It’s hard to believe that Autodesk Inventor is turning 25 years old this year. That’s 25 years of engineering design and it’s still one, of not the, most used CAD/CAE tools for all types of machinery and sheet metal design.

If you’re not already somewhat familiar with Inventor, the 2025 enhancements might not be really relavent to you, but if you’re a seasoned Inventor user there’s no doubt at least a handful of the nearly 150 new features and 1,330 bug fixes are changes you’ve been hoping they’d make.

The most new tools are for sheet metal design. In fact, the Autodesk software engineers have modernized the interface for designing sheet metal components by placing tools in what they say is a logical order and making previously hard-to-find features more readily apparent. One enhancement in particular is the more easily manipulated flanges that are then instantly visualized. You can make on-the-fly edits coupled with commonly used presents to make your overall design more efficient.

“This year, we’ve taken great care in streamlining and enhancing three key sheet metal commands: Sheet Metal Flange, Face, and Cut,” says Autodesk. “These commands have been significantly improved with interactive in-canvas previews and manipulators, a configurable property panel interface, and new visual references for determining termination directions. We’ve also refined sketch line rendering and improved the highlighting of component face and edge selections.”

Autodesk is already known as a company that listens to its software customers and takes their wishlists and complaints to heart in product upgrades. The company says it considered nearly 4,500 idea forum votes.

Among the new features in the drawing and annotations capabilities are updates that keep it compliant with the evolving global standards. One major new feature that many of you may have been waiting a long time for is the ability to insert item numbers into drawing text that can be updated dynamically because they are linked to the parts list as well as the balloons and notes within drawings. To enable this is a new functions list called “parts list properties” within the format text dialog. There are dozens of other quality-of-life features around colors, sorting, hiding guides, and other fixes to those little hassles you were hoping Autodesk would one day address.

When it comes to the core part modeling functions there are several enhancements that can speed up your workflow. For example, you can manage finish parameters with new toggles and an eyedropper tool to pick up and apply settings to new areas.

Inventor now incorporates the ISO 15786 standard for the simplified representation, dimensioning, and tolerancing of holes, counterbores, internal threads and chamfers on drawings, which includes a new drill point operation, such as flat W, angle V, and angle Y.

Another new feature is boundary patters enabling you to select where your pattern, such as holes, should apply. In assembly modeling, you can now highlight the hidden sections of components, and when you’re designing something with a cylinder shape, there’s now a cylindrical envelope to design within instead of the Inventor standard rectangular prism.

The 2025 release of Inventor also has reverse compatibility with older versions of Autodesk Revit to integrate your architectural an engineering domains.

Autodesk offers a 30-day free trial of Inventor. All you need to do to get started is make an Autodesk account. The trial version is no different than the full version of Inventor, except that after 30 days the license will expire and you won’t have access to the software anymore.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to access the full version of Inventor 2025 free for 30 days:

1. Click DOWNLOAD FREE TRIAL.
2. Confirm that your system can handle the software by clicking NEXT.
3. Select your intended usage of Inventor – students and educators will be redirected to Autodesk’s education pages.
4. Choose your language. And click NEXT.
5. Enter your personal information to create an Autodesk account. Alternatively, sign in to your existing Autodesk account.
6. Enter your business information. And click NEXT.
7. Read the Trial Notice and click BEGIN DOWNLOAD.
8. Install, and start using the free trial.

Where Cubes Become Engines

SolidWorks vs Inventor: The Differences

If, after your 30-day trial, you’re still in love with Invent and you’re not an educator or student, you have to subscribe to continue the relationship.

• $2,500 /year
• $315 /paid monthly
• $7,500 /paid every three years

Fortunately, if you’re a student or an educator and would like to use Inventor for educational purposes, in accordance with Autodesk’s terms of service, you may download and install a free copy of Inventor on up to two devices. The educational license, thanks to Autodesk’s Education Community, gives you free access to the all of the software’s features for 3 years.

