New to 3D printing. Solidworks or Autocad for design?

[Artiz]

I highly highly recommend OnShape.com. It's free, made by the guys who made SolidWorks (nearly identical), doesn't crash, can export STL's or many other formats, and follows a fairly logical build strategy.

I use SolidWorks for my CAD at work and it is extremely powerful, but it's prohibitively expensive for hobby use. Sketchup was what I was using at home until I found OnShape.com. It also works well, but the resolution it offers for smaller parts is pretty poor. However, Sketchup is about as easy as it gets in terms of learning curve.

https://www.onshape.com/

Some good sense at last... and a great cloud app recommendation too... onshape looks excellent! As I keep reiterating software/apps are personal and whatever/whenever it works for you is fine... silly negative comments aren't... what really matters is the research you personally do to find the software that suits you and your style/type of work... A professional designer friend of mine started off using Turbocad which he bought on ebay for £10 and he still uses it now 10 years later for certain elements of his work. Sketchup is as good a place to start as any other freeware... stl export can be problematic but Netfabb (free) can usually repair most issues. It's not that great for smaller parts either but as I said 'horses for courses'.

Solidworks is an entire suite of tools for professional use and clearly why it is one of the best out there... and the most expensive... but that doesn't mean you can't find freeware alternatives and gain experience until you are ready to make the massive leap to selling your designs professionally... all/any 3D/CAD type software/app experience is invaluable anyway.

"Tongue in cheek = not to be taken seriously"???... and Sigmund Freud said there's no such thing as a joke...