Migrating to FreeCAD from SolidWorks

Overview
The intention of this page is to serve as a guide for users that are accustomed to the Solidworks CAD/CAM workflow and want to try, use, or perhaps migrate to FreeCAD.

History
Understanding a little of the history of FreeCAD potentially help users comprehend and orient better to it.
 * FreeCAD was initially designed to behave parametrically using the Constructive solid geometry method (see also [[Image:Workbench_Part.svg|24px]] Part Workbench).
 * Later it incorporated the feature editing method within the [[Image:Workbench_PartDesign.svg|24px]] PartDesign Workbench.
 * Solidworks utilizes the latter approach, feature editing.

Tips
The Part Design Workbench has many equivalent functions to SolidWorks, though may be called by different names. The image below identifies equivalent functions and their names on each platform, as well as noting similar functions and functions that are unique to each platform:

Terminology

 * Extrude in FreeCAD terms is referred to as Padding (see )
 * Collinear relation in FreeCAD is called

Tutorials
List of helpful tutorials

Joko Engineeringhelp
There are many video tutorials online. One of the most popular (at the time this was written) is by a Youtuber calling himself Joko Engineeringhelp (he also participates on the FreeCAD Forum as Celica_Supra (profile link). One of his tutorials is meant specifically for former SolidWorks users: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XXnulyKPNI Some of the other videos are comparisons of SolidWorks and FreeCAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX8-3rMCbRw

Forum Threads

 * Anyone willing to collaborate on writing guides for users coming from other CAD/CAM solutions to FreeCAD?
 * Extreme Difficulty coming from Autodesk Inventor 2019.