I downloaded both the community edition and the free 2D drafting and if I understand correctly they are basically the same package (same install data), but the license file alone is different.
I appreciate Siemens, but I need a clear cut on whatever is allowed by their terms of use, as a confirmation of the quote below that I personally understand as “even for commercial purposes you can use the 2D drafting for free inside your company”
Is that correct? Where I can find the official Siemens Legal document?
Whether you need to use 2D CAD software across your company or for a specific 2D design process, Solid Edge 2D Drafting provides production-proven 2D drafting software - for free.
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That is interesting to know about. Might be an alternative to SW Draftsight.
if confirmed yes it could be an alternative. it seems pretty solid even with heavy imported 2d dxf or dwg.
I would like to have an official confirmation.
If “free” is the draw for you I’d be wary. DraftSight had a “free” versionas well, then dropped it. Still, it would be nice to have someone do a in depth review for how it compares to AutoCAD/Draftsight.
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I’m a few years old on Solid Edge data but back around ST6 / ST9 era they dropped the stand alone free viewer (Draftsight maybe?) and just shipped the full Solid Edge but when the License Utility popped up user could select “I want the free veiwer/ free 2D drafting” option.
I just checked our 2019 installation still has that option, looks like this:
So that was free for commercial use, we could install and run that on all the machines we wanted. I never used the “free” 2D drafting, didn’t need to. I cannot speak to what is the most current or what they plan for the future, but that’s the history that I know of the progression of the free viewer/2D drafter.
no it is not the only 2d cad.
more like a free viewer to use for 3rd party drawing conversion when the official 2d cad fails to import
my underatanding is that the option is fine even for commercial use, but I must give the IT dep. some TOS or EULA or whatever legalese doc that officially states that.
The big difference to keep in mind is that Solid Edge converts DWG to DFT files, so it is not a native DWG editor like Draftsight, BricsCAD, IntelliCAD, etc… If that is not an issue, SE works very well as a 2D Drafting app. Probably the biggest issues are no command line, no layer symbology, and different learning curve compared to an ACAD clone if you have an ACAD workforce.
