It's been improving rapidly. The upcoming (imminently) 1.1 has a large amount of modern UI affordances, such as on-canvas gizmos that at times actually are easier to use than e.g. the Fusion ones. I'm a heavy Fusion user, but for me FreeCAD is nearly there now and the improvement over 1.0.x is massive.

There's a lot more to do, but my feeling is the project is taking UI/UX design much more seriously than it has in the past, with the ramp-up of an internal design-focused team etc. I get that feeling from reading the weekly progress updates and MR discussions.

I'm very optimistic for the future of FreeCAD personally. I think it's a great time to contribute if you are interested in making UI/UX better as well because there's much higher interest in that kind of work now. I think it's close to having its own Blender/KiCAD moment.

The UI has an awkward learning curve and some tools are weird, but it has become a rather solid CAD. Don't discount it in its current state, despite its warts.

I disagree. If you switch to the Part Design workbench, it's basically the exact same workflow as SolidWorks. Draw a sketch, add constraints, extrude / revolve / fillet, etc.

Yes they have some unconventional names for certain operations, like "pad" instead of "extrude", and yes there's a confusingly-similarly-named "Part" workbench for doing CSG-style CAD, and yes it takes a bit of practice to get good at it. But it's not next to impossible.

Can't agree, I'm a complete newbie in CAD, and after I opened FreeCAD I didn't know what to do at all. Watched one youtube video covering all the basics and I can design whatever I want with confidence. Besides being free – it's very intuitive and great piece of software in my opinion

Yeah I just end up using Fusion 360. But depending on a freebie for hobbyists that could be withdrawn any time it's a bit worrying. I wish there were good visual tools.

I don't like browser based and blender is too focused on animation (I'm more into 3D printing) so I haven't found a good FOSS alternative. FreeCAD isn't it anyway.

I'm just a hobbyist with a 3D printer, but after watching a few tutorials it seems quite simple if you're only using the sketcher and part design 90% of the time.