ZWCAD

ZWCAD 2025 is faster, smoother, more reliable, and with flexible upgradeable single and network perpetual licenses.

ZWCAD is one of the most popular CAD design software for immediate productivity and has long been on the market for drawing tools in native DWG format.
The ease of use, the similarity of the interface and commands to those of the best known AutoCAD and the respectable performance have determined the spread of ZWCAD in over 80 countries around the world and today it boasts a community of over 900,000 users.
Available for Windows 32 and 64 bit operating systems, it is localized in 15 languages and obviously also in Italian. Among the many qualities, it is appreciated for being little voracious of hardware resources, which makes it fully usable on virtually any PC.

Other strengths of ZWCAD are certainly the non-prohibitive price and the permanent license with optional updates.

ZWCAD can represent the ideal solution for those who do not want to spend a lot on hardware, software, training and continuous program updates, but still have an agile and always ready-to-use solution available, perfectly compatible with the most common standard of technical drawing, i.e. the DWG format.
It is an optimal solution capable of ranging between different areas of design, from the world of building construction, to the naval industry, to mechanical design and road accidents, without underestimating the school and university environment.

ZWCAD is available in Standard and Professional versions, both of which are certainly of interest and with features comparable to those offered by Autodesk, as can be seen in the comparison table.

Another potential that should not be underestimated, especially in more structured design studios, is the availability of floating network licenses for the management of multiple workstations both in LAN (Local Area Network), i.e. within the office, and in VPN (Virtual private network), this solution that opens the doors to the smart-working of remote collaborators.
This solution allows you to manage the number of licenses available among multiple users, without tying a license to a specific machine, or to a single user, even when they are not operational. This aspect, combined with the fact that these are permanent licenses with non-mandatory updates, can significantly reduce the fixed costs of the design studio.
For more information on network licenses and the NLAT (Network License Analysis Tool) utility for better management of different users and the related costs, a specific page dedicated to Network licenses is available.

Remaining in the field of license management, the availability of two types of activation should be considered:
Softkey – the program must be activated with an alphanumeric code, this type of protection allows you to deactivate the license from one PC and reactivate it on another, even without being in the same office;
USB dongle – the program is activated only if it finds the USB protection key provided by ZWCAD on the PC. To move the license to another machine, the USB key must be physically moved.
It is also possible to take advantage of temporary licenses and in terms of collaboration, it is also necessary to point out CAD Pockets, the ZWCAD mobile platform that allows you to view, modify and share drawings with colleagues on portable devices such as tablets and smartphones.

The advantages of ZWCAD

Lightness, reliability, ease of use, familiar interface are the strengths that have always determined the success of this program, especially among customers who prefer the permanent license over the usage fee.

But what is most noticeable from the first use of ZWCAD 2025 is the speed provided by the multi-core processing technology that makes opening, creating, modifying and sharing documents almost instantaneous.
In the new version, the graphic engine has been further improved which today allows you to open files with a time saving of 30% compared to the previous version and a saving close to 50% of the time you have in the operations of locking, unlocking and freezing the Levels . All without sacrificing the stability and quality of the display of adaptive objects even at high resolutions at 4K.

Intuitiveness has always been one of the strengths of ZWCAD which is equipped with two interfaces: Classic and Ribbon. With the commands and the well-recognizable aliases you can immediately exploit the functions you are used to, minimizing learning times.

Being 100% compatible with the .dwg format is essential to intervene on projects initiated by others and in the same way to share your own projects, without suffering any hitch in the organized workflow of a work group.
This does not mean giving up on ZWCAD’s innovative tools that always aim to optimize daily work by making it easier, faster and more enjoyable.

The management of external references has been simplified with a panel dedicated to Xref in which it is possible to view preview, information, path of the different files that may have different formats and origins and therefore are complex to manage individually.

In the same way, the commands related to Clip have been merged to cut blocks, Xref, images and windows. In this way it becomes easier to work with overlapping processes: the different elements can be resized and their transparency can be managed both individually and by levels.

If you need to highlight some elements of the drawing in a print, you can act on the properties of the Layer, without this modifying the drawing in Model Space. Using the Viewport Layer you can change color, type and thickness of lines, as well as filter, select and restore the modified layers.

Tables have also been improved and now allow various operations such as sum, multiplication, average, etc. configurable in mathematical expressions and updatable with the REGEN command.

One of the most popular functions for speeding up work is the customized configuration of the mouse functions. Double clicking and other buttons can be set to your liking to make your work smoother.

The most loyal users will also not escape other updates in ZWCAD 2025 which is available as a free download for a 30-day trial.