Remember what happened when the fusion authentication server went down for a couple days?
Even the users who stored their files locally could not access them since the software would not start up
without authorization from the server. Not a viable option for many shops.
I've been using Fusion since 2017, it was the first CAD software I started paying and doing commercial work with, we were taught SW and NX in Uni.
Helped the community a lot and was awarded Autodesk Expert Elite for Fusion 360.
Despite that, being Cloud Based, the tokens, the instability were the main reasons why I left Fusion for Alibre.
Fusion actually costs $9600/year with all the extensions.
That time when I saved files for Offline use but Fusion would not start on the Cafe wifi, was a very embarrassing situation in front of a client. Many incidents like this.
The forced updates and the bugs, it wasn't fit for production use imo, even though it is a nice deal specially for the in-built CAM.
And then I was really disappointed by Autodesk and their big corp behaviour towards their community and customers, very shallow.
Selling the tool for cheap but increase the regional pricing by 40% the very next year, tactics like these.
The stories of how Fusion is still the same buggy mess I still read every week on the Autodesk EE Slack group.
I never felt at peace with the Subscription model as well.
Can't understand why I would put my CAD data/IP hostage to a companies terms and keep agreeing and paying to access my IP.
It was then I decided I needed to move on to another MCAD solution with a long-term perspective.
I didn't feel comfortable with Dassaults VARs and their upgrade model.
SolidEdge was a contender but the VAR told me even Siemens is pushing them to move customers to subscription and very soon it would be a Sub only thing like Autodesk, PTC etc.
I liked Kompas 3d by Ascon from Russia based on C3D, but no VARs in my country, the geo-politics and overpriced addon modules costing at par with SW Premium+Sim was a no.
ZW3D while having good surfacing tools was not an option because of geo-politics from a long-term perspective.
Struggled with Freecad a little but soon figured it wasn't there yet.
It was then I saw Joko Engineerings video and Mr. Freeman, read about the history of Alibre, company philosophy, the ease of getting the software and maintaining it and it was a no brainer decision for me.
For a young independent contractor it was well within my budget as well.
I have MOI3d already, Alibre coupled with Rhino would be everything I would ever need for core MCAD imo.
The only thing that would stop me from putting out great work would be my skills and creativity and not another MCAD software which is why I really feel at peace now to have discovered and got access to Alibre (forever grateful to Mr. Jonathan Pace) and I am absolutely loving this software.