu was thing!
So if FreeCAD was already usable, why’d it take 2 decades to get to a 1.0 release?
The team had been tempted to rubber-stamp a v1.0 release sooner, but had specific goals in mind, as they explain:
The FreeCAD community had a clear view of what 1.0 represented for us. What we wanted in it. FreeCAD matured over the years, and that list narrowed down to just two major remaining pieces: fixing the toponaming problem, and having a built-in assembly module.
FreeCAD
With the final few blockers resolved, the makers are confident is can live up to its potential, and help put the software on a better footing in terms of feature parity with well-funded proprietary software such as Fusion.
As I’m not versed in computer-aided design (I struggle to model anything abstract in Blender, let alone create something precise through CAD) I can only go on what I hear people who’ve used the app say about it – and it’s broadly positive.
To coincide with the 1.0 release FreeCAD has a new logo, created by its community, and delivers some significant changes to its user interface, including rotational centre indicators, on-model task panel and combo view modes, new dark and light themes, and more.
A slick release trailer highlights the capabilities FreeCAD 1.0 offers:
But like all software, 1.0 is mile-marker on a longer journey – i.e., development doesn’t stop here.
“This version 1.0 is not a finished product, simply because FreeCAD is not a product. It’s our project, our baby, our passion, our tool. Version 1.0 is our achievement. All of us who worked on it, from the ones who helped raise the project [to] people who just came to help finishing translations”.
Exciting times.
Download FreeCAD 1.0
FreeCAD is free, open-source software available for Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon), and Linux. Source code is available on
You can download FreeCAD from the official website. The Linux version comes as a standalone, one-click AppImage file that works on all major Linux distributions. But to use AppImages in Ubuntu you now need to install a specific package first.
There’s also an official FreeCAD snap (sudo snap install freecad); you prefer Flatpak you can find FreeCAD on Flathub; and there is a FreeCAD Stable PPA but this unmaintained – don’t add it for the latest version.
To install an older version of FreeCAD without PPAs or snaps or anything else, just run sudo apt install freecad.
To learn more about what it can do you can check out the FreeCAD manual, swot up on FreeCAD tutorials and pore over the official FreeCAD 1.0 release notes.
You don’t need to be a CAD pro to be excited by the arrival of FreeCAD 1.0. Like Krita, Mozilla Firefox, LibreOffice, Blender and others, it’s a cross-platform, field-leading tool which demonstrates the power and possibilities community-built, open-source software can offer.
I can’t wait to see how this project scales.
Thanks David :)