Maker version of solid works

[macona]

Yeah. Now with fusion playing games with cutting cam features and having to store files in the cloud the EAA version is even more attractive.

[J Tiers]

...... Was looking into Alibre, but the cam seems a bit limited and simple. .....

That is the CAM from the $399 CAD/CAM package, which, as you might expect, is very basic (so is the $200 CAD which is part of the package). Any other CAM will work with Alibre. In fact, people here mentioned that the same 3rd party that made that bundled CAM also has a full feature version which works fine with Alibre. So you are by no means limited to a "bundled package".

Solidworks is a very "developed" CAD package, but it is not perfect. I found many things about it to be clumsy, and I was using the absolutely fully loaded version. I generally prefer Alibre.