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I think the edge solvespace has over the closed-source competition is that it's actually enjoyable to use. Every time I think about sitting down to make somethi

I think the edge solvespace has over the closed-source competition is that it's actually enjoyable to use. Every time I think about sitting down to make something with solidworks, my heart sinks. On the other hand, I actually enjoy using solvespace. Obviously, there are some lacking features, occasional jank, and (much less these days) weird pathological performance edge cases, but it's like all open source software: as it gets more polished, as more features get added, you have less and less reason to fire up the horrible UX closed source programs.

phkahler 5y ago
>> I think the edge solvespace has over the closed-source competition is that it's actually enjoyable to use. That is IMHO exactly why people use it, myself included. It really encourages a sort of "play" with the model which seems to come from heavy use of the constraint solver. You never enter dimensions in a property window somewhere, you enter them right on the sketch which means your focus is almost always right there. The interactivity is very high for a CAD tool.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  For me it's the orthogonality - sometimes I hit some weird thing that's really tricky to do, or surprising, but mostly, solvespace gives you a very elegant set of tools for building shapes. That means that instead of stopping every five minutes to fiddle with all the little switches and toggles on some inane popup window you're in a flow state a lot of the time. It's like geometry, where you build complex forms through a straight edge and compass. For this reason, I think that even if solvespace was completely abandoned tomorrow, it would still be of interest to future programmers making future CAD programs.