KetchUp – Open-source SketchUp alternative built with Rust and WebGPU

As a very long time user and lover of SketchUp, I'm still peeved about the direction Trimble took in neglecting the SketchUp desktop modeler in favor of a web-based UI. Their licensing was also terrible... first they discontinued the free version of SketchUp, and then later on they discontinued perpetual licensing, meaning the only way to get the desktop modeler was to pay several hundred per year, which wasn't worth it to me. If a vibecoded alternative displaces it in the market, I won't feel one bit sorry for them.

The kinds of large scale projects I like to make in SketchUp really began to feel constrained at a certain point. A modeler with SketchUp's incredible UI that can take full advantage of any computer's available graphics hardware to render large amounts of geometry more efficiently would be a wonderful thing.

I'm very possessive of my SketchUp models, and so the idea of storing them on any kind of cloud server I don't have control over is abhorrent to me. I was not happy to see Trimble putting so much effort into making a web-based modeler.

In 2014 I was working on a building energy software for Iran's building regulations which differs significantly from the rest of the world. (most of the world rely on simulation on an engine called EnergyPlus, Iran used to have a static envelope-based heat transfer calculation as well). Back then the U.S National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) used to have this plugin for SketchUp where you could model a building and the plugin would let you add energy details to the model.

I wanted to have that data model and SketchUp had this amazing cool thing where all plugins (which were written in Ruby) used to be running in the same space and so I could access the runtime of any other plugin. Here the team of OpenStudio were kind enough to share some of their internal APIs with me and so I could take their model and append my own data on top and let my users reuse all of their models from OpenStudio.

And then SketchUp web came and that whole plugin world was crashed. This forced me to go down the path of using a union-of-all-industry-file-formats (like TIFF for pictures) for building energy called gbXML, back then no one supported the file and so it was hopeless (and hard to implement) and eventually trying to create a CAD, which given the state of tech at 2016~2017 was hopeless too, and so it failed miserably.

Seeing this now, I was wondering how hard would it be to recreate that project with its own full CAD from KetchUp...

This is awesome. At the same time I wonder if we are entering an era in which it’s just better to build your own tools

Need a 3D modeler? Use Claude or codex to build the 3D model first, then build the modeler around it as you iterate towards what you want to build

So many times I’ve had to spend hours learning a software, reading docs, doing tutorials, only to later be able to do a small basic idea of what I actually wanted to do in the first place

Now I can just build only the software I need, for the thing I need it for (or, ala REA, maybe either modify or reverse engineer some existing software, to better fit my workflows)

In that sense, it would also be cool to be able to drive KetchUp with an agent. I’m a big fan of what pen.dev has done (although now their tool is not free/open anymore)

This is so awesome and something I definitely need.

I'm a very casual user of SketchUp (I use it once every few months), but I have a single file which is a detailed model of my house, which I have invested many hours in creating, and that only works on the full Desktop app. So the free web app is not an option for me. And a subscription doesn't make financial sense so I have to ask for a new trial every time I have a home renovation project and I need to modify my model. I'm aware that eventually they might refuse a new trial (they haven't yet) and that day I will just stop using it and learn Blender.

However, I'm now realizing that at least for home renovation projects, an essential feature is the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, where you can download user shared models of a TV, a toaster, a chair, etc. Specially for a casual user, you don't need to have the exact model of your real chair, just a chair will do. So the warehouse is an essential part of the value.

I'm sure there are alternatives for free models other than SketchUp 3D Warehouse, but having it directly in SketchUp is super convenient.

Same for https://hew3d.com/, I'm not sure which is better but both are open source.

Tell your agent to add some showcases of the features on the landing page.

Impressive how good that rust UI feels in a browser though. Even the text rendering is impressive. Maybe rust really is the future of cross platform web+mobile apps.

