Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

I use both Vectric Aspire and Fusion 360 and find Vectric works best for anything 2D and Fusion 360 works best for projects that are 3D, or a larger 2D project with multiple, interconnecting pieces. Vectric has no way of assembling parts but it's super easy to lay out and draw anything that's 2D. So if you're just cutting sheets of plywood, Vectric seems like a good choice. If you're making assemblies, Fusion 360 would probably be the best.

As far as learning is concerned, Aspire seems to be very intuitive and as a previous poster mentioned, more artistically inclined. Moving things around and resizing is easy in Aspire even though it's not parametric like Fusion 360. I've been using Aspire for over 10 years and it keeps getting better.

Fusion 360 was a bit of a challenge to get started with but after using it for a few months, I got the hang of it. With proper usage of parametric values and constraints, changes to even complex interconnecting parts results in the entire model changing properly. Even changing a part in a subassembly (if done properly) feeds up the line into the project. There is a huge amount of content on how to do specific things in Fusion 360 so if you ever get stuck, just Google what you need to do and you'll find a document or a video showing how to do it. I've used Fusion 360 for two years and I find it to be a very good value.

Aspire will be better if your designs are more organic in nature
Aspire is most likely easier to learn as it has less features to learn

Fusion will be better if your projects are more mechanical in nature
Fusion will most likely be harder to learn as it has more features and complexities

I agree with Gary's comments. I started with the Vectric software, Cut2D at first, then upgraded to Vcarve Pro and love the ease and simplicity of the software but amazed at what it'll do for my router. Most everything I do is either 2D or 2.5D and it just works. I'm slowly teaching myself Fusion 360 but I wont be using it for g code.

Cut2D and Vcarve are very affordable and will handle 98% of what most users will do. Aspire will break the bank but it adds some 3D design tools not found in the other software. Here's a link to compare if you haven't looked at this already.

https://www.vectric.com/products