Download/cs

There are several downloads for various operating systems available. Before downloading keep in mind:

Stable FreeCAD installers
The FreeCAD team provides ready-to-install packages for Windows (32 and 64bits),  Mac OS X (Mavericks 10.9 64bits), and   Ubuntu (LTS and current, 32 and 64bits). Below are links to the Stable installation files for the various systems. Also available on the FreeCAD Files page are unstable packages, that provide the bleeding-edge new features being worked on, but might crash more often or contain features that are incompatible with earlier versions.

Development Versions
If you want to install FreeCAD with more in-development features, and are willing to accept that these versions have a higher chance of bugs and crashes, then you can check the official FreeCAD Files page to download 64 bit, older, or unstable releases. Of course, if you want to stay even more on the bleeding edge of development, you can compile FreeCAD, or use the Ubuntu daily build updates or install one of the pre-release files from the github page above.

Notes for Windows users
The windows installer should also work on older Windows platforms, but has not always been tested. You need Windows Installer V1 on your system (msiexec.exe). See Installing on Windows for details about different installation options. Download the latest .msi file for windows systems, or the appropriate .deb file for your version of Ubuntu or Debian.

Notes for Linux users
On most recent distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora or Arch, FreeCAD is included in the official distribution's packages repository, and you are advised to preferably get FreeCAD from there, to make sure you have a version that is 100% compatible with your system. The pivy python module (usually named python-pivy) is needed by FreeCAD from version 0.9 or above. If it is not available on your system, you must download it from here too.

Notes for Debian users
Because of a licensing conflict between third-party libraries required by FreeCAD, the freecad package was removed from the current Debian stable (wheezy) repository. This will be solved when the next stable release of FreeCAD comes out. In the meanwhile, you can either compile FreeCAD or use an alternate build.

You should also note that although Ubuntu is based on Debian, the Ubuntu PPA packages are NOT compatible with Debian.

Notes for Mac users
The current release 0.16.670x of FreeCAD supports MacOS X 10.9 or greater. The development version supports OS X 10.10 or greater. To be able to run FreeCAD on an older OS X version, you will need to compile from source, see CompileOnMac. You may look for relevant topics in the Install / Compile forum.

Ubuntu Daily PPA Packages
The FreeCAD Launchpad team has set up a PPA (Personal Package Archive) repository that allows easy install of Ubuntu packages based on the development branch. Updates to the software are pushed to the Ubuntu Update Manager, which makes it the easiest way to get the latest FreeCAD build.

The FreeCAD Daily Builds PPA is an automatic daily build system, which can provide you with a fresh, daily-up-to-date version of FreeCAD. Please be advised that although the packages from this bleeding edge PPA may be broken from time to time, they will likely contain numerous bug fixes and feature updates.

Current supported architectures and versions are:
 * Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) 32 & 64-Bit
 * Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily) 32 & 64-Bit
 * Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) 32 & 64-Bit
 * Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety) 32 & 64-Bit

Adding the PPA and installing FreeCAD from the console
Type (or copy-paste) these commands in a console to add the PPA and install FreeCAD along with the documentation:

Adding the PPA and installing FreeCAD from the GUI
Add to your system's Software Sources the following PPA (read What are PPAs and how do I use them? if you don't know how):

When a dialog window asks you to refresh your software sources, click OK.

Now you can install FreeCAD and FreeCAD documentation through the Ubuntu Software Center, or your package manager of choice.

Fedora package
To install FreeCAD on Fedora, make sure you have the *NONFREE* repositories installed (necessary because of OCC/OCE license)

Or use the GUI installer.

Alternative FreeCAD builds
These are versions of FreeCAD built by other persons and not officially maintained by the FreeCAD team. They may include customized parts or be optimized for certain types of processors, or other modifications that the package maintainers judged necessary. They might also be out-of-date, since the people who make those package may take time to grab the newer versions of FreeCAD. But they are also sometimes better suited for certain operating systems. Note that on most common linux distributions, official packages are typically installed by the system's package management tool, so you don't need to download and install FreeCAD manually.


 * Official Debian package
 * Official Ubuntu package
 * Official OpenSuse package
 * Softpedia Windows build
 * Packman RPM package (for opensuse, fedora)
 * Slackbuilds package (for Slackware)
 * ArchLinux AUR package
 * Gentoo ebuild package
 * Pardus linux build script
 * Unofficial but well maintained Fedora FreeCAD repository
 * Unofficial Fedora 22/23/24/rawhide FreeCAD repository
 * Unofficial Debian Wheezy package (32-Bit and 64-Bit)

FreeCAD documentation
The user documentation of FreeCAD is being written together by the developers and the users community, on this wiki site. The best way is to read it online, so you are sure to get the latest version:
 * The FreeCAD Manual

The manual can also be displayed as one big text, so you can print it or save it as a pdf file:
 * All-in-one printable version

The manual is also be compiled as a qt help file, so it can be browsed offline with the Qt help viewer. This is usually made at each release and is available together with FreeCAD package on most linux software repositories (on debian/ubuntu-based systems, look for freecad-doc package) and is also bundled in the windows installer. To access it, simply open the "help" menu inside FreeCAD, or use the "What's this?" button.