I am generally happy to pay for my software that I use. However I do not have the money to shell out for some of the professional grade software just for a hobby. And I also do not enjoy paying hundreds in subscription fees acumulated for things i use once a month. So these AI Clones popping up are realy helping me, as I do not need the full featureset of the original usualy and these AI Clones are close enough for my hobby applications. Additionaly these tools all run on linux which makes my move to Linux etch closer into the present. Some of the tools were a reason I was not switching.

I will still continue to pay for the things i truly get value out of and are in my opinion reasonably priced. To support the creators.

What is the name of this? It says both KetchUp and BenchUp and they're used randomly?

EDIT: latest release switched to BenchUp fro KetchUp. Let me assume it's and attempt to duck infringement.

I absolutely love sketchup, and seeing it passed between various developers and never improved while gradually getting less and less free was very sad. it was awesome when owned by google and totally free. super happy to see a spiritual successor!

To this day I still use the 2017 freeware version (through WINE) for drafting all my home projects. It's just so darned intuitive to me (for anything without too many curves, at least) and I can't be bothered to learn anything else. The web version works in a pinch but it has always felt slower and less capable to me.

Going to have to try this!

i'd also recommend checking out https://hew3d.com/ (https://github.com/hew3d/hew)

i directed pi to their documentation + github repo and created a pretty awesome skill that allows me to take measurements on paper, snap a pic, and then have it generate the drawing. can also snap a general pic and then provide a model number of an item in the pic, and it will maintain scale. this stuff used to take me an hour+!

Hey, I already have an open source drawing tool called ketchup :)

https://github.com/egeozcan/ketchup

Great work!

Feedback: every time I draw a rectangle it asks me to name the object; seems like the wrong default behavior.

I had a very high level look at the repo, only 161k lines of code (probably including a bunch of tests and config). Not too bad.

And it uses a project called openskp [1] to work with SketchUp files, also AI coded to some extend, but looks reasonable at a glance.

[1] - https://github.com/iamahsanmehmood/openskp

The link says KetchUp but the actual website says "BenchUp" I'm confused about the naming situation.

Love love this. The SketchUp workflow has always clicked for me, but its increasingly difficult to access it as it's ownership has changes and they've monetise it more

This is great for small scale STL design too

I love it. I do 3D printing as a hobby, but I really dislike the design phase. I usually need simple shapes: boxes or enclosures for electronics. I can find most of what I need on Thingiverse and similar platforms, but there’s always that 20% of things I need to design myself to adapt them to my specific needs.

SketchUp 8 was the easiest software for me to learn, and it just clicks with me. I really wanted to learn FreeCAD, but there's something about the way it works that I just can't get along with, so I keep going back to SketchUp.

Later, I tried all the alternatives: Onshape, Fusion, Tinkercad, and the new SolidCraft, but SketchUp still feels so simple and intuitive to me.

I've had better luck with OpenSCAD for simple things, and I still need to try it out with LLMs. That's on my TODO list!

I tried it out, and it still differs from SketchUp’s habits/workflow. If the goal is to replace SketchUp, would it be better to keep the habits consistent with SketchUp?

See also https://ingetrazo.com/en/ as an alternative vibecoded SketchUp clone.

I can't acknowledge why this OSS is so fucused. There are models like this in HuggingFace.

I actually vibe-coded (kinda vibe, mostly hand holding) a "2D Sketchup" for myself for a large yard renovation/construction project we've been doing for about 12 months. It was mostly successful - as others noted, you spend a lot of time investing in the tool rather than drawing your project.

I'm about 40 minutes in trying to figure out how to scale a rectangle to a certain dimension. I never used SketchUp. Is it also this unintuitive?

It would benefit from curated examples in the File menu to demonstrate the features and give first time users something to interact with.

Really loving these new software tools often written in Rust.

Been using Solidcraft which is another great example. Lower memory usage and better performance than Fusion 360 and improving quickly.

The power agentic development gives to a single person with love for the craft of software development creates better products than a large team with corporate steering.

