> Because FreeCAD has a terrible UI and a community that can't handle criticism at all
I think that's an unfair assessment. It has rough spots (as I'm sure all CAD software does) but it's functional and UX is improving rapidly with every release. It feels like it's built up a lot of momentum since I picked it up a few years ago.
It can do everything I need it to do. I mostly use the Part Design workbench, Part, Sketcher, Assembly, Lattice2, Fasteners, Spreadsheet; occasionally Curves and Curved Shapes workbenches. If I run into an issue the solution is almost always easy to find on their wiki, on Youtube, or by asking in their Discord server - the community is friendly and helpful in my experience.
It's hard to approach learning FreeCAD seriously when one spends real money on a book which is billed as covering v1.1 on the cover and advertised thus, but once one gets to the actual text on the application, it says "1.0 or later" and all the screengrabs and terminology are for 1.0.
I think that's an unfair assessment. It has rough spots (as I'm sure all CAD software does) but it's functional and UX is improving rapidly with every release. It feels like it's built up a lot of momentum since I picked it up a few years ago.
It can do everything I need it to do. I mostly use the Part Design workbench, Part, Sketcher, Assembly, Lattice2, Fasteners, Spreadsheet; occasionally Curves and Curved Shapes workbenches. If I run into an issue the solution is almost always easy to find on their wiki, on Youtube, or by asking in their Discord server - the community is friendly and helpful in my experience.