One spine.
Local-first.
Engineer-built.
Why FormsCAD is one suite, not a grab-bag of products that share a logo. The same contract holds across every tool, the same data model carries from 2D to 3D, and the same person builds them — because they're all the same answer to the same problem.
Modern where it helps. Boring where it matters.
YOU OWN THE SOFTWARE.
YOU OWN YOUR FILES.
No subscriptions. No cloud lock-in. No proprietary container holding your work. You buy a version and own it. Your project files live on your disk in formats you can read with anything — DXF, PDF, SVG out.
The promise isn't "affordable." It's that the transaction ends. You pay, you own, you draw. No renewal email nine months from now telling you the price went up. No "you'll lose access to your past work if you cancel." None of that is in this contract.
DESKTOP-NATIVE.
WORKS OFFLINE.
The tools run on your machine. The model is on your disk. There is no required cloud sync, no "save to FormsCAD Cloud" button, no telemetry pipeline you can't turn off. The cloud is optional and lives downstream — the work happens locally.
That's not nostalgia. It's the only stance compatible with engineers whose drawings sit inside firewalls, on classified networks, or on a laptop on a 14-hour flight. The tool has to work when the connection doesn't.
ONE DATA MODEL.
ONE TRUTH.
The products share a data model and file formats — they talk to each other because they're built on the same foundation, not because they're stitched together with a converter.
The clearest example: the I&C data. An instrument in your P&ID has a tag, a loop, a service, and a symbol. The same instrument in your 3D model has the same tag, the same loop, the same service — because it's the same object, drawn two ways. Forms 2D and Forms 3D don't need a sync. They're reading the same record.
That is the whole reason the suite exists as a suite. Not the brand. The data model.
A PRACTICING ENGINEER.
Not a venture-funded team chasing a market. A practicing engineer who got tired of paying the Autodesk tax for tools that fight him, and started building the tools he wished he could buy.
That's why the decisions are the way they are. The annoyances Forms 2D fixes are the annoyances a person who drafts P&IDs every week notices. The I&C-first stance isn't a feature list — it's what someone who works in instrumentation thinks an instrument is. The decision to keep AI optional comes from a working engineer who knows the day-to-day doesn't require a chatbot.
An Arkhon Labs product.
WHO THIS IS FOR
- Engineers and firms — especially small and mid-size — who want capable tools they own.
- MEP, electrical, structural, civil, industrial, process, and I&C work.
- People who draft drawings for a living and notice when a tool treats their discipline as an afterthought.
- Teams who'd rather pay once for software they own than rent forever for software that fights them.
- People who want a cloud collaboration platform as the product.
- Anyone looking for an AI-does-it-all-for-you promise — that isn't what's being built.
- Firms whose entire workflow assumes a centralized subscription-CAD ecosystem and isn't open to anything else.
- Replacement-cost shoppers looking for the cheapest seat. The pitch is honest, not discount.
Naming who this isn't for is how you know who it is for.
THE PRODUCTS
Forms 2D
Local desktop CAD. I&C and P&ID as first-class.
ShippingForms 3D
Discipline-equal BIM. AEC disciplines as equal citizens.
In buildForms Prime
Mechanical CAD. A separate lane from 3D.
In buildForms Sketch
Free sketch tool — Windows or browser. Rough the idea before the drawing.
Free · NowForms Review
Non-destructive markup and redlines for drawing sets.
In buildForms Print
3D-print model prep and slicing. Longer-term.
Long-term