This was always the case but types of software like advanced CAD modelling was outside the scope of what a single developer could accomplish. Now it isn't and it's a great thing that will create a lot of high quality new tools for humanity.

One more item on my todo list likely got a booster.. instead of building it from scratch I might build mine on top of this.

Seriously, the subscription frontier models scratch my control freak nerves and lets me build my computing set up just the way I want and not a single bit more. I’m currently making a minimal Linux distribution for myself based on Gentoo with the idea to develop any and all graphical applications except Firefox _for_ myself using LLMs. Nothing on my system I don’t need.. It sounds absurd but is still possible in 2026 with these subsidised LLMs. They are not my private data, so I don’t mind having the agents build it, test it, and automate it. If they want to train on my calculator app and CAD built upon other code from the Internet they are already trained on, they are welcome to :-)

This right here is a new age of personal computing.

At first I thought about this; https://manpages.org/ketchup

;-)

AI is freaking amazing

Is KetchUp free? Yes. KetchUp is open source under the MIT license and written in Rust.

Omg why is rust relevant to the question whether this is free or not.

Half the refs call it BenchUp, half call it KetchUp.

Vibed out project has already gone through a rename and it's 2 weeks old?

Also, serious question, why would I trust this software?

Is this a slopified version of SketchUp or? I'm not interested in free AI clones, quality wise they're way worse and all it takes to see that is that after a bunch of clicks eveything blows up(artcraft is such an example). I'm in this positioning where I don't trust anymore any new software, the only next software I'll pay a licenze for will be one that has clear AI disclosure and how they avoid slop, or no AI usage at all. I want quality, we are getting back steaming shit

Is it "KetchUp" or "BenchUp", the website can't seem to agree with itself?

Lot of upvotes and positive comments for a piece of software that can't extrude a cube without glitching.

No point filing a bug report; if the AI can't write it right, the AI probably can't fix it, and no one is willing to do the work.

Curious how much is the token cost? Genuine question.

Small feature request: I can't figure out how to use it with a trackpad. Seems to be mouse-only. I use sketchup with a trackpad plus one of the different modifier keys for pan, zoom and orbit.

I see projects like this as both cool and terrifying for the economy

That name is really close to ask to be sued... remember the Mikerowsoft vs Microsoft.

Ironic typo in the repo description "100% vibe-coded, only the finest slop, with great emphase on rendering speed and UI/UX".

All thats missing is a MCP server!

I loved SketchUp!

When I was first getting started with Unity I made all my early models in Sketchup. Thanks for sharing.

so these tools are for Manuel adjustments give me scenarios in which just telling the agent to do this adjustment doesn't cut it

Whoever built this, thank you!

Is OBJ a viable form of geometry export here? Not clear what else it can export.

finally! I do simple woodworking projects and this was exactly what I was looking for! I don't want extra bits that's unrelated constantly pushed to my face or everything being locked behind a paywall that's not even related. Not awkward unnamed actions and have a dedicated side bar that's not trying to be 'smart'.

I just want to measure 3d simple blocks. And rest of the features are ADDITIONAL instead being forced on me. Love it.

I haven't looked at the software itself yet. I am VERY interested in it.

It's like Bootstrap, then React all over again in terms of all web sites looking the same and the "Claude look" is much more suitable for a literary site than a software product.

A pun doesn't make a name not trademark infringement.

I like the idea and the name from the title, but if this is using LLMs, I'm not interested... Good luck to you anyway, I'm sure there's an audience for this. Used to know a guy who used SketchUp quite a bit. He modeled his basement living room with its weird overhangs and then a U desk to fit exactly into a corner by the stairs, then built the desk. I think he had no prior CAD experience.

You spelled length wrong

Does KetchUp plan to support importing existing SketchUp (.skp) files? For people with a library of existing models, import compatibility would matter more than export — STL/OBJ lose the editable structure that makes those files reusable.

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Been waiting so long for this