1. Go to the Autodesk Education Community.
2. Choose Autodesk Inventor Professional.
3. Create an Autodesk account. Alternatively, sign in to your existing Autodesk account.
4. Then, click DOWNLOAD NOW.
5. Select the desired version, your operating system, and your preferred language.
6. The displayed serial number and product key are sent to your email address. And click BROWSER DOWNLOAD.
7. Next, install the free version.
8. When installing the CAD software, enter the serial number, and product key to unlock it.
9. When you start the program the first time, activate the license.

With Autodesk Inventor you get a highly professional product development suite that comprises a large array of tools for 3D mechanical design, simulation, and 2D documentation. At the base, this CAD suite brings powerful parametric modeling tools to the workbench. This means that you define constraints and parameters for your design with values that can be changed later in the project and the software will reshape your entire design to properly adapt it. However, Inventor’s tools go beyond what most other free 3D modeling software can offer. To give only one example, its iLogic programming language allows users to “code” complex assemblies and create menus to customize their UI, making them conveniently alterable.

Moreover, Inventor supports AnyCAD, which allows for a collaborative workflow with other CAD tools. Instead of translating CAD project properties, AnyCAD establishes associativity for non-Inventor parts in your project. Changes in the original file carry through to the instance in your Inventor project.

Basically, this CAD program is geared towards teams of engineers that need to collaborate on large-scale projects, such as entire cars or machinery. The following example illustrates the sophistication of Inventor: one of the smart technologies that supplement traditional design strategies is the shape generator that lets users specify the volume of a part and the locations where forces will be applied. It then generates strong, yet light-weight parts.

Like its competitors, Solidworks and CATIA, Inventor is a highly advanced piece of 3D modeling software that not only requires extensive training to make the most of its potential but also advanced knowledge in engineering.

Crack, hack, jailbreak, there’s no shortage of online schemes claiming to deliver a free backdoor to a full version of Inventor. So before you spend hours sliding down the internet rabbit hole of paid links and clickbait, we’ll tell you the truth: it doesn’t exist.

Autodesk didn’t get to be one of the largest, most trusted, and most respected software companies in the world by having flaws in its code. Plus, the company’s battalion of lawyers is typically all over these internet fraudsters with cease-and-desist orders faster than you can slice a benchy.

Attempting to crack software for free use is not only illegal (a violation of licensing, copyright, and intellectual property laws) and ethically wrong, but it typically doesn’t even work. Cracked software opens you up to malware, which is its intention, and without proper licensing is prone to unexpected errors and frequent crashes.

If you can’t afford Inventor just yet at this point in your career, there are free and lower-cost alternatives below.

Without a doubt one of the best free alternatives to Autodesk Inventor, FreeCAD is an open-source and highly extensible free 3D CAD software. It offers full parametric modeling and has a range of features that can easily stand in comparison with commercial software from the likes of Autodesk.

Due to the modular architecture, FreeCAD is invaluable in many engineering and architecture workflows. For example, it lets you perform sophisticated simulations such as self-weight analysis.

It may not have the same polished user experience as Autodesk Inventor, but looking beyond this there’s enough here to accomplish sophisticated projects.

Onshape is an engineering-grade CAD software made by former Solidworks developers and available as a cloud service. It has much in common with Inventor and boasts robust collaboration tools that make it an attractive option for teams and organizations.

The program seeks to integrate the entire engineering workflow into one tool. Moreover, its comprehensive feature set lends you the full might of parametric modeling and the option to simulate assemblies of complex many part designs.

Using the free license lets you work on up to ten projects simultaneously. Note though that Onshape is, inherently, a paid-for service. Students, Educators, and hobbyists have access to a free license of the program, subject to some limitations and conditions.

Even in its basic version, nanoCAD is an impressive piece of free CAD software. It’s yet another example of how one company did something right and inspired others to follow in its tracks: The user interface takes its cues from Autodesk’s AutoCAD, sousers familiar with Autodesk’s ecosystem of software should feel at home here.

True to its claim of professionalism, nanoCAD supports parametric modeling, which is handy as you can revisit older designs, and adapt them to new tasks in a breeze. Moreover, it can automate a great many routine tasks.

The program’s interface is uncluttered, making it accessible for hobbyists. Still, users have a rich feature set at their disposal. The free CAD software’s functionality can be extended by various plugins. In case your projects are more demanding, you should take a look at nanoCAD’s paid versions.