AutoCAD

AutoCAD predates most of the parametric 3D tools on this page and is still the default answer to "what program made this drawing" across far more industries than mechanical design alone — architecture, civil engineering, electrical schematics, and plenty of mechanical drafting that never needs a 3D model at all. Its file format, DWG, is the closest thing the CAD world has to a universal standard for 2D exchange.

AutoCAD does have 3D modelling tools, but they are not parametric in the SolidWorks/Inventor sense — there is no feature tree that remembers design intent, so changing an early dimension does not cleanly ripple through the model the way it does in the sheets on this archive. Treat AutoCAD as the strongest option specifically for 2D sheets, and pair it with a parametric tool for the 3D exercises.

Choose AutoCAD if your target field draws more in 2D than 3D, or if you need to read and produce DWG files that other people's software can open without conversion.

Its 3D geometry is worth contrasting directly with the parametric packages on this list: AutoCAD's 3D solids do not carry a feature tree, so they do not rebuild the way a SolidWorks, Fusion or Inventor model does when an early dimension changes. Pair it with one of those for 3D work and keep it specifically for the 2D sheets and DWG exchange it is genuinely built for.