For a long time the answer to "what CAD should I use for my plasma table" was Fusion 360, and it was not close. It was free for hobbyists, it did CAD and CAM in one program, and everybody on YouTube used it.

That is no longer such an easy call. The free tier has been narrowed repeatedly, and SolidWorks — the program most of the fabrication industry actually runs — now has a maker tier that costs less per year than a set of consumables.

Here is how they compare for the specific job of cutting flat parts on a plasma table.


If everything you cut is flat art — signs, monograms, brackets, seasonal decor — you may not need parametric CAD at all. Inkscape is free, draws vectors, and exports the SVG and DXF your CAM software wants. Plenty of shops making real money never open a CAD program.

You need CAD when you start doing one of these:

If none of that is you yet, save the money and learn Inkscape first.

What it does well. CAD and CAM in one program, so you can model a part and generate the toolpath without exporting anything. Cloud-based, so your files follow you between machines. Enormous amount of free tutorial content. Genuinely good at organic and complex shapes.

Where it hurts. The free personal tier has been cut back several times — fewer active documents, features moved behind the paid tier, exports restricted. Each time it changes, a pile of hobbyists find that something they relied on last year is gone. It also wants an internet connection and a login, which is irritating in a shop with bad wifi.

Cost. Free personal tier with real limits, or a paid subscription that runs several hundred a year.

What it does well. It is the industry standard for fabrication. If you ever want to do contract work, take a customer's file, or hire somebody who already knows CAD, this is the language they speak. Sheet metal tools and weldments are excellent — weldments in particular are built for exactly the kind of frame and rack work a plasma shop drifts into. It runs locally, so it does not care about your shop wifi.

Where it hurts. No integrated CAM in the maker tier, so you export a DXF and take it to your own CAM software. Windows only. The maker licence is non-commercial, which matters if you are selling parts.

Cost. The maker tier is inexpensive — cheaper per year than a decent set of consumables. Commercial licences are a completely different conversation and cost real money.

The SolidWorks maker tier is for personal, non-commercial use. If you are cutting parts you sell, read the terms before you rely on it. The same caution applies to Fusion's personal tier. Plenty of people ignore this. It is your call, but go in knowing rather than finding out later.

Cutting flat art and signs, not selling engineering work: stay in Inkscape. It is free, it does everything you need for that work, and the learning curve is a fraction of either CAD package.

Building frames, racks, flatbeds, anything welded: SolidWorks. The weldments tools are worth the switch on their own. I built an entire truck flatbed in it and the frame came out of the design already dimensioned for cutting.

Want one program to do everything and do not want to run separate CAM: Fusion 360, accepting that the free tier will keep changing.

Already know one of them: use that one. The program you already know beats the theoretically better program you have not learned. Switching CAD costs weeks.

I went through this decision on camera when the SolidWorks maker tier landed, including what changed and why I moved:


[Watch: Goodbye Fusion 360 — SolidWorks Just Changed The Game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-kKyJNSL3c)

And if you want to see what weldments actually do in practice, this is a full truck bed designed from scratch:


[Watch: How To Design A Truck Bed With Weldments In SolidWorks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLQdJSpjS6s)

Neither decision covers the step where a drawing becomes a toolpath. That is SheetCam, FireControl, or whatever came with your table, and it is where lead-ins, kerf offset and cut order get decided. Getting that part right matters more to your finished edge than which CAD program drew the shape.

If you just want files that are already drawn and ready to cut, the free library is cut-ready SVG and DXF with no CAD required:

[Get the free CNC plasma cut files](https://www.tinmanmetalworks.com/blog/free-cnc-plasma-cut-files)

Flat art only — you probably need Inkscape, not CAD. Welded structures and anything that has to fit — SolidWorks, and the weldments tools are the reason. One-program-does-everything — Fusion, with the caveat that the free tier keeps shrinking. And read the non-commercial terms before you build a business on a maker licence.