Definition of CAD Software
Computer Aided Design (CAD) refers to a type of software application for creating technical drawings. These can be either in two or three dimensions.
This page only looks at CAD applications. Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) and Computer Aided Machining (CAM) are not covered in this comparison, although those types of software are often very similar and usually can also be used for CAD trying to compare all CAx software would be unworkable on one page.
Comparison of CAD Editors
| Application | Latest stable release | Owner | Environment | Software licence | Open source? | User Interface Language | Stable? | Imports | Exports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutoCAD 2008 | 2009 | AutoDesk | Windows, WINE[1] | Proprietary | No | EN (incomplete list) | Yes | DXF, DWG, IFC, (incomplete list) | 3DS (requires addon), DXF, .dwg, DWF, IFC, (incomplete list) |
| ProENGINEER | 4.0 (Jan 2008Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
|
? | ? | EN | Yes | ? | ? | ||
| ProgeCAD (based on IntelliCAD) | 2008 | progeSOFT | Environment | Proprietary | No | User Interface Language | Stable? | Imports | Exports |
| QCAD Community Edition | 2.0.5.0 | RibbonSoft | Unix, Linux, Mac OS X | GNU GPL | Yes | DA, DE, Dutch, Estonian, Greek, Czech, English_language EN, FR, Hungarian, IT, NO, Polish, Punjabi, Russian, Slovak, SP, Turkish | Yes | DXF, (incomplete list) | DXF, (incomplete list) |
| QCAD Professional | 2.2.1.0 (2 May 2008)[2] | RibbonSoft | Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows | Proprietary | No | EN | Yes | DXF (incomplete list) | DXF (incomplete list) |
| SagCAD | 0.9.12 | SagCAD | Linux | GNU GPL | Yes | English, Japanese (incomplete list) | No | DXF | DXF |
| VariCAD | 2008 2.02 | VariCAD | Linux, Windows | Proprietary | No | EN | Yes | STEP (3D), DWG (2D), DXF (2D) and IGES (2D) ref | STEP (3D), STL (3D), IGES (3D/2D), DWG (2D), DXF (2D) ref |
Comparison of CAD Viewers
| Application | Latest stable release | Owner | Environment | Software licence | Open source? | User Interface Language | Stable? | Imports | Exports |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| progeCAD Viewer DWG (based on IntelliCAD) (incomplete entry) | Latest release? | progeSOFT | Environment? | Software licence? | Open source? | User Interface Language? | Stable? | Imports? | Exports? |