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Is SolidCraft a Fusion 360 clone? What "clean-room" means, and the ArtCraft connection

By SolidCraft.pro, an unofficial community guide. Facts checked against the sources listed at the end on 21 October 2026.

Isometric illustration of two rooms separated by a glowing wall, with an envelope passing through a slot from an inspected block to a newly built part
Illustration: the clean-room idea, where only a specification passes between the room that studies and the room that builds. Conceptual image, no real product shown.

Short answer: SolidCraft is an independent open-source parametric CAD program (MIT OR Apache-2.0) whose workflow feels familiar to Fusion 360 users. The project says it contains no Autodesk code, icons or artwork. It was built from public documentation, general CAD conventions and user feedback under written "clean-room" rules. It cannot open Fusion's .f3d files, and it is not affiliated with Autodesk. Whether "clone" is fair depends on what you mean: the look and the workflow, yes, many users say so; the code and the file format, no. Nobody outside the project has independently verified the clean-room claim, and this article is not legal advice.

Why people call it a clone

The comparison comes from users, not from the project's own description:

Some of the familiarity is deliberate. SolidCraft's NOTICE file mentions "mouse navigation presets in Preferences › Navigation" named after other CAD programs. Many concepts are general parametric-CAD conventions that Fusion shares with other tools: sketches with constraints, a feature timeline, named parameters, assemblies with joints.

SolidCraft 0.18.2 Preferences, Navigation page with the Pan, zoom, orbit preset set to Fusion and the View navigator option
Preferences › Navigation in SolidCraft v0.18.2. The mouse preset is named after another CAD program so its users keep their habits (the default here is "Fusion"). Real screenshot, 21 Oct 2026.

What the project's own rules say

SolidCraft's README says it was "Developed under the clean-room contribution rules". Those rules, in the repository's AGENTS.md, are unusually explicit:

The NOTICE adds that SolidCraft is "not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes, PTC, Siemens, Blender or any other CAD vendor". Product names appear "only to describe compatibility".

What "clean-room" means, and its limits

Classic clean-room design separates two teams. One studies the original and writes a specification; the other, which has never seen the original, implements from that specification. The 1980s IBM-compatible BIOS is the textbook example. The separation is mainly evidence that nothing was copied.

Diagram contrasting a classic two-team clean room separated by a wall with one developer prompting an AI model, plus a summary of SolidCraft's written clean-room rules
Diagram: the classic two-team clean room, the question commentators raise about one developer working with an AI model, and what SolidCraft's own rules say. Not legal advice.

Commentators have raised a specific question about AI-written "Craft" apps. Writing about ArtCraft's PhotoCraft (a clean-room Photoshop-style editor), Declic Media notes that when one developer observes the original product and then prompts a model to write the code, there is no two-team wall. It also notes that "what the model read during training" can't be checked from outside. Japanese reviewer note.com/ai_driven summed up the situation as "there is a declaration, but no proof". Those articles are about PhotoCraft, not SolidCraft, but the same questions apply to any AI-assisted clean-room claim. We found no third-party audit of SolidCraft's code.

Practical takeaway: for personal and hobby use, the licence (MIT OR Apache-2.0) is clear and permits commercial use of the software and of the parts you design. If your company is standardising on a CAD tool, ask your own legal team, as you would for any young open-source project.

How SolidCraft relates to ArtCraft and the "Craft" apps

What the sources show:

So SolidCraft shares code, conventions and the "Craft" naming with the storytold/ArtCraft family, but it is presented as its own project under Tangency Labs. We have not found an official statement describing the organisational relationship, and we won't guess.

What carries over from Fusion 360, and what doesn't

SolidCraft 0.18.2 sketch mode showing a fully constrained L-shaped bracket profile with 40, 30 and 6 mm dimensions and the history timeline at the bottom
General parametric-CAD conventions in SolidCraft v0.18.2: a fully constrained sketch with driving dimensions, and the feature history along the bottom. Real screenshot, 21 Oct 2026.
Status in SolidCraft 0.18.2
Fusion .f3d files No importer. Export STEP from Fusion instead (how)
Fusion feature history Lost through STEP. The part arrives as a base feature you can build on
Mouse navigation feel Navigation presets in Preferences › Navigation
Concepts (sketch, constraints, timeline, parameters, joints) Yes, as general CAD conventions
CAM, 2D drawings, simulation Not yet. Deferred on the official roadmap (review)
Autodesk account or cloud Not needed. Runs locally or in the browser

For a full side-by-side comparison, see SolidCraft vs Fusion 360.

Quick answers

Is SolidCraft made by Autodesk? No. It is independent and not affiliated with Autodesk.

Is it legal to use SolidCraft? It is published under MIT OR Apache-2.0, which allow personal and commercial use. Questions about clean-room claims and trade dress are for lawyers, not for this guide.

Is SolidCraft made by the ArtCraft team? It shares code and conventions with the storytold/ArtCraft "Craft" apps, but it is published by Tangency Labs and doesn't call itself an ArtCraft app (as of 21 October 2026).

Can it open my Fusion projects? Not .f3d. Use STEP.

Sources (checked 2026-10-21)

More articles: SolidCraft blog · Not affiliated with SolidCraft or Tangency Labs (about this site).