Fusion 360 vs Inventor vs SolidWorks: which CAD to pick?

Fusion 360, Inventor or SolidWorks: it is one of the most common questions when you start with mechanical CAD or move between packages. All three are good, all three have a loyal following, and that is exactly why the debate so often gets stuck in camps trying to convince each other. That does not help you. The honest question is not which package is best, but which one fits what you make, the environment you work in, and how much you can or want to spend.

So I will not compare the three on a scoreboard, but by situation. Who are you, what do you draw, and who do you work with? Answer those three questions honestly and the choice almost makes itself. Below I set out for each package where it is strong, where it will get in your way, and who it seems built for. With the prices included, because they belong in the decision and not as an afterthought.

Choose on your situation, not on the name

The biggest mistake is choosing on reputation. Someone hears that SolidWorks is the standard in manufacturing, or that Fusion is the modern package, and bases a decision on that which stays with them for years. Reputation says something, but it says nothing about your work. A freelance product designer drawing parts at home for 3D printing has very different needs from an engineer assembling machines with thousands of components, or from a technician joining a company where everything already runs on one package.

There are roughly three considerations that really matter. The first is the scale of your work: do you draw single parts and small assemblies, or large assemblies where hundreds or thousands of components have to keep fitting together? The second is your environment: do you work alone, in a small team, or are you joining a company that prescribes a package? And the third is money: an affordable subscription or a hefty yearly investment makes a world of difference to someone just starting out. Those three questions lead you to the right package faster than any online argument.

The three side by side in one table

Before I discuss the packages separately, here is the overview on the points that count: what kind of package it is, where it is strongest, who it seems built for and what it costs. Pay particular attention to the last column, because the prices are far apart and for many people that is the deciding factor.

Package	Type	Strongest side	Who it is for	Price per year
Fusion 360	Cloud, subscription, CAD/CAM/CAE in one	Affordable and versatile, everything in one environment	Starters, freelancers, small teams, product design	€714.00
Inventor	Desktop, subscription, parametric mechanical CAD	Large assemblies and machine building, Autodesk workflow	Design engineers, machine building, engineering firms	€2,717.00
SolidWorks	Desktop, by Dassault Systemes, bought separately	Broad industry standard, widely asked for by employers	Manufacturing, anyone working in or for such a company	Via reseller

The table shows two things straight away. Fusion and Inventor both come from Autodesk, yet they sit in a very different price bracket and are meant for a different kind of work. SolidWorks stands apart: it comes from Dassault Systemes, you do not buy it from Autodesk but through a reseller, and its price is not a fixed figure I can simply quote here. Those three observations are the heart of the whole story, and the rest of this article works them out.

Fusion 360: affordable, cloud and all in one

Fusion 360, these days simply Autodesk Fusion, is the youngest of the three and it shows in the design. It runs from the cloud and bundles CAD, CAM and CAE into one environment: you design a part, create the tool paths for it and run a simple stress check on it without switching programs. For someone who owns the whole chain from design to production, that is a real convenience. You do not have to string together separate packages that never quite work well together.

The price is the second big advantage. Fusion cost €714.00 per year on autodesk.com on 10 August 2026, and for a complete CAD package with CAM and simulation added that is strikingly low. For a starter, a freelancer or a small team, that is the difference between being able to work legally or not. Where Inventor and SolidWorks are a serious outlay for a young business, Fusion almost always fits the budget, and that explains why it has become so popular with makers, hobbyists going commercial and small design studios.

There are downsides to the cloud approach. Your designs live online by default, you need a connection and an Autodesk account, and for very large, heavy assemblies Fusion is less suited than the other two. It is strong in product design, in flowing shapes and in getting from idea to prototype quickly, but anyone working daily with machines of thousands of parts will notice that the package was not primarily built for that. For the audience it is meant for, that rarely outweighs the advantages.

Who is Fusion the right choice for?

Fusion is built for anyone who wants to oversee the whole line themselves without a large budget. Think of a self-employed product designer, a small manufacturing business, a starter setting up their own company, or someone growing from hobby 3D printing into paid work. Anyone who wants to learn CAD without putting down thousands of euros straight away is also well served here, because the learning curve is friendly and there is plenty of material to find your way. If affordability and versatility top your list, Fusion is almost always the sensible starting point.

Do bear in mind that the free personal version is for non-commercial use only. The moment you earn money with it, you need the paid subscription. What you may and may not do with the free version, and exactly where the line lies, I have set out separately in is Fusion 360 free, because that is the point where most starters unintentionally go wrong.

