Zoovs
OnShape
OnShape: Cloud CAD with mature assemblies, drawings and built-in PDM, if you need to release production documentation
Zoo
Cloud CAD with a scripting language and a geometry engine exposed as an API
As of 31 August 2026, Zoo has a free plan and paid plans start at $20/month. Zoo, formerly KittyCAD, sells mechanical CAD as an API first and a desktop-style Design Studio second. Softwr lists it under CAD. Zoo is made by Zoo (formerly KittyCAD), available on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux.
Overview
What Zoo does
Zoo is a CAD company that renamed itself from KittyCAD. It builds a geometry engine from scratch and sells access to it two ways: Design Studio, a modelling application that pairs direct manipulation with a text language called KCL, and a set of APIs that let other software generate, convert and render solid geometry without shipping a kernel. Design Studio imports STEP, STL, OBJ, glTF, PLY, FBX and SLDPRT, with STEP and SLDPRT still marked experimental, and exports STEP, STL, glTF, OBJ, PLY and FBX. The distinguishing decision is that the model is text. A KCL file is code, so it diffs and merges in Git like source, which is the thing traditional CAD cannot do and the reason hardware teams who already run code review look at Zoo at all. The commercial consequence is that Zoo is not really competing on drawing features, where it is far behind SolidWorks or Creo. It is competing on being programmable, and its second revenue line is other vendors embedding the engine rather than end users buying seats. Buyers are early-stage hardware teams, software engineers who model parts occasionally, and developers building CAD features into their own products. The trade-off is maturity. There is no assembly mating, drawing and GD&T tooling to match an established package, no PDM of its own, and no offline mode at all: the engine runs in Zoo's cloud, so a lost connection stops work. Zookeeper, the AI agent, is metered in reasoning minutes rather than seats, which makes spend hard to forecast for a team.
What people use it for
- A hardware startup that wants part models reviewed in pull requests alongside firmware
- A software team generating thousands of parametric part variants programmatically rather than by hand
- A SaaS product that needs to render and convert customer CAD files without licensing a geometry kernel
- An engineer who models occasional brackets and enclosures and does not want a four figure annual seat
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Zoo.
- The geometry engine runs entirely in Zoo's cloud and there is no offline mode, so an aircraft, a customer site with no guest wifi or an outage stops modelling work completely.
- STEP and SLDPRT import are still labelled experimental, which means the most common way of receiving a supplier or customer model is the least reliable path into the tool.
- Drawing production, GD&T and tolerance annotation are far behind SolidWorks, Creo and NX, so most users still need a second package to release a manufacturing drawing.
- Zookeeper is billed in reasoning minutes rather than per seat, so a team cannot forecast next month's bill from headcount the way it can with conventional CAD subscriptions.
- The open source label applies only to the Design Studio client; the kernel that does the modelling is closed and hosted, so forking the repository does not give you a product you can run yourself.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Zoo
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- ZoovsFreeCAD
FreeCAD: Free, offline and scriptable in Python, if cloud dependency is unacceptable
- ZoovsFusion 360
Fusion 360: Broader manufacturing coverage including CAM and simulation on one subscription
Pricing
What Zoo costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Design Studio access
- About 20 minutes of Zookeeper reasoning per month
- Around $10 of API calls included
- Cloud engine only
Plus
$20 /mo
- Roughly 400 Zookeeper minutes per month
- Pay as you go beyond the allowance
- Design Studio and API access
Pro
$99 /mo
- Unlimited Zookeeper reasoning
- Higher API allowance
- Priority support
Capabilities
Features
KCL scripting
Parametric models stored as text files that diff and merge in Git
Design Studio
Browser and desktop modelling app with direct manipulation alongside code
Design API
Geometry generation, conversion and rendering callable from other software
Zookeeper agent
Conversational CAD agent metered by reasoning minutes, not seats
Format conversion
Imports and exports STEP, STL, OBJ, glTF, PLY and FBX
Open source client
The Design Studio application source is on GitHub; the engine is not
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Zoo the same company as KittyCAD?
Yes. KittyCAD renamed itself Zoo; the GitHub organisation is still KittyCAD and the scripting language KCL keeps the old initials.
Can I use Zoo without an internet connection?
No. The geometry engine is a cloud service, so Design Studio needs a live connection to model anything.
Is Design Studio free?
There is a genuine free tier with a small monthly allowance of AI reasoning and API calls. Paid plans start at $20 per month.
Can I replace SolidWorks with Zoo?
Not for drawing release, large assemblies or GD&T. Teams typically use Zoo for programmatic part generation and keep an established package for production documentation.
Keep looking
Where to go from Zoo
- Zoo alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Zoo pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Zoo badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All CAD softwareThe full category
- Best CAD softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best CAD software for
Compare Zoo with
- FreeCAD
- OnShape
- Inventor
- IronCAD
- Bentley MicroStation
- SolveSpace
- MicroSurvey CAD
- BricsCAD
- Creo
- Carlson Software
- Alibre Design
- MoI (Moment of Inspiration)
- Nomad Sculpt
- nTop
- Octane Render
- RealityScan
- Solid Edge
- Tinkercad
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Zoo, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Zoo
Zoo alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Zoo pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Zoo
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Zoo badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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