The one and only way to access a full and unrestricted version of Fusion for free is to be a student or educator. Those eligible can apply for Autodesk’s educational license and get a free year of Autodesk software, including Fusion.

The Autodesk educational license is available to help students and educators access the learning tools they need without the prohibitive costs typically associated with the software. For Autodesk, the offering has the added benefit of ensuring new grads are familiar with its software thereby encouraging companies to use it.

Though educational licenses are available for a period of just one year, users can reapply annually to confirm their continued association with a qualifying institution.

To access Fusion’s free educational license, simply follow these steps:

1. Visit the Autodesk Education Community.
2. Choose Fusion from the list of software.
3. Sign in to your existing Autodesk account or create a new one.
4. Fill out your education profile.
   Note: If you can’t find your institution listed, click “Can’t find your school?” and wait for validation, which may take up to seven days.
5. If prompted, submit further documentation and proof of eligibility, such as a student ID or transcript, and wait for validation.
6. Once you receive a confirmation email, click “GET PRODUCTS”
7. You’ll now have access to Autodesk’s education programs.
8. Click “GET AUTODESK SOFTWARE” to download Fusion.

Users with an educational license also have access to an additional browser-based version of Fusion. Using this version allows students and educators to use Fusion on computers as limited as a Chromebook. The features are slightly more limited, and it requires internet access, but gives an additional option to those without a higher-spec computer to run the software locally.

It’s worth noting that institutions can also apply for “class/lab” licenses to apply to specific machines or to an institution’s network. The process is very similar to the one listed above and can be started from the same Autodesk Education Community webpage.

If the days of education are far behind you, not all hope is lost. If you’re a non-professional (someone who earns less than $1,000 in annual revenue) and only planning on using Fusion for personal projects, you can still obtain a free license. However, you’ll be strictly limited to non-commercial purposes, and you won’t have access to the full version or all of the extensions. Free Fusion for personal use has limited CAM functionality, only single user data management, limited electronics and PCB design functionality, limited 2D documentation and drawings, forum support only, and limited import/export file types.

To download Fusion for Personal Use:

1. Navigate to the dedicated “Fusion for personal use” page on Autodesk’s website.
2. Click “Get Started” under the personal & hobby use license.
3. Sign in to your existing Autodesk account or create a new one.
4. Fill out the required personal information, then click “Next”.
5. Click “Download Now” and install Fusion.
6. Once you’ve installed Fusion, log in to activate your license.

The personal license grants access one year at a time, and you will not have access to the cloud features.

This license is for those of us who wish to use Fusion around the workshop and in our various hobbies. Although you won’t have quite all the high-end features and rendering options, designing for 3D printing and basic CNC work will still work just fine.

If you’re running a small startup, you may be eligible for a three-year Fusion license for $150 per user. This is a full, commercial-use version of Fusion intended to help small businesses get off the ground (so you can later afford the full version).

To access this license, you need to submit an application on Autodesk’s website. Autodesk has tightened qualifications for this license over the years, which limits its applicability, but it’s still a great deal.

Eligible startups must design or manufacture physical products (not digital models or virtual environments) and be venture funded, angel-backed, or bootstrapped, with a valid company website and company email address.

You must be willing to share your company story with the Fusion community to qualify. The license will be valid for three-years, after which you cannot re-apply or renew. The program is not offered to all companies or in all countries, and availability may vary.

Fusion is one of the most used computer-aided-design programs in the world. Its name comes from the software’s ability to allow users to go through much of the design pipeline without ever needing to switch programs. It was first launched in 2013 and became an almost instant hit. Fusion has only grown in popularity since.

Its popularity derives from the accessible price, flexible options, and versatile applications. It’s being constantly updated with new features, and the program can be used for 3D modeling, generative design, failure mode simulation, electrical circuits, manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and motion animation.

With so many capabilities, Fusion can be a bit daunting and overwhelming to a beginner. It has a multi-component part system that combines parametric, direct, and mesh modeling tools. It’s also cloud-based, promoting collaboration for remote teams.

Fusion offers easy-to-use simulation packages, perhaps more useful in the early stages of design to better understand how parts would behave under certain conditions. It’s simpler than what SolidWorks provides, allowing non-technical designers to take advantage of such features, but as a result, it lacks the more advanced analysis tools.

Unlike other professional solid-body 3D modeling software, this CAD program is considered strong in usability. Still, Fusion covers the whole process of planning, testing, and executing a CAD design.