Inventor: for heavy mechanical work and large assemblies

Inventor plays in a different class. It is a professional, parametric mechanical CAD package that runs on the desktop and is built for real engineering work: machine building, large assemblies, parts that have to fit precisely into a whole made up of hundreds or thousands of components. Where Fusion is broad and accessible, Inventor goes deep on exactly the ground that matters in heavy mechanics. Large assemblies stay manageable, changes propagate cleanly, and the drawings it produces match what a workshop expects.

The second strong point is the Autodesk ecosystem. Inventor is deeply woven into the rest of the Autodesk world, from AutoCAD to the broader collections, and that makes it a logical choice for companies already working there. Files and workflows line up, and anyone used to AutoCAD will recognise a lot. For an engineering firm already working with Autodesk, Inventor is the natural step into 3D machine building.

The price belongs to that class. Inventor cost €2,717.00 per year on autodesk.com on 10 August 2026, almost four times as much as Fusion. That is not a sum you spend for fun, and for a starter it is often simply too much. But for a company producing seriously with it every day, the package pays for itself in time and in the certainty that large projects stay manageable. The price is high, but it stands against work that Fusion cannot handle in the same way.

When is Inventor worth the price?

Inventor is worth it as soon as your work becomes heavy and large, and as soon as you sit inside the Autodesk ecosystem. If you build machines or installations with many parts, deal daily with complex assemblies, and work in or for a company already running AutoCAD and related packages, then you are paying for a tool tuned to exactly that work. The high price is then not a cost but an investment you recover in production time.

If you are unsure whether to take Inventor on its own or as part of a wider Autodesk collection, it pays to map your whole set of tasks first rather than fixate on a single package. For anyone still at the start of that decision, which Autodesk software suits you helps you choose on the basis of your field rather than on a name or a habit.

SolidWorks: the broad industry standard

SolidWorks is the odd one out in this comparison, and that is exactly the most important thing to know. It does not come from Autodesk but from Dassault Systemes, you do not buy it from the same party as Fusion or Inventor, and you arrange it through a reseller. Even so, it belongs in this list, because across large parts of manufacturing SolidWorks has been the de facto standard for years. Many machine builders, suppliers and engineering departments run on it, and that has consequences that go beyond the software itself.

That it is a standard shows above all on the job market. A large share of manufacturing vacancies explicitly asks for SolidWorks experience, and companies that have built their whole drawing archive in it do not switch lightly. If you work in or for such a company, or want to, then the choice is effectively already made: you learn the package your future colleagues and clients use. Its broad presence is an argument in itself, apart from whether it is technically better or worse than the rest.

On the price I am deliberately cautious. SolidWorks is not sold with a fixed, public yearly rate the way Fusion and Inventor are, but runs through a reseller who gives you a tailored quote depending on the version, the number of licences and the maintenance terms. So I will not quote a figure here, because any number I made up would put you on the wrong foot. If you want to know what it costs, ask an authorised reseller; that is the only reliable source.

Why many people learn more than one

A misunderstanding I am glad to clear up is that you are tied to a package for life the moment you choose. In practice many engineers and designers learn more than one over the course of a career, and that is not waste but a sign of how the work fits together. The fundamentals of parametric modelling, of assemblies and of technical drawings are largely the same across packages. Once you master the thinking behind CAD, you switch faster than you would expect; you mainly learn new buttons, not a new trade.

That takes the pressure off the first choice. You are not picking the package for the rest of your life, you are picking the one that fits your situation now. Start as a freelancer on Fusion and later land at an employer running SolidWorks, and you simply carry your way of thinking with you. So treat the first choice as a starting point, not a lifelong marriage, and dare to commit to it without fearing that you are locking yourself in for good.

How to choose in practice

Run through the three questions from the start again and the answer almost arrives on its own. If you are a starter, freelancer or small team wanting to work affordably and versatilely on product design, then Fusion 360 is the logical starting point: everything in one environment, cloud based and with a price that fits a young business. If you do heavy mechanical work with large assemblies and sit in the Autodesk ecosystem, then Inventor is the tool tuned to that work, even though it costs almost four times as much. And if you run in or for a company already working on SolidWorks, or want to join the broad industry standard, then you choose SolidWorks, with the price on request through a reseller.

One practical warning about buying. Fusion is a subscription, and a subscription cannot be legally taken over second hand. Anyone offering you a cheap, permanent Fusion licence on the second-hand market is selling you something that does not add up. So buy your software from a reliable seller who gives you a proper invoice, so you can show that your use is covered. That goes for all three: choosing the package is one thing, buying it legally and demonstrably is another, and people forget that second part too often.

In the end, do not let the camps that shout there is only one right answer rattle you. Fusion, Inventor and SolidWorks are each strong in the work they are meant for, and weak outside their ground. The question is not which package wins, but which one fits what you make, who you work with and what you can spend. Answer that honestly, and you have the choice that serves you for years.