[zettabomb]

Solidworks is not even close to the least intuitive CAD program out there. My preference is Autodesk Inventor, which I find to be far easier for beginners to pick up. Fusion 360 is supposedly excellent these days as well. For a real nightmare, try Siemens NX.

[serf]

as someone who made their living on f360 for many years I urge newcomers to avoid it. Vendor lock-in as much as possible, along with constant rug-pulls and price-increases. DLC-ification of once-included features, and just shit corporate maneuvers abound.

If your work allows for it, go for freecad or better yet openscad if you're pursuing this new concept of LLM design. onshape is nice feature-wise but then you're just trusting a different group that has an even tighter grip around your unmentionables due to the saas nature.

To be fair : the constant betrayal of tech companies in my life has just pushed me a bit further towards local-only than most; I don't really condemn the -as-a-service industry, they've just been the first to pull rugs and then shrug their shoulders when their (usually already dwindling) customer base is screwed.