GrabCAD Workbench Alternative: Free CAD Sharing After the Shutdown
For years, GrabCAD Workbench was the answer to a real question: how does a small engineering team share CAD files, track revisions, and let partners view models — without buying a PDM system? It was free, it worked, and thousands of teams built their daily workflow on it.
Then it was discontinued. Support ended, and user data on the platform was deleted. Teams that had years of shared models and revision history got an export window and a goodbye.
If you're one of them — or you're only now discovering that the tool everyone recommended no longer exists — here's what to look for in a replacement, and an honest rundown of the options.
What Workbench actually did
Worth being precise, because a replacement has to cover these jobs:
- Shared project folders for CAD — one place per project instead of email attachments
- File locking and revision tracking — who has the file, what changed, which version is latest
- Browser viewing — partners could look at models without CAD software
- Free — the whole point, for teams without a PDM budget
What to demand from a replacement (that Workbench never had)
The shutdown itself teaches the first requirement: pick a tool whose free tier is core to the vendor's business, not a side project. A free tool that doesn't feed the vendor's model eventually gets turned off, and your revision history goes with it.
Beyond that, 2026's bar is higher than 2013's:
- Measurement in the browser, not just viewing — suppliers quoting from your models need dimensions
- Link-based sharing with access control — expiring links, view-only vs. download, PIN protection
- An audit trail — who saw which revision, and when
- A path beyond files — the same models feeding document control, BOMs, and quality instead of stopping at storage
The options, honestly
Onshape — excellent browser CAD with real version control, but its free plan makes every document public and prohibits commercial use. As a Workbench replacement for a working team, that rules it out; the paid plans start around $1,500/user/year.
Autodesk Drive / Fusion Team — reasonable inside the Autodesk ecosystem, but sharing and viewing are tuned for Autodesk formats and Autodesk accounts, and the free tiers are personal-use oriented.
Autodesk Viewer, eDrawings and other free viewers — cover the viewing job well, but there's no project structure, no revision tracking, no team workspace. They're a viewer, not a Workbench.
GatesFlow — our answer, built for exactly this gap. The free CAD viewer covers Workbench's jobs: upload STEP, IGES, STL, or OBJ files, organize them, and share by link so partners view models in the browser with nothing to install. Revision control comes from the free document control system: one current revision per document, full history, routed approvals, and an audit trail. And it adds what Workbench never had — browser measurement, markup anchored to geometry, PIN-protected expiring links, and a path into BOMs, quality workflows, and production in the same system. Free for commercial use, designs private by default.
Migrating from GrabCAD
If you still have your files (or exported them before the shutdown):
- Export/collect your CAD files from wherever they landed after Workbench — local folders, a shared drive, zip archives.
- Upload them to GatesFlow — models convert automatically for browser viewing, and the BOM structure is extracted from assemblies.
- Revision history starts fresh — Workbench's version trail didn't survive the shutdown, so your first upload becomes Rev A of the controlled record. From here forward, history is retained and auditable.
- Re-share by link — replace the old Workbench project invitations with share links; partners need nothing but a browser.
The uncomfortable lesson of the Workbench shutdown is that free tools live or die by their vendor's incentives. Our free tier is our front door — every shared model is how the next team finds us — which is exactly why it stays free. Create a free account and rebuild your CAD sharing in an afternoon.