DraftSight

Pros: The price is very competitive, as a 2D Cad program it does all you could want.

Cons: Once it starts to crash, it gets worse and worse, trying to get help from 3DS is (or was,I’m my case) a complete & utter waste of time. Never even had the decency to reply, wether they could help or not. You have to assume NOT as they didn’t reply. Awful experience!

Overall: I’ve used for several years, from the free to use days up until now, never had a crashing problem when it was free, over the 3/4 paid years it been a different story.

Good CAD drawing program, terrible (NON EXISTENT) 3DS support.

Pros: Low price and compatibility with CAD files.

Cons: The application crashes all the time and you lose unsaved work, plus the time to restart the application.
Horrible technical support.

Overall: The software doesn't work. They release a version that was broken and I used the free trial of that version not knowing it was broken. I ran it on a i7, 16GB RAM and RTX30 series (powerful computer) but the application was crashing constantly. I lost unsaved work and wasted hours restarting the application, which did cost me a few hundred dollars on billable hours. I sent errors logs, which helped them to identify the issue that they claimed it is now resolved in DraftSight 2022 SP1. Technical support seems to be overseas with broken English and difficulty to read English. After 14 days, they said there is hotfix "DraftSight memory saturation hotfix" that could solve the problem. I asked for a trial license to try the fix but it was declined.

In summary, they released a broken version, I helped to fix by providing feedback and error logs. They claimed it is fixed but I can't test it.

Pros: Works for CAD, has some AutoCAD like features and can type commands from AutoCAD shortcuts so easy to use if had AutoCAD background.

Cons: No SUPPORT for paid version other than support groups. As free version, support was typical. When changed to pay only version - there is basically not support.

Overall: Am forced into finding alternative by Dessault when went to paid version only. Should be part of Solidworks Pro package and supported by local dealers. Again.. lack of good support makes this not a good alternative. Drafts ok, but doesn't overcome the lack of support in the paid version. Fix support or drop the paid version and make it free again.