BricsCAD vs AutoCAD: a real, cheaper alternative?

Is BricsCAD a genuine alternative to AutoCAD, or a cheap copy that catches up with you later? The honest answer is that it is a genuine alternative. BricsCAD reads and writes the DWG format natively, keeps most of the commands you already know, and costs a good deal less, partly because you can still buy a one-time perpetual licence instead of only renting a yearly subscription. The real question is not whether it works, but whether it fits the way you actually draw.

I have drawn in AutoCAD for years and later moved part of my work over to BricsCAD. What follows is what that taught me: where it went better than expected, where it rubbed, and the exact points you need to check before you let your subscription lapse. Not a brochure, but what happens when you run two drafting packages side by side on real jobs.

The one thing that matters most: it speaks DWG

Everything starts with the file format. BricsCAD is built around the same DWG drawings that AutoCAD uses, and this is not a detour through import and conversion. You open a DWG, you work in it, you save it as DWG. Layers, blocks, external references, text styles and dimensions all survive, because it is the same format rather than a translation of it. That sounds obvious, but it is exactly where cheaper drawing tools tend to break: they can open a DWG, yet hand it back looking slightly different from how it came in. BricsCAD works on the format itself, and you feel that in how calmly files travel back and forth.

The second thing you notice is how little you have to unlearn. There is a command line, you type LINE, TRIM, OFFSET and HATCH the way you always have, and many keyboard shortcuts do the same thing they do in AutoCAD. The ribbon and menus sit in familiar places. Someone with ten years of AutoCAD behind them will not feel at home in ten minutes, but they will be productive within an afternoon. That is a very different experience from moving to a package built on a completely different logic, where you have to relearn your own trade before you can get anything done.

Under the surface the overlap runs deep enough to count. BricsCAD supports LISP routines, so a lot of the home-grown scripts and automations that drawing offices have collected over the years run without a rewrite. For a firm that leans on a folder full of its own routines, that is often the deciding question, and the answer here is usually favourable. Not always in full, but enough to justify trying it rather than dismissing it in advance.

The package does not stop at flat drawing either. Alongside two-dimensional work, BricsCAD does real 3D modelling, and there are editions that reach further into building design. For most people reading this that is a side note, because the question here is about DWG drafting, but it is worth knowing you are not stepping into a lightweight tool that stalls on the first 3D job. The drawing power you are used to in AutoCAD is largely there, and on a few points it behaves a little differently, which takes some getting used to but rarely feels like a loss.

Why the licence question is bigger than the price

This is the heart of it. AutoCAD is now subscription only. You pay per user per year, and when you stop paying, the software stops. You rent the tool, you do not own it, and the invoice returns every year. For anyone using AutoCAD hard every day, that is defensible; for anyone who opens a DWG now and then, it feels like rent on a house you sleep in two weeks a year.

BricsCAD offers something next to the subscription that Autodesk dropped long ago: a one-time perpetual licence. You pay once, and that version stays yours, even if years later you never fetch another update. That changes the whole sum. A subscription is a recurring cost that comes back every year; a perpetual licence is a single outlay that pays for itself the moment you have used it long enough. For a freelancer or a small office that does not need the newest features every year, that is often the real argument, more than the purchase price itself.

What does a perpetual licence really get you?

It means you decide when to upgrade rather than a renewal date deciding for you. You buy a version, you work with it for as long as you like, and only when a newer version offers something you genuinely need do you buy that on top. You are not tied to a yearly rhythm that has nothing to do with your real needs. The flip side is exactly that: updates and new features do not arrive on their own, and if you want the latest additions or uninterrupted support you pay for that separately or take a maintenance plan after all. For most drafters the freedom of ownership outweighs missing the annual novelties, but it is a trade-off to make on purpose, not to sleepwalk into.

I am deliberately not quoting a figure for BricsCAD here, because the price differs by version and by country and I would rather not give you a number that is wrong tomorrow. What does hold: the one-time licence sits well below what AutoCAD costs you per year, and the BricsCAD subscription is usually lower too. The current price is on the product card below, which pulls the amount straight from the shop and therefore stays right.

	AutoCAD	BricsCAD
File format	DWG (native)	DWG (native)
How you drive it	Command line, LISP, familiar ribbon	Comparable commands, LISP support
Licence model	Subscription only, per user per year	Subscription or one-time perpetual
Price guide	€2,203.00 per year (LT, 2D only, €575.00)	Well below that, also sold outright
Ecosystem and add-ons	Very broad; the de facto standard	Growing, but not everything is there

Where BricsCAD can let you down

Now the honest counterweight, because advice that only lists the upside is not advice. BricsCAD reads your drawings well, but it does not sit at the centre of the world the way AutoCAD does. Autodesk has been the standard for decades, and half an industry has built itself around that. You feel it the moment your work does not stand alone but forms part of a chain with other parties.

