Notes for people drafting outside the subscription.
A source-led blog about CADCraft: what it does next to Autodesk AutoCAD, how to move your drawings, and which real tasks it handles today.
CADCraft vs AutoCAD (2026)
An honest, source-led comparison: licence model, 2D drafting surface, DWG and DXF compatibility, the 3D boundary and who each tool actually fits.
switch guideSwitching from AutoCAD to CADCraft
A practical migration checklist: move your DWG and DXF drawings, rebuild your command-line habits and hand off drawings without surprises.
task guideOpen and check DWG files without AutoCAD
How to open, inspect and edit DWG drawings with a free, open-source CAD app — and when that is the wrong answer.
How this blog is written
Every article starts from public sources: the official CADCraft product page, the public repository and Autodesk's official AutoCAD overview page wherever AutoCAD is discussed. We describe licences, file formats and workflows in words rather than inventing prices, benchmarks or rankings.
Product status changes. The primary sources are always the authority; each article records the date its sources were last checked.
Start here instead
other entrancesNew to the product? Read the CADCraft overview, which also lists the v0.5.0 downloads and the project's own known limits. Deciding between tools? The comparison library holds the short, side-by-side pages against AutoCAD, LibreCAD and FreeCAD. This blog is the long-form layer on top: one topic per article, no feature-count contests.