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

[Sebastian Finke]

Whatever works for you is fine. Also, proprietry (i.e. paid-for professional software) is always better than freeware.

[curious aardvark]

Whatever works for you is fine. Also, proprietry (i.e. paid-for professional software) is always better than freeware.

well find me a better version of openscad I can pay for - and I Will :-)

To say commercial software is 'always' better than freeware is definitely not the case.
In many cases freeware does things commercial software doesn't.
Is there a commercial program available that does what 123dcatch does - but better ?

Apart from the odd microsoft package I pretty much just use freeware these days. Primarily because it's better.
And i suppose, with the exception of autoroute, I could replace microsoft stuff as well. No end of free office applications and google earth does 'most' of what autoroute does.

So - yes, while there are some very good commercial cad packages, there are also some exceptional freeware ones as well.
Without openscad I very much doubt I'd have designed anything and would definitely have struggled make and print my own designs.