For convenience, with each release we also provide a pdf version of this manual:
 * https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD/releases

In this Documentation-Directory on Sourceforge you will also find Quick Reference Cards as PDF. They list the pre-defined keyboard-shortcuts for the different workbenches.

Here you can also find a copy of the OpenCasCade 5.2 docs, in a .chm file. After 5.2, the openCasCade documentation is not available as a single file anymore, but as a heavy 180Mb package. So, since there is little change, we keep this one around for convenience:
 * OpenCasCADE 5.2 documentation

FreeCAD Source package
For all other platforms you need to compile FreeCAD on your own from the Source package. You might also want to compile FreeCAD yourself if you want to optimize certain things, or customize certain parts of FreeCAD. Instructions for compiling can be found on the CompileOnWindows, CompileOnMac and CompileOnUnix pages. You can grab a zip or tar.gz file containing the latest official version here (look for the latest version for your system):
 * official FreeCAD Files repository

Alternatively, you can also download latest source code from the Git repositories. You'll get a more recent version, but it might contain bugs or even fail to compile. Instructions for accessing the Git repositories can be found here:
 * FreeCAD Git repository on github

You can also download automatically a GNU tarball from the latest source code tree or any part of it by using the code browser and clicking the "Download GNU tarball" at any time. The trunk folder contains the current development version, while the branches folder contains a snapshot of all stable releases to date.

FreeCAD LibPack
To collect all the needed libraries to compile FreeCAD can be a time consuming task. So we deliver a convenient package for development on Windows (VC8, VC11, and VC12) with all needed libraries. You can download the latest version of the libpack from:
 * FreeCAD LibPack Download the version that matches your architecture and Visual C++ version.

For linux, you will normally find all necessary libraries in your software management system, so you should just read the CompileOnUnix page.

Additional macros, modules and related projects
There are additional modules, addons of plugins for FreeCAD developed outside of the main FreeCAD development team. They are listed here but are not officially supported by the FreeCAD team.

Additional macros and other things

 * Macros recipes: additional tools for your FreeCAD installation.
 * MendelMax: a macro suite for FreeCAD to generate a MendelMax machine.
 * Drawing templates: additional SVG templates for the Drawing module.
 * Tumbler thumbnailer: show .FcStd files as thumbnails in Thunar and Marlin file managers.
 * KDE thumbnailer: show .FcStd files as thumbnails in KDE Dolphin file manager.
 * Cura Engine Plugin: A plugin to use the CuraEngine gcode slicer from within FreeCAD.
 * FreeCAD Vidkit: The video clips and images are intended for use in the production of FreeCAD Tutorial and Demo videos.
 * Draft DXF Im-Exporter: Files needed to add DXF support (import-export) to FreeCAD

Additional modules

 * Fold module: a module for working with metal sheets (abandoned for some time, may not work anymore).
 * Ship module, The blog of Jose Luis Cercós Pita : a module in development for ship design (since 0.13, it included in official FreeCAD sources).
 * BOLTS: Open Library for standard parts (screws, nuts, washers ...)
 * Hamish's Assembly Workbench: Assembly Workbench. Needs FreeCAD 0.15 to run.
 * Drawing Dimension Workbench: Workbench to add dimensions to drawings. Needs FreeCAD 0.15 to run.
 * Animation Workbench: Animate your FreeCAD-Models.
 * Plugin Loader: Installer of additional packages. Now it works on Linux. Further information in the forum and the page Plugin Loader.
 * Eagle PCB 2 FreeCAD: Import your PCB boards to FreeCAD.
 * FCGear: Additional Workbench to create different types of gears, involute gear, involute rack, cycloide gear, bevel gear. Created by looooo. More information: Macro FCGear
 * Sheet Metal Workbench: workbench for sheet metal bend and unfold supported
 * Fasteners Workbench: workbench for fasteners based on the screw-makers macro
 * 3D Guitar: Workbench to design a guitar. Discussion here.
 * Lattice workbench: FreeCAD workbench with advanced array tools

Related projects

 * FreeCAD Library: This repository contains a library of Parts to be used in FreeCAD.
 * FreeCAD 2D symbols: 2D drawing symbols you can add to your drawings made with the drawing workbench.
 * Standard parts library: Standard parts as simple copies, designations in german and with old DIN-Names.
 * OpenPLM: an online PLM platform with FreeCAD support.
 * RattleCAD: design bikes with freecad