I was under the impression that solidworks would be out of my price range. My coworker told me the site license per seat was prohibitively high (~4k). Maybe there is an hobbyist price plan?
I did an application process for an entrepreneur license. Had to talk to them over the phone about what I was going to use it for and what my plans for my company were going to be. They reviewed it and I got full access for free for 12 months.
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I haven’t tried Fusion and Creo, been on Blender then Solidworks for quite some time.
Can’t agree more with what has been posted above! Actually if you manage to think “outside the box” Sw is wonderful for quick work builds, even more if you need them CNC’d (with obvious limitations from CNC engineering).
I’d like to give a shot to Creo but if it isn’t as simple as Sw I’ll have to pass. How is Fusion 360 guys?
I haven’t really used anything else. I have used it since March 2018 from knowing nothing from CAD.
I first tried SW but it didn’t seem easy to grasp for me. Switched to Fusion360 and felt comfortable using it instantly. I haven’t really looked back, there’s always new updates with nice new features
I tried installing Creo but the installation process is lengthy, well more than Fusion anyway.
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Damn, no i want to try fusion out!
Maybe I’ll do some comparison shopping here, ya know, for the free stuff.
Catia is the most powerful but also most painful. I prefer catia for complex surfacing and solidworks for simple products and 2D drawings. It is really easy to learn compared to catia I think. For large assemblies, catia is way better/smoother while solidworks lags.
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I can agree that Catia is far superior than solidworks and is extensively used in industry. However, it is still super expensive 
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Another option is siemens NX, which I believe have the best parts of sw and catia combined. But I have barely used it so I cannot say for sure. Also expensive as the others, but catia takes the cake in that regard, completely bonkers how expensive it is!
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Had a free license for 5 years now 
Hehe, once a year pops that email with a free student license. Then 1 week later its back to 100€
Its really stupid from dassault systems that they dont focus on students as those are their future users
I found the best way to learn quickly is to have an “expert” nearby, while working on something real. Whenever you get to a road block and can’t figure it out on your own you call them over and say how do I do this?
This works for any 3D CAD software.
If that is not available just replace “expert” with a youtube search.
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just sign up as a student and get autocad fusion ultimate and bunch of other stuff for free for your rest of your schooling then just make another account and you have like 3-4 more years you can probably get other stuff for free as well
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Solidworks 
In my Uni they use Siemens NX, and so in the BAJA team we also used it, I fought for 3 years until we changed to Solidworks
Nx is a really powerful tool, but it’s like to kill a fly with a nuclear warhead and really hard for people that never touched CAD before, specially when the teachers haven’t a clue how to do things in it
I like Solidworks since it has pretty advanced features without polluting everything with PLM and other modules that for single user use aren’t needed
Also I got a free life time license 
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Autocad Fusion doesn’t require a .edu email?
Nope, just activate full license inside trial, I think its free for startups
How do you go about to get a free license?
The pirate flag should give a hint, but only for personal use
But they do have an academic license, the only problem is that the license file has to be installed on a campus server and you have to connect via VPN to use it, since a lot of time I use without an internet connection it’s not an option
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To the west, Captain!
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I can’t speak for Catia, but my understanding of it is that it makes very few mathematical assumptions similar to Creo/ProE - Making these programs great when highly precise equation driven compound helix/sweeps/lofts are required for like turbine blades and aircraft wings and such that require G5 or more surface continuity. Solidworks on the other hand is great for most consumer-product-level and below complexity drafting because it DOES make mathematics assumptions (though sometimes I wish I had a little more control). Because of this it means things can be done quicker as they require less inputs. That said, it is still a different program and visual platform, so it’s like learning a new language. The plus side is that once you’ve locked that in, it is highly efficient for mid-level complexity builds.
Did you get an official licence? You can’t design anything you plan to sell unless you have the full licence. Take the tutorials that solidworks has built in, otherwise just watch a ton of YouTube. Titans of CNC has some good stuff about cnc work too if you need