You see it most clearly with industry-specific tools. Many trades use add-ons that run on top of AutoCAD: for building services, road design, steelwork or a particular calculation method. Some of those exist for BricsCAD too, others do not, and others again in a stripped-down form. If your work turns on one such add-on, the question is not whether BricsCAD draws well, but whether that one tool runs on it. If it does not, the discussion is over at once, however good the rest of the package is.

The same goes for collaboration. If your client, main contractor or regular partner insists that you work in AutoCAD, or expects an exchange format tuned to AutoCAD, then with BricsCAD you buy a problem you have to solve again on every delivery. In theory it is all DWG; in practice a slightly different version or an unsupported object can cause trouble that you get to explain. That trouble is rarely fatal, but it costs time, and time is exactly where you hand the saving back.

Will your industry add-on run on BricsCAD?

That is the question to answer before you cancel anything, and it is not one you settle with a general yes or no. Make a list of the tools, templates and exchange agreements you actually lean on, and check them one by one against BricsCAD. Is there a version? Is it maintained? Does it give the same result? Can you send a test file to a regular partner and back without anything breaking? Only once that list is green is the move safe. Skip it and switch on a hunch, and you meet the gaps only when a deadline is close, which is the most expensive way to find out.

Who should switch, and who should stay

There is a group for whom the choice almost makes itself. If you do free DWG work without a client prescribing AutoCAD, if you draw mostly in 2D or plain 3D without exotic add-ons, and you want to cut your licence costs, then BricsCAD is often the sensible call. You keep your familiar way of working, you keep your DWG files, and you swap a yearly rent for a single purchase. For freelancers, small offices and anyone who uses AutoCAD occasionally rather than intensively, that is a saving you see again year after year.

There is also a group better off staying put. If you are locked into an ecosystem built on AutoCAD, with add-ons, libraries, collaboration agreements or clients who set AutoCAD as a condition, then the cheaper licence is a false saving. What you win on the purchase you lose in friction on every exchange and every tool that just will not join in. For that situation AutoCAD is the safe standard, and it is worth the money, however high the figure looks.

There is a middle group between those extremes as well, and it is larger than you might think. Plenty of drafters run AutoCAD entirely out of habit, while in practice they touch maybe five percent of the features and never open an AutoCAD-specific add-on. For them the question is not whether BricsCAD can do everything AutoCAD can, because it need not, but whether it can do everything they themselves do with it. That is a much smaller and fairer bar, and BricsCAD clears it surprisingly often. If you catch yourself thinking “I use AutoCAD because I have always used AutoCAD”, you probably belong in this middle group and have little to lose by testing.

If you are on the fence because you sit right on the line, it helps to pull the choice loose from habit and brand name. In which Autodesk software suits you I walk through the packages by what you actually make, which is the same exercise you need here: choose on your own practice, not on the name you hear most. And if your real doubt is between drawing and designing buildings rather than between two drafting packages, the difference between AutoCAD and Revit is a better place to start, because that is a different question from this one.

Test it before you cancel anything

Cancel nothing before you have proof on your own work. The sensible order is to put BricsCAD next to your existing AutoCAD and run a few real jobs through it, not a practice drawing but the work that pays the bills. Open your most awkward files, the drawing with the most external references, the odd fonts, the home-made blocks. Run your own LISP routines. Send a test delivery to the partner who is strictest about formats and ask whether everything arrives as it should. As long as all that holds, you know enough; if something breaks, you know exactly where, and you can decide whether it is a dealbreaker.

Only once that trial passes do you cancel your AutoCAD subscription, and not a day sooner. There is no rush: your subscription runs to its renewal date, so you have time to test the move calmly without paying twice or being left without a tool. Treat the switch as a project with a test phase, not an impulse buy on a good price, because the price is the easy part; compatibility with your specific work is the part that decides whether it succeeds or fails.

And when you buy, watch where your licence comes from, whether you pick BricsCAD or AutoCAD. Both are enough money to want a proper invoice in your name, from a seller who can explain where the licence originates. A key of unknown provenance can be blocked later, and then you stand without proof in an audit. The lower price only stays a saving if the licence is genuinely yours and stays that way.