CADCraft

What it is

CADCraft is an open-source computer-aided design and drafting application rebuilt from scratch in Rust by the ArtCraft team. It suits architectural floor plans, mechanical part drawings and users who prefer command-driven drafting. Its workflow is inspired by AutoCAD, but the project is independent of Autodesk and is not sponsored or endorsed by it. The code is dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, with no account or subscription required. It is still in early, rapid development—not a promise of full commercial CAD parity.

Drawing and file workflows

• Draft with a command line, aliases, relative and polar coordinates, direct-distance entry, object snaps, ortho and polar tracking, plus window/crossing selection.
• Create lines, polylines, circles, arcs, splines and text; edit with move, copy, rotate, offset, trim, extend and array commands.
• Manage colors, linetypes, lineweights and locking through layers and properties. Add dimensions, multileaders, tables, hatches and nested blocks.
• Read and write ASCII/binary DXF from R12 through 2018. DWG R13–2018 support uses the acadrust library; export SVG/PNG and plot PDFs. Test important drawings on copies before relying on compatibility.
• Use paper-space layouts, viewports, page setups, geometric/dimensional constraints, a separate CLI, MCP server and JSON control channel.

Platforms and installation

The native desktop interface uses Rust/egui, not Electron. Upstream offers macOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and WebAssembly builds. This listing's 0.4.0 macOS universal DMG supports Apple Silicon and Intel. With Homebrew already installed, run:

brew install --cask cadcraft

Homebrew installs its currently recorded version; this command does not permanently pin 0.4.0. For that exact version, download cadcraft-0.4.0-macos-universal.dmg from the v0.4.0 release, open the disk image, copy CADCraft.app to Applications and launch it. Upstream describes macOS releases as signed and notarized. Developers can clone the repository and run cargo run --release -p cadcraft -- --sample to open the sample drawing.

Official sources

Source and setup documentation · ArtCraft team · Exact release