Newbie question about development.

[curious aardvark]

most of us use free CAD (development) software.
You can pay for it, but unless you're doing industrial development, it's generally not necessary.

Two good places to start are: www.openscad.org
Which is the one I use.
Or
http://www.123dapp.com/
For a whole suite of free programs :-)

All fdm 3d printers use the same method of printing. So theoretically you can get pretty much the same results from them all.
The real cheap ones come in kits and can be problemeatic.
Personally I'd look at two of the cheaper ready made machines:
the monoprice v2 (a rebadged wanhao duplicator i3 2.1) https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-138...+3d+printer+v2

And the qidi tech 1: https://www.amazon.com/TECHNOLOGY-3D...&keywords=qidi

The qidi is a far bit more money, but is a seriously good machine that can give results comparable with machine costing many times more.
And while an old design, is still one of the best desktop machines around.

No 3d printer is idiot proof. And getting good results from any 3d printer requires the user to learn about the process and generally do some fiddling and tweaking.
It's as much an art as a science and things as diverse as the humidity of a room and the colour of the filament can make noticeable differences.

That said, I would NOT be without a 3d printer these days. Being able to conceive of a thing, design it and then make it from a strong and durable material within a few hours - is really remarkable.