Funding full-time development of an open-source CAD package while still shipping the improvements users actually want is a hard balance, and that is the problem this build takes on. FreeCAD Dev Diary created AstoCAD, a soft-fork of FreeCAD, with the stated goal of earning money to work on FreeCAD full time, alongside quality of life and functionality improvements.
The software is based on FC 1.1 and keeps much of the familiar layout: workbench tabs such as Assembly, Part Design, Sketcher, CAM and TechDraw, a model tree listing Body, Origin and Sketch, and a 2D sketching environment. An integrated Assembly workbench is part of the package.
The changes that stand out are mostly interface work. Core file operations were consolidated into unified dropdown groups, and workbench navigation moved to a horizontal tab bar at the top right. The navigation cube gained shortcut buttons for home view, isometric view and view selection settings. In the Sketcher, task panels resize automatically to fit their content, and a new Cancel editing command sits next to the exit tool. Several toolbars, including the B-spline display options, were dropped from the default interface, leaving a minimalist UI with a choice of light or dark theme.
Prebuilt binaries come through a four-euro monthly membership. There have been early stumbles: a user hit an error where the .AppImage would not launch, and the maker apologized for not testing the custom title bar on Linux, though the MacOS builds were fixed. One open question is feedback: the maker wants users to request features but has not yet set a framework for collecting that input. File compatibility with FreeCAD is explicitly meant to stay intact.
Project by FreeCAD Dev Diary. Watch it on their YouTube channel: