FreeCAD vs Microstation

Art of Engineering plays a significant role in the development of societies over a period of time, it helps in designing and drafting blueprints of buildings and machine parts. In olden times blueprints were designed manually but over the period of time, this process changed, and now special computer programs are used for the purpose of designing and drafting. To ease drawing and drafting in digital shape, many companies released extraordinary software programs and the 2 most famous software programs are FreeCAD and Microstation. So we will examine these and discover the results for users in line with their desires.

FreeCAD is a design program that offers tools to supply, export, and edit strong, complete-precision fashions. It supports Finite Element Analysis (FEM) for precise designing. Originally it was released in 2002 and its latest version was launched in 2022. It functions well on operating systems like Windows, MacOS, Linux, Unix, etc. It uses python scripts to automate tasks. It is used in gaming, asset building, simulating environments, etc.

Advantages of FreeCAD

• No money is charged for using this software.
• Supports different operating systems.
• It supports customizing features to ease the users as per their requirements.
• CAD files from different software can be used easily in FreeCAD.

Disadvantages of FreeCAD

• It has a complex interface which makes it tough for novices.
• It has the hassle of freezing when uploading huge files.
• Overall performance is low in comparison to AutoCAD and CATIA.

Microstation is a software program that facilitates the tools for 2D and 3D CAD designing and drafting. It’s far used for an extensive variety of tasks in engineering and architectural fields. It was advanced with the aid of Bentley Systems. It turned into construction using the Dot Net framework. Firstly launched in 1980 and its latest model was launched in 2021. At first, was designed and developed for the Macintosh platform but the brand new model is most effective to be had for the windows running system.

Advantages of Microstation

• It supports different file codecs like CAD, GIS and BIM are 
• Data loss due to crashes is prevented by the auto-save feature.
• It allows operating with huge documents without slowing down the pace.
• Selective undoing of things from two or three days ago is supported with the help of an advanced undo feature.

Disadvantages of Microstation

• Only Windows systems are supported.
• Productivity is affected due to frequent crashes.

Following is a table of differences between FreeCAD and Microstation:

	FreeCAD	Microstation
Definition	It can be understood as a CAD and BIM modeler which is used to build parametric models and 3d designs.	It can be understood as CAD software for creating, manipulating, and visualizing 2D and 3D designs.
Developer(s)	Jurgen Riegel, Werner Mayer and Yorik van Havre are core developers of FreeCAD.	Bentley Systems is credited for the development of Microstation.
Compatibility	It is compatible with Linux, Windows, and Mac Operating systems.	It is compatible with Windows operating system only.
Price	It is absolutely free.	Its price starts at $250 per month.
Nature	It is open-source in nature.	It is not an open source software.
Features	Annotations, 3D Imaging, Modeling & Simulation are some of the advanced features.	3D Printing, Document Generation, Data Visualization, etc. are some of the features of Microstation.
Integrations	It allows integration with Slack, Droplr, etc.	It allows integration with Adept and ImageSite.
Official site	Its official site is www.freecad.org	Its official site is www.bentley.com

Conclusion/Summary

FreeCAD and Microstation both are advanced designing and drafting software, and both provide numerous tools to ease the work of engineers and developers but FreeCAD is used by a large number of users as compared to Microstation because it is free software and supports nearly all operating systems, on the other hand, Microstation only supports windows systems and is costly.