Arrette Scale sketch drafting vs Onshape 3D CAD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Arrette Scale sketch drafting
This app allows designers to sketch freehand while maintaining precise scale, similar to vector drafting tools. It offers intuitive drawing tools and features for easy sharing and collaboration, simplifying the design process for professionals.
- Freehand drawing pens with vector scaling
- Adjustable grid system (metric/decimal feet)
- Straight edge and circle edge tools
- Distance and area measurement tools
- Lasso tool for selection and manipulation
- Layer support for organized designs
- Easy sharing via email or saving to device
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Rated #1 Technical App for Architects by ArchDaily! Arrette Scale for iPad is an app for designers who want to draw freehand while maintaining a measurable drawing scale like vector drafting tools. Architects, urban planners, surveyors, home remodelers, field archaeologists and dozens of other kinds of professionals will find this app useful. Unlike some other vector drawing tools, Arrette is simple to use. Arrette provides the platform to begin design work and generate ideas without moving too quickly to rigid straight lines and curves. We want to help you draw much as you would normally draw on paper, but to give you the extra tools and ways to share your work that make your life easier and make the design process simpler and more productive. The basic drawing structure is a familiar one - drawing layers which can be overlayed on a base image. The Grid keeps you aware of the size of what you're drawing, and the Edge helps you draw straight lines when you want. When you're ready, you can easily share drawings by email or save them to your device. We've designed Arrette to be extremely easy to learn. In about five minutes, you'll understand how to zoom and scale your canvas, draw lines, and load base images to work on top of. Our tools will seem familiar from other structured drawing applications, but every tool we've built has been simplified and optimized with scale in mind. Uses for Arrette: * An urban designer drafts plans for a new sub-division in a small town * A real estate agent snaps a photograph of a living space and begins to sketch out ideas for staging * A new home owner sketches the plan for an elaborate garden in the back yard * An archaeologist precisely records the provenience of a newly discovered artifact, including its location on an aerial map and the outline of its form * A construction manager notes progress on a work site, sending annotated precision-scale documents back to the general contractor live from the work site These are just a few of the ways that we have envisioned Arrette becoming an essential tool for many professionals. Arrette is the ideal tool for sketching because of its ease of use, preservation of scale, and flexibility in working with original source material such as other drawings, photographs, and maps. Included drawing tools: * Freehand drawing pens that scale like vector lines but are as easy to use as pencil and paper * An adjustable grid system that you can easily flip between the metric system and decimal feet * A straight edge tool for drawing perfectly straight lines or arrays of parallel lines * A circle edge tool for drawing arcs and circles of arbitrary, but precise radius * Distance and area measurement tools for measuring the lengths, perimeters and areas of arbitrary pathways in your drawing at precise scale * A lasso tool to select, move, copy and paste previously drawn lines * Layers, for separating out parts of composite objects or for adding new ideas to an existing document that overlay earlier designs * The ability to share Arrette documents with other users or to e-mail documents in PNG or PDF formats * An eraser tool, for revising your designs or removing objects from previous work * The ability to adjust the width of all lines globally even after the lines have been drawn * A color picker to choose from a variety of different pen colors for your drawing Base image imports: * The ability to load base images to draw on top of; base images respect their original scale and direction when the document is zoomed or panned * Import base images from Email, Dropbox, and Adobe Creative Cloud * Copy and paste from other apps that support JPG, PNG or PDF Document sharing features: * Send PDFs with scale and direction information to colleagues, clients, and other parties via email * Save your work to your Photo Gallery * Share raster versions of your work with anyone via email, Twitter, or Facebook
Onshape 3D CAD
This professional CAD platform enables real-time collaboration on product design from any device. It offers parametric modeling tools, secure cloud storage, and version control, streamlining the design process for teams and individuals. Supports students and educators with free access for non-commercial projects.
- Parametric modeling tools
- Real-time team collaboration
- Cloud-based data management
- Cross-device access
- Version control and history
- Commenting and feedback tools
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Onshape is a full mechanical CAD platform designed for professional users and extended teams. Create, edit, collaborate, and comment in real time with others from any computer or mobile device with an internet connection (free sign-up required). With Onshape’s secure cloud workspace teams can work together from anywhere on any device without the hassles of file management, IT overhead, and license key distribution, helping engineers focus more on doing their best work. Parametric CAD: • Design parts together in Part Studios with a full suite of parametric modeling tools • Create mechanical Assemblies to capture complex motion Ease of Access: • Create, edit, and view from any computer or mobile device (internet connection required) • Begin a project from one device and seamlessly continue from another Collaboration: • Instantly share your CAD data with your teams and partners. Monitor, change, and revoke permissions at any time • Work together with other users and view changes in real-time as they are made • Use Follow mode to see exactly what your teammate sees and add suggestions using Onshape’s built-in commenting tools Data Management: • Maintain a single source of truth for your data, no more sending around or checking in and out of files • Never worry about losing your work, all of your changes are saved automatically • Explore multiple design ideas in parallel and create professional release and approval processes for your designs Onshape for iOS also features Apple Pencil support for more intuitive sketching, navigation, and precise selection. Onshape proudly supports students and educators free of charge and is available free for non-commercial projects in an open-source public work space. Since Onshape is updated every few weeks with dozens of new features and user-requested enhancements, keep an eye out for update notifications from the Apple App Store.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Onshape 3D CAD at Free against Arrette Scale sketch drafting's $8.99. Onshape 3D CAD also leads on rating (3.5 vs 2.6) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 3 months). Arrette Scale sketch drafting's advantage is review sentiment (60% vs 47%) and iOS requirement (12.4 vs 18.0). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Onshape 3D CAD is free to download; Arrette Scale sketch drafting costs $8.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Onshape 3D CAD holds the better App Store score, 3.5 against 2.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Onshape 3D CAD has 417 ratings behind it against 14, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 60% of Arrette Scale sketch drafting's written reviews are positive against 47% of Onshape 3D CAD's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Arrette Scale sketch drafting ships an update every 3 months, Onshape 3D CAD every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Arrette Scale sketch drafting | Onshape 3D CAD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $8.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 2.6 (14 ratings) | 3.5 (417 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews — better | 47.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 14 | 417 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 12.4 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 53 MB | 77 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Arrette, Inc. | PTC Inc. |
Customer experience
Arrette Scale sketch drafting
Onshape 3D CAD
Bugs and requests
Arrette Scale sketch drafting
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Onshape 3D CAD
Reported bugs
5 issues- Frequent crashes and freezes
- Dimensions not visible/editable
- Rotation/view controls unreliable
- Unable to create account
- Incompatible with older devices
Requested features
5 requests- Add keyboard shortcuts
- Improve dimensioning tools
- Allow private file storage
- Optimize for iPad/Apple Pencil
- Provide better documentation/tutorials
In-app purchases
Arrette Scale sketch drafting
No in-app purchases
Onshape 3D CAD
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Arrette Scale sketch drafting free?
Is Onshape 3D CAD free?
Which has better reviews, Arrette Scale sketch drafting or Onshape 3D CAD?
Do Arrette Scale sketch drafting or Onshape 3D CAD have ads?
Which is updated more often, Arrette Scale sketch drafting or Onshape 3D CAD?
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