The software has powerful parametric and analytic mesh tools that are well-suited to most challenges in industrial design. Moreover, it is able to simulate both the construction of components and the stresses they will face once put to use.

There are plenty of reasons people choose Fusion over other available CAD options, but here are a few features that we think push people it’s way:

Sculpting

In addition to common engineering modeling tools like solid and surface modeling, Fusion also offers freeform modeling: a way to quickly and easily sculpt design iterations via T-splines. With simple push-pull gestures, vertices, faces, or edges can be manipulated to find the ideal shape between aesthetics and function. This is especially intriguing for concept and industrial designers, as they can design products directly in Fusion rather than a more exclusively design-oriented program. This enables a seamless production workflow within a single, unified platform to avoid translation issues between different software applications at various stages in product development.

PCB Design

Also rather unique to CAD/CAM software is Fusion’s electronics design function, Autodesk EAGLE. Keeping in mind that Fusion users are not designing architecture or electronics exclusively but complete products, this capability once again provides users with a more streamlined and collaborative design and manufacturing environment.

Fusion includes some electronic libraries and provides access to thousands of electronic components including schematics, footprints, and 3D models via Ultra Librarian.

Cloud Features

Fusion includes a number of cloud features like simple file sharing between devices and robust collaboration features that help streamline your work between multiple devices and within your project team. They allow detailed project oversight in collaborative environments with features like version control that detail what’s changed and who changed it whenever a design is worked on, allowing you to easily backtrack if something goes wrong.

Perhaps the most notable of Fusion’s cloud features are cloud rendering, analysis, simulation, and generative design. These allows users to run these intensive processes without the limitations of their local software. That means you’re able to render and run simulations even on lower spec hardware, or just keep your local system’s resources free for other important tasks while Autodesk’s cloud servers handle the heavy lifting. Keep in mind, though, that cloud processing is an extended function that will cost you Flex, the company’s pay-as-you-go currency.

3D Printing Essentials Add-in

This add-in, one of the most popular for Fusion, includes a host of specialized tools and functions that facilitate the preparation of models for 3D printing. These features are divided between the Design and Manufacture workspaces. In the former, a “3D Print” panel is added to the toolbar and includes tools to duplicate and label components as well as an automation to import and repair mesh files.

Setup automations specific to 3D printing technologies are also housed in the panel, but they bring you into the Manufacture workspace and create an additive setup as well as manufacturing models of your designs, among other scripted tasks. Model manipulations that you may be accustomed to doing in your slicer – scaling, mirroring, and arranging components on the build plate, for example – can also be done directly in the Manufacture workspace.

Two Supercharged Version of Autodesk Fusion

There are so many tools and capabilities possible within Fusion that many users may not need them. A program with too many tools can get so bloated that it’s unwieldy. To address this and keep the software growing, Autodesk began moving soem tools out of Fusion and into versions of Fusion used by certain professionals. Autodesk Fusion for Manufacturing and Autodesk Fusion for Design are more robust version of Fusion that cost a bit more annually.

The Manufacturing version includes advanced manufacturing capabilities:

• Comprehensive 2D to 5-axis machining
• Cutting, milling, turning, and turn-mill
• Manufacturing automation
• Part inspection and probing
• Free and editable post-processors

The Design version includes advanced manufacturing capabilities:

• 10 additional simulation types
• Generative design technology
• Advanced mesh editing and surfacing
• Additional plastic rules for designs
• Integrated lifecycle management

New in Fusion 2026

Autodesk doesn’t roll out a annual new version of Fusion like it does with many of its other titles, so there isn’t really a “Fusion 2026,” but there are nifty new features launched in the March 2025 update. The software is updated periodically, not regularly.

This March update introduced several enhancements, including:

• Enhanced Joint Functionality: Improved the ability to swap components within joints, even when they have different parent components, facilitating more flexible assembly configurations.
• Improved DXF Export Control: Provided greater control over DXF exports from Sketch and Flat Pattern in the Sheet Metal workspace, allowing selection of units and specific entities for export.
• In-Canvas Measure Information: Enhanced the in-canvas measurement display to show combined lengths when selecting connected curves and display the total number of selected items for multiple selections.
• Customizable Default Units: Enabled users to set custom default units for mass and length, offering more flexibility in measurement preferences.
• Expanded “Configure On the Fly” Support: Extended the “Configure” tab to include more modeling commands, streamlining the process of adjusting aspects during modeling without interrupting the design flow.

