Rhino 3D Alternatives for NURBS and Product Modeling

Rhino is McNeel's NURBS modeller for product design, jewellery, architecture and marine work. It is alive and still sold as a permanent licence. The download page now lists Rhino 9 as the latest licensed version, keeps Rhino 8, 7 and 6 as archives, and offers a 90-day trial of all of Rhino 9. The sales page lists $995 for one commercial user, $195 for students and faculty, and says there are no maintenance fees.

The new version also raised the floor. The Rhino 9 system requirements list Windows 11 only, and on Mac only Apple Silicon machines on macOS 26 or 27. If you run Windows 10 or an Intel Mac, Rhino 8 is the last version you can use. Other people leave because they want history-based parametric CAD, an iPad app, or something free.

The eight tools below cover those reasons. If the part of Rhino you depend on is the node editor, our Grasshopper alternatives page covers Dynamo, Houdini and the other visual scripting tools.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Plasticity

Plasticity is a NURBS modeller built for artists and industrial designers, running on the Parasolid and xNURBS engines, per its site. Rhino users will recognise the job: curves, surfaces, fillets and booleans that stay clean. The interface is closer to Blender than to a command line, and both licences include a bridge to Blender for rendering.

The licence works like Rhino's, only cheaper. You pay once and keep every version released in your 12 months of updates. Version 26.2.4 runs on Windows 10 and later, macOS 12 and later, and Ubuntu 22 and later, so it still installs on the Intel Macs and Windows 10 machines that Rhino 9 dropped.

Best for: A concept or product designer who uses Rhino for freeform surfaces and wants a cheaper, more visual tool.

Pricing:

• Indie: $175 one-time, 2 machines, 12 months of updates
• Studio: $299 one-time, 4 machines, adds PolySplines, xNURBS and beta access
• 30-day trial, not for commercial use

Watch out for:

• There is no 2D drafting, layouts or dimensioned drawings in the Rhino sense, and no node editor like Grasshopper.
• Companies with more than 10 employees must buy Studio, per the pricing section.

Official site: Plasticity.

Autodesk Fusion

Autodesk renamed Fusion 360 to plain Fusion, and the product is a different kind of modeller from Rhino. Every feature sits in a timeline, so changing one sketch dimension rebuilds the part. One subscription also covers assemblies, drawings, CAM toolpaths for machining, simulation and electronics. It runs as a desktop app on Windows and macOS, per the pricing page.

Hobbyists can use Fusion for personal use free for a year at a time. It is limited to non-commercial projects by people earning under $1,000 a year, and it cuts CAM, drawings, electronics and file formats down. That trade is fine for 3D printing at home and wrong for client work.

Best for: A Rhino user who now makes machined or printed parts that change often and need drawings and toolpaths.

Pricing:

• Fusion: $57 per month, billed annually
• Promotion from February 7, 2026 to January 31, 2027: 25% off when buying commercial 1-year subscriptions in packs of four
• Personal use: free, non-commercial, under $1,000 annual revenue
• 30-day trial

Watch out for:

• It is a subscription. Stop paying and you lose editing, which is the opposite of Rhino's permanent licence.
• The free personal tier has "limited import/export file types" and single-user data management, per the personal use page.

Official site: Autodesk Fusion.

Moment of Inspiration

MoI, as everyone calls it, is a small NURBS program that feels like Rhino with most of the commands removed. The official site describes precision and freeform NURBS drawing tools, a native Mac build and mesh export with n-gons. Designers use it to rough out shapes quickly, then finish in Rhino or render elsewhere.

Version 4 is the public release. CG Channel reports that MoI 5 is in closed beta for MoI 4 owners, with object grouping, SVG import and export, a dark theme, and a universal Mac build for Intel and Apple Silicon. It also saves text notes into Rhino 3DM files, so the two programs share files with little friction.

Best for: A designer who uses only a fraction of Rhino's commands and wants a fast, cheap NURBS sketchpad.

Pricing:

• MoI 4: $295 one-time, as reported by CG Channel
• Check the current price and any upgrade terms on moi3d.com

Watch out for:

• Releases are slow. MoI 5 is a closed beta for MoI 4 owners, per CG Channel, and the official site still announces version 4 as the current release.
• There is no scripting canvas, layout space or drafting toolset, so drawings and parametric work stay in other tools.

Official site: Moment of Inspiration.

Shapr3D

Shapr3D started as an iPad CAD app and now runs on iPad, Mac, Windows and Apple Vision Pro, with one account on up to 3 devices, per the pricing page. You sketch with an Apple Pencil or a mouse and push solids around directly. Industrial designers use it for early concepts in meetings and on the move.

The free Basic plan holds up to 2 projects and exports only basic-resolution STL and 3MF. Pro opens STEP, IGES and Parasolid XT export, which is what you need to hand a model to Rhino, SOLIDWORKS or a manufacturer. Enterprise adds JT, FBX, ACIS and other formats.

Best for: A product designer who wants to model on an iPad and pass solids to engineering later.

