ARES Commander ✓

ARES Commander is a DWG-native 2D/3D CAD application from Graebert GmbH, a family-owned German company founded in 1977 by Wilfried Graebert, who was the first and largest German distributor of AutoCAD before developing his own CAD tools. Graebert released FelixCAD in 1994 as an early AutoCAD alternative, then replaced its CAD engine entirely in 2005 with a new kernel that became ARES -- the product line ARES Commander sits within today.

ARES Commander is one piece of what Graebert calls the ARES "Trinity": ARES Commander for desktop (Windows, macOS and Linux), ARES Touch for mobile (Android/iOS), and ARES Kudo, a fully browser-based DWG editor -- all under one subscription, letting a firm move between desktop, mobile and cloud editing of the same native DWG files without file-format translation.

Beyond the DWG compatibility, ARES Commander includes BIM-to-DWG automation that can import Revit or IFC data directly, positioning it as a practical bridge tool for firms that need to produce 2D DWG deliverables from BIM models without paying for full AutoCAD, and cloud sync via ARES Kudo for team file access.

Graebert's OEM CAD engine is a notable, often-overlooked detail: the same underlying technology also powers other well-known CAD products, including Dassault Systèmes' DraftSight and Corel's CorelCAD -- meaning Graebert's engineering work reaches a considerably larger installed base than the ARES Commander brand alone suggests, and gives the company a genuinely large, battle-tested codebase behind a comparatively low-cost product.

Graebert's German engineering roots also show in ARES Commander's approach to file-format fidelity: because the company built its own CAD kernel rather than reverse-engineering AutoCAD's DWG format from the outside, it maintains its own native DWG read/write support directly, which the company argues gives it more control over long-term format compatibility than third-party DWG-compatibility layers bolted onto a non-native engine.

The product line has also kept pace with broader CAD-industry trends toward cloud collaboration and subscription pricing, moving from a traditional perpetual-license model toward the current subscription-based Trinity bundle -- a shift that mirrors Autodesk's own move to subscription licensing for AutoCAD, though Graebert has generally priced its subscriptions well below Autodesk's equivalent tiers.

Editor’s takeBIM•STACK editor's take: ARES Commander earns real credibility as a DWG-native AutoCAD alternative specifically because Graebert's CAD engine is proven at scale -- it's not a from-scratch clone but the same core technology licensed into other established CAD products. The genuine cross-platform reach (Windows, macOS, Linux, plus mobile and browser) is a real differentiator versus AutoCAD's Windows-first approach, and the price (from $375/yr) undercuts full AutoCAD considerably for firms whose needs are pure 2D/3D drafting rather than AutoCAD's broader toolset ecosystem.

Because ARES Commander is built around the same general DWG-native CAD conventions as AutoCAD (commands, layers, blocks, DWG-standard interaction patterns), users already fluent in AutoCAD generally find the transition to ARES Commander fast -- most core commands and keyboard shortcuts carry over directly, since Graebert has deliberately positioned the product to minimize retraining friction for AutoCAD switchers.

The Trinity structure (desktop, mobile, cloud) adds a small additional learning investment for teams wanting to use all three -- ARES Kudo's browser interface and ARES Touch's mobile-specific interaction patterns each have their own conventions layered on top of the shared desktop foundation, though the underlying DWG file stays identical across all three.

Teams migrating an existing library of AutoLISP routines or custom toolbars built up over years on AutoCAD should budget extra time to verify compatibility, since Graebert's own CAD engine, while DWG-native, doesn't guarantee identical behavior for every third-party AutoCAD customization -- most common routines transfer cleanly, but firms with heavily customized AutoCAD environments should test their specific scripts before a full switch.