What if Tinkercad was Self-Hosted?
While we use a lot of CAD tools, many of us are fans of Tinkercad β especially for working with kids or just doing something quick. But many people dislike having to work across the Internet with their work stored on someoneβs servers. We get it. So does [CommonWealthRobotics], which offers CaDoodle. It is nearly a total clone of Tinkercad but runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, or even Chrome OS.
Is it exactly Tinkercad? No, but thatβs not always a bad thing. For example, CaDoodle can work with Blender, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, and more. However, on the business end, it sure looks like the core functions of Tinkercad.
The program appears fairly new, so you have to make some allowances. For example, the Linux AppImage seems to have difficulty loading plugins (which it needs to import many of its file formats). In addition, on at least some systems, you have to resize the window after it starts, or it wonβt respond. But, overall, it is pretty impressive. The Settings, by the way, has a checkbox for advanced features, and there are some other goodies there, too.
One reason we found this interesting is that we sometimes go into schools, and they donβt want us to have kids on the Internet. Of course, they donβt like us installing random software either, so you can pick your battles.
Tinkercad, of course, continues to add features. Not all of which youβd expect in a drawing package.
hackaday.com/2025/10/25/what-iβ¦