CADchad compared to Tinkercad, Onshape and Fusion
Free online CAD is a crowded shelf, and the tools on it are not interchangeable. Here is where CADchad fits, written to be useful rather than flattering, including the three places it loses outright.
The short version
If you want to draw a shape and print it today with nothing installed and nobody asking for an email address, use CADchad. If you are teaching a class of thirty and need lesson plans and a teacher dashboard, use Tinkercad. If you are designing a real assembly with a team and need version control and collaboration, use Onshape. If you need CAM, simulation or sheet metal, use Fusion and accept the install.
CADchad is one person's project. It is free with no paid tier and no feature held back, and it has no support contract, no team features and no company behind it. That is the trade, stated plainly.
Feature by feature
Accurate as of October 2026. Plans and feature sets move, so check the vendor before you commit a project to one.
| CADchad | Tinkercad | Onshape (free) | Fusion (personal) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs in a browser | Yes | Yes | Yes | No, desktop install |
| Account required | No | Yes, Autodesk account or class code | Yes | Yes |
| Where your work is stored | Your browser, and the share link. Nothing is uploaded | Autodesk cloud | Onshape cloud, and free-plan documents are public | Your disk plus Autodesk cloud |
| Constrained sketching | Yes, a solver with seventeen constraint types | No, primitives and grouping | Yes, full | Yes, full |
| Parametric history you can go back and edit | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Slicing and G-code in the same tool | Yes, its own slicer. Currently behind the experimental switch | No, export and slice elsewhere | No | No, additive is a paid capability |
| STEP export | Yes, real curved surfaces | No, mesh formats | Yes | Yes |
| Assemblies, mates and collaboration | No | No | Yes, and it is the best of the four at it | Yes |
| CAM, simulation, sheet metal | No | No | Limited | Yes, the reason to install it |
| Cost | Free, no tier | Free | Free if your work can be public, otherwise paid | Free for personal use with limits, otherwise paid |
CADchad as a Tinkercad alternative
Tinkercad is the easiest 3D modelling on the web and nothing here is a criticism of that. It is built for a first lesson, it has a classroom behind it, and for a great many prints it is all anyone needs.
The wall people hit is precision. Tinkercad models by pushing primitives together, so when you need a hole exactly 6.2mm from an edge, or you need to change one dimension after the fact and have everything downstream follow, there is no mechanism for it. CADchad is built on the other side of that wall. You sketch with constraints, you dimension, and every shape stays an editable recipe of exact numbers rather than a frozen result.
Two smaller differences that matter in practice. CADchad asks for no account at all, which matters for a school machine or a borrowed laptop. And CADchad slices its own models, so the path from sketch to G-code never leaves the tab.
Where Tinkercad still wins, honestly: onboarding, a huge library of starter shapes, Codeblocks, and an ecosystem of lesson material a one-person project will not match.
CADchad as an Onshape alternative
Onshape is the most capable browser CAD there is, and for professional work it is not a close contest. If you need assemblies, mates, drawings, branching and a team working in one document, use Onshape.
The one thing worth knowing before you start a free account is where the work lives. Onshape's free plan stores documents in its cloud and makes them public. For learning that is usually fine. For a client part, a prototype you have not announced, or anything you would rather not have indexed, it is not.
CADchad holds your design in your own browser. A share link carries the whole design compressed into the URL fragment, and browsers never send a fragment to a server, so the link is readable by whoever you hand it to and by nobody else, including the person who wrote CADchad.
CADchad as a free Fusion alternative
Fusion is a desktop application with CAM, simulation, sheet metal and generative design. CADchad has none of that and is not trying to. If your job needs toolpaths, Fusion is the answer and the install is the price.
What CADchad replaces is the much more common case where Fusion was overkill. A bracket, an enclosure, a replacement knob, a part you want to measure, model and print this afternoon. That work does not need a multi-gigabyte install, a licence that re-checks itself, or a machine powerful enough to run it. It needs a browser, and it runs the same on a Chromebook as on a workstation.
Which one should you open
Pick CADchad
You want exact dimensions and editable parameters, you want to print, and you do not want an account, an install or your design on somebody's server.
Pick Tinkercad
You are new to 3D, or you are teaching, and ease of the first hour matters more than precision later.
Pick Onshape
Multi-part assemblies, drawings, a team, and work that can either be public or is worth paying for.
Pick Fusion
Machining, simulation or sheet metal, and a desktop you are happy to install on.
Questions people actually ask
- Is there a free alternative to Tinkercad that does not need an account?
- CADchad runs entirely in a browser tab with no sign-up and no install. Designs stay in the tab and in a share link, never on a server, so there is no account to create and nothing to log into.
- Can you do real CAD in a browser without downloading anything?
- Yes. Onshape, Tinkercad and CADchad all run in the browser. CADchad is the one that runs with no account and no cloud storage, with constrained sketching, parametric history, booleans and STEP export in the tab itself.
- Can CADchad slice a model for 3D printing?
- Yes. CADchad has its own slicer rather than an embed of someone else's, with tree supports, gyroid infill, a layer preview and G-code export, plus direct printing over WebSerial. It is behind the experimental switch while it is being proven on real hardware.
- Is CADchad free?
- Yes, free with no paid tier, no trial and no feature held back behind a plan.
- Where are CADchad designs stored?
- In your own browser, and in the share link if you make one. The design is compressed into the URL fragment, which browsers never send to a server.
- Does it work on a phone or a Chromebook?
- Yes. The interface is built for touch as well as mouse, and it needs no more than a modern browser.