Pricing:

• Basic: free, up to 2 projects, basic-resolution STL and 3MF export
• Pro: $299 per editor seat, billed annually, excluding VAT; the page says yearly billing saves 34%
• Enterprise: contact sales
• 14-day Pro trial; free for students and educators for a renewable year

Watch out for:

• Freeform surfacing is not its strength. It is built for solids, so Rhino-style lofted and network surfaces are harder to match.
• The free plan is a trial in practice: 2 projects and low-resolution export only, per the pricing page.

Official site: Shapr3D.

FreeCAD

FreeCAD costs nothing, for commercial work too, and it is the pick here with the widest hardware reach. The download page offers version 1.1.4 for Windows 10 and later, macOS 12 and later on both Apple Silicon and Intel, and Linux AppImages. That makes it the obvious fallback for anyone whose machine cannot run Rhino 9.

It is parametric and history-based, with workbenches for parts, sheet metal, assemblies, FEM analysis and architecture. Version 1.1 arrived on March 25, 2026 with transparent previews and drag handles for fillets and chamfers.

Best for: A Linux user, or anyone on Windows 10 or an Intel Mac, who needs solid modeling and pays nothing.

Pricing:

• Free and open source, including commercial use, no paid tier

Watch out for:

• Freeform surface tools are weak next to Rhino. FreeCAD is strongest on prismatic engineering parts, not jewellery or car-body shapes.
• Help comes from the forum and the wiki, not a vendor support desk.

Official site: FreeCAD. Our listing: FreeCAD.

SOLIDWORKS

Dassault's SOLIDWORKS is where many product teams end up when a Rhino concept has to become an assembly with tolerances, drawings and a bill of materials. It is the standard in a lot of mechanical engineering shops, so files and job skills travel well.

Hobby users have a cheap way in. 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers costs $48 a year or $15 a month, with a $24 first-year promotion shown on the page. It is for personal projects, and you may sell parts only while earning under $2,000 a year. A separate xDesign package runs in a browser on Macs and Chromebooks.

Best for: A hardware team moving from Rhino concepts to production assemblies and engineering drawings.

Pricing:

• SOLIDWORKS for Makers: $48 per year or $15 per month, excluding taxes; $24 for the year on promotion
• Commercial and startup licences: no public price on that page; bought separately

Watch out for:

• The desktop app is Windows only. The Makers page says it "does not run natively on macOS", so Mac users get only the browser-based xDesign.
• The Makers licence is personal and non-commercial, so any paid client work needs a commercial seat at a quoted price.

Official site: SOLIDWORKS.

Blender

Many Rhino users already open Blender for one job: making the model look good. It renders, animates, sculpts and does SubD modeling, all for free under the GPL, and what you make is yours to sell, per the licence page. Version 5.2.3 LTS came out on October 22, 2026.

Geometry Nodes give it a node system for procedural forms, which covers some of what people do in Grasshopper. Our Blender alternatives page looks at it from the other direction, for people who outgrew it.

Best for: Visualisation, animation and organic SubD shapes where exact dimensions matter less.

Pricing:

• Free and open source under the GNU GPL, commercial use allowed

Watch out for:

• Blender is a mesh modeller. It has no NURBS solid kernel, so precise fillets, tolerances and clean manufacturing exports stay in Rhino or a CAD tool.
• Current Mac builds need Apple Silicon and macOS 13 or newer, per the download page.

Official site: Blender. Our listing: Blender.

SketchUp

Architects who use Rhino mainly for massing and quick building studies often find SketchUp faster. Push-pull modeling, the 3D Warehouse of ready-made objects and LayOut for 2D sheets cover early design and client presentations.

Trimble sells it only by subscription. Go runs in a browser and on iPad. Pro adds the desktop modeller and LayOut. Studio adds Revit import, point clouds and photoreal rendering on Windows, per the plans page.

Best for: An architect or interior designer whose Rhino work is mostly boxes, rooms and presentation models.

Pricing:

• Go: $10.75 per user per month, billed annually (web and iPad)
• Pro: $33.25 per user per month, billed annually
• Studio: $71.58 per user per month, billed annually, Windows only
• Students and educators: $55 per year
• SketchUp Free: free web plan for personal, non-commercial use

Watch out for:

• Models are faces and edges, not NURBS surfaces, so double-curved facades and product shapes look faceted and are hard to edit.
• There is no free plan for professional use. SketchUp Free, a web-only plan for personal, non-commercial use, is still available alongside SketchUp for Schools.

Official site: SketchUp. Our listing: SketchUp.

How to choose

When to stay with Rhino

Stay if you work in freeform NURBS and want to own your software. Rhino 9 costs $995 once, owners of any older version upgrade for $395 until March 1, 2027, and the sales page says there are no maintenance fees. None of the subscription tools here come close on five-year cost. Grasshopper is included, and no other pick has a node editor that mature for NURBS work. If your only problem is an Intel Mac or Windows 10, keep running Rhino 8 until you replace the machine.

Frequently asked questions