To keep up on the updates, follow Autodesk’s Fusion update page.

Below are the recommended specifications to run Fusion:

OS: Mac & Windows

• MacOS Sonoma – There are some known issues, however.
• MacOS 13 Ventura – (Version 2.0.15289 or newer)
• MacOS 12 Monterey
• Windows 10 (64-bit) Version 1809 or newer

CPU

• x86-based 64-bit processor (for example, Intel Core i, AMD Ryzen series), 4 cores, 1.7 GHz or greater; 32-bit not supported
• Apple silicon processors require Rosetta 2

RAM

• 4 GB of RAM (integrated graphics recommend 6 GB or more)

Graphics Card

• DirectX11 (Direct3D 10.1 or greater)
• Dedicated GPU with 1 GB or more of VRAM
• Integrated graphics with 6 GB or more of RAM

Disk Space

• 8.5 GB or higher

Fusion cannot be directly installed on Linux. The full hardware requirements can be viewed on the Autodesk website.

Autodesk also offers a Flex plan for occasional Fusion users where a bulk of “tokens” are purchased at once and used to access the software per day. The value is far from as good as even a monthly subscription for regular use but can be handy in the right situation. One benefit of the program is that the tokens can be used for a variety of Autodesk software, so they are practical if you need to use a variety of Autodesk software but just occasionally for a day or two at a time.

Autodesk’s going rate is $300 per 100 tokens, and Fusion costs 3 tokens per day for access, which equates to $9/day.

Designed around parametric modeling, FreeCAD is a solid choice for free CAD software. It’s made to design real-life objects of any size, not limited to either products or architecture. Its parametric modeling capability allows you to easily modify your 3D design by going back into your model history and changing its dimensions.

Being an open-source program, its feature set is oriented towards the community. Be prepared, FreeCAD can be a bit overwhelming at first. But if you make an effort to dig deeper into the free CAD software, you will be rewarded with an awesome set of features.

The FreeCAD software offers a modular architecture that allows plugins to be mounted to the core application. It also offers a Sketcher with constraint-solver, allowing you to sketch 2D shapes; a robot simulation to study robot movements, and a Path module dedicated to mechanical machining like milling (CAM), and can output, display, and adjust G-code. One of the most impressive modules in this free CAD software is the architecture bench that enables BIM (building information design). This feature allows you to design models of buildings that contain important metadata like the cost of materials, weight, and much more.

In sum, if you are looking for a free Fusion alternative, it doesn’t get much better than FreeCAD!

Onshape is an extremely powerful cloud-based CAD software favored by many enterprise organizations. The software is aimed at professional users who need version control and collaboration tools to work in large teams.

In terms of design capabilities, Onshape is at least on par with locally installed programs like Fusion, with a robust toolset for parametric design including full model history and processor-intensive capabilities like rendering, simulation, and animation.

Like Autodesk’s Fusion, Onshape isn’t exactly a free CAD software (at least not for commercial purposes) but does offer a hobbyist license, on the condition that any design created becomes public under Onshape’s license.

Luckily, Onshape is an excellent tool for community-developed projects, with first-class collaboration and branching capabilities. It can easily feel like the GitHub of product design. If you were planning to make your models open source anyways, it is an excellent option.

Because of its robust capabilities comparable to the most popular locally-installed professional CAD software, you’re not likely to find Onshape any easier to use as a beginner than Fusion. So, if you’re not keen to share your models, scroll back up to Fusion’s free personal license and start there.

Solid Edge is a comprehensive software suite much like Autodesk Fusion. Parametric modeling, assemblies, simulations, technical documentation are all part of its wheelhouse. It’s easy to see why Siemens, the developer, markets the program as a portfolio of “tools that address all aspects of the product development process”.

The Community Edition of the software is free for makers and CAD enthusiasts, and the version is not as limited as Fusion for personal use. In addition to Solid Edge’s core features and functions, hobbyists have access to sheet metal design, exploded view creation, animation, advanced rendering, and simulation. Its 3D printing tools are also quite robust, and it’s possible to print directly from the software.

The primary drawback includes watermarks on 2D drawings created in the Community Edition, not to mention a very steep learning curve. That being said, parts designed in the software can be 3D printed with no issues, and there are quite a few learning tools to help you surmount the curve.