Support and development are not free, even if Prusa manages to cover those costs with printer and filament sales. I'm not exactly happy about this, but seeing some of the bitching and moaning about free software like PrusaSlicer and Cura certainly helps me understand Autodesk's position. Much like alternatives like Affinity Designer ($50 one time) have been developed to compete with Adobe Photoshop (pay forever) for the hobbyist, I hope someone does the same for 3D design and can do so profitably. I'll keep my eyes open for something better (ideally with a one-time purchase price). though that sounds a bit beyond hobbyist to me. One complaint is that some users have multiple assemblies that must be separate active documents. You can still have unlimited archived documents, but I recall it can take a while to 'unfreeze' archives. The big change for a hobbyist like me is the limitation of 10 active documents. I can understand some of the advanced features (simulation) shifting to pay as they gain capabilities. As I recall, the subscription rate was double the annual rate but the cost was better than the full year subscription.RE: PSA: Fusion360 free getting a major nerf If you are and infrequent user, you could schedule CAD/CAM work for a month to complete a project and turn it off again.

When first introduced, one of the subscription options was monthly where Fusion could be turned on and off by the month. As long as I ignore the upgrade messages and work locally, I hopefully will still be able to use it without the new restrictions.Ī comment for Fusion users. I kept the old version 7.2 (released prior to the Autodesk acquisition) on my computer.

I use Eagle for my circuit board and beginning with version 8, it has been part of Fusion. Now I'm kind of glad that I didn't waste the time. Having a seat of SolidWorks and general inertia has kept me from becoming immersed in Fusion. When Fusion 360 was first introduced, I specifically asked the reps about the free subscription for hobbyists and was emphatically told the full feature version would always be free for hobbyists.

Fusion 360 